CAREER: Transparent Bandwidth Conservation Techniques

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past decade, the Internet has emerged as one of the primary tools for information dissemination. The traditional point-to-point nature of the Internet has created a natural trend of increasingly redundant data across the network as applications and information sources increase in both scope and scale. While a wide variety of techniques have emerged to increase the efficiency of the network, the techniques have met with varying degrees of success. This career work aims to develop novel techniques for network efficiency through transparent bandwidth conservation while avoiding many of the pitfalls associated with previous approaches. Individual facets of the research include a paradigm-shifting approach to multicast (stealth multicast) whereby redundant packets are dynamically converted to/from multicast, inter-domain peering protocols for expanding the benefits of bandwidth conservation, and extensive analsis/exploitation of existing applications to increase redundancy but yet improve overall system efficiency. In addition, this project will serve as a catalyst for the development of large-scale group oriented applications. Furthermore, the work will have a direct impact on the efficiency of the Internet, Quality-of-Service pricing and resource management, and how applications are designed to cooperate with the underlying network. Beyond its research impact, this work will directly impact education through innovative studies on classroom methodologies and student development contests. The results will also be conveyed to industry and academia through the development of prototypes freely available via open-source.