NeTS-FIND: Collaborative Research: Concurrent Architectures are Better than One

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

In today's Internet, a single service provider rarely has purview over an entire end-to-end path; this situation hinders the deployment and adoption of new network services. The PI propose to design and prototype a new network architecture, Cabo (Concurrent Architectures are Better than One), which resolves this problem by separating infrastructure providers (who own and manage the physical network infrastructure) from service providers (who deploy end-to-end services to users). Using Cabo, service providers will reserve network resources (i.e., virtual nodes and links) on equipment that may span one or more infrastructure providers. The separation of network service providers from infrastructure providers also allows a single service provider to construct end-to-end services; it also allows a service provider to operate multiple virtual networks, each of which is tailored to a specific application. For example, one virtual network may provide strict security guarantees but may not provide complete reachability to all destinations, while another virtual network may guarantee global reachability for applications that do not require strong security guarantees. The outcome of this project will be: (1) the design and implementation of a substrate that service providers can use to deploy new network architectures and services, and (2) investigation of example scenarios where Cabo can provide better security, robustness, and end-to-end performance guarantees. Cabo's initial design leverages virtualization, tunneling, and new experimental platforms for network protocols and architectures, including the PIs' own Virtual Network Infrastructure (VINI), which the PIs plan to use to prototype and evaluate their ideas. Successful completion of this project will have significant impact on Future Internet architecture development and deployment.