Issues in providing a reliable multicast facility

Issues involved in point-to-multipoint communication are presented and the literature for proposed solutions and approaches surveyed. Particular attention is focused on the ideas and implementations that align with the requirements of the environment of interest. The attributes of multicast receiver groups that might lead to useful classifications, what the functionality of a management scheme should be, and how the group management module can be implemented are examined. The services that multicasting facilities can offer are presented, followed by mechanisms within the communications protocol that implements these services. The metrics of interest when evaluating a reliable multicast facility are identified and applied to four transport layer protocols that incorporate reliable multicast

An effective genetic algorithm for network coding

The network coding problem (NCP), which aims to minimize network coding resources such as nodes and links, is a relatively new application of genetic algorithms (GAs) and hence little work has so far been reported in this area. Most of the existing literature on NCP has concentrated primarily on the static network coding problem (SNCP). There is a common assumption in work to date that a target rate is always achievable at every sink as long as coding is allowed at all nodes. In most real-world networks, such as wireless networks, any link could be disconnected at any time. This implies that every time a change occurs in the network topology, a new target rate must be determined. The SNCP software implementation then has to be re-run to try to optimize the coding based on the new target rate. In contrast, the GA proposed in this paper is designed with the dynamic network coding problem (DNCP) as the major concern. To this end, a more general formulation of the NCP is described. The new NCP model considers not only the minimization of network coding resources but also the maximization of the rate actually achieved at sinks. This is particularly important to the DNCP, where the target rate may become unachievable due to network topology changes. Based on the new NCP model, an effective GA is designed by integrating selected new problem-specific heuristic rules into the evolutionary process in order to better diversify chromosomes. In dynamic environments, the new GA does not need to recalculate target rate and also exhibits some degree of robustness against network topology changes. Comparative experiments on both SNCP and DNCP illustrate the effectiveness of our new model and algorithm

Performance-Engineered Network Overlays for High Quality Interaction in Virtual Worlds

Overlay hosting systems such as PlanetLab, and cloud computing environments such as Amazon’s EC2, provide shared infrastructures within which new applications can be developed and deployed on a global scale. This paper ex-plores how systems of this sort can be used to enable ad-vanced network services and sophisticated applications that use those services to enhance performance and provide a high quality user experience. Specifically, we investigate how advanced overlay hosting environments can be used to provide network services that enable scalable virtual world applications and other large-scale distributed applications requiring consistent, real-time performance. We propose a novel network architecture called Forest built around per-session tree-structured communication channels that we call comtrees. Comtrees are provisioned and support both unicast and multicast packet delivery. The multicast mechanism is designed to be highly scalable and light-weight enough to support the rapid changes to multicast subscriptions needed for efficient support of state updates within virtual worlds. We evaluate performance using a combination of analysis and experimental measurement of a partial system prototype that supports fully functional distributed game sessions. Our results provide the data needed to enable accurate projections of performance for a variety of session and system configurations

Policy issues in interconnecting networks

To support the activities of the Federal Research Coordinating Committee (FRICC) in creating an interconnected set of networks to serve the research community, two workshops were held to address the technical support of policy issues that arise when interconnecting such networks. The workshops addressed the required and feasible technologies and architectures that could be used to satisfy the desired policies for interconnection. The results of the workshop are documented

Design of Overlay Networks for Internet Multicast - Doctoral Dissertation, August 2002

Multicast is an efficient transmission scheme for supporting group communication in networks. Contrasted with unicast, where multiple point-to-point connections must be used to support communications among a group of users, multicast is more efficient because each data packet is replicated in the network – at the branching points leading to distinguished destinations, thus reducing the transmission load on the data sources and traffic load on the network links. To implement multicast, networks need to incorporate new routing and forwarding mechanisms in addition to the existing are not adequately supported in the current networks. The IP multicast are not adequately supported in the current networks. The IP multicast solution has serious scaling and deployment limitations, and cannot be easily extended to provide more enhanced data services. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, IP multicast has ignored the economic nature of the problem, lacking incentives for service providers to deploy the service in wide area networks. Overlay multicast holds promise for the realization of large scale Internet multicast services. An overlay network is a virtual topology constructed on top of the Internet infrastructure. The concept of overlay networks enables multicast to be deployed as a service network rather than a network primitive mechanism, allowing deployment over heterogeneous networks without the need of universal network support. This dissertation addresses the network design aspects of overlay networks to provide scalable multicast services in the Internet. The resources and the network cost in the context of overlay networks are different from that in conventional networks, presenting new challenges and new problems to solve. Our design goal are the maximization of network utility and improved service quality. As the overall network design problem is extremely complex, we divide the problem into three components: the efficient management of session traffic (multicast routing), the provisioning of overlay network resources (bandwidth dimensioning) and overlay topology optimization (service placement). The combined solution provides a comprehensive procedure for planning and managing an overlay multicast network. We also consider a complementary form of overlay multicast called application-level multicast (ALMI). ALMI allows end systems to directly create an overlay multicast session among themselves. This gives applications the flexibility to communicate without relying on service provides. The tradeoff is that users do not have direct control on the topology and data paths taken by the session flows and will typically get lower quality of service due to the best effort nature of the Internet environment. ALMI is therefore suitable for sessions of small size or sessions where all members are well connected to the network. Furthermore, the ALMI framework allows us to experiment with application specific components such as data reliability, in order to identify a useful set of communication semantic for enhanced data services

Flexible HW-SW design and analysis of an MMT-based MANET system on FPGA

Recently there has been a rapid growth of research interests in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). Their infrastructureless and dynamic nature demands that new strategies be implemented on a robust wireless communication platform in order to provide efficient end-to-end communication. Many routing algorithms have been developed to serve this purpose. This thesis investigated Multi-Meshed Tree (MMT) algorithm, an integrated solution that combines routing, clustering and medium access control operations based on a common multi-meshed tree concept. It provides the robustness and redundancy inherent in mesh topologies and uses the tree branches to deliver packets. MMT is the first of its kind that enables a single algorithm to form multiple proactive routes within a cluster while supporting reactive routes between different clusters. Recent published research and simulations have shown its favorable features and results. To explore the MMT algorithm\u27s novel feature in real systems against simulation work, this work adopts Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) as the platform for wireless system implementations. Full hardware and various System-on-Chip Hardware-Software designs are developed and studied, providing a design practice that contributes to low-cost system development in the field of MANET by utilizing the evolving FPGA technology. The results show that the MMT-based systems functioned accurately and effectively; in all proposed test scenarios they demonstrated many of the features that a desired MANET routing algorithm should have: high transmission success rate, low latency, scalability, few queued packets and low overhead. The results give valuable insights into the MMT algorithm\u27s performance and facilitate its future improvements

Structured Peer-to-Peer Overlay Deployment on MANET: A Survey

There are many common characteristics between Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay networks and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET). Self-organization, decentralization, dynamicity and changing topology are the most shared features. Furthermore, when used together, the two approaches complement each other. P2P overlays provide data storage/retrieval functionality, and their routing information can complement that of MANET. MANET provides wireless connectivity between clients without depending on any pre-existing infrastructure. The aim of this paper is to survey current P2P over MANET systems. Specifically, this paper focuses on and investigates structured P2P over MANET. Overall, more than thirty distinct approaches have been classified into groups and introduced in tables providing a structured overview of the area. The survey addresses the identified approaches in terms of P2P systems, MANET underlay systems and the performance of the reviewed systems