NetSE: Small: Network Memory for the Future Internet

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Several studies including those by the PIs have inferred the presence of considerable amounts of redundancy in Internet traffic content (ranging up to 99%). These studies clearly establish the tremendous scope for enhancing communication performance through appropriate exploitation of the redundancies. In this research, the investigators study and develop a network memory solution for the future Internet. Network memory, in its simplest form, involves a memory at every network element that allows store/retrieve operations. The store operation is used when a particular data flows through the element for the first time. The retrieve operation is used when the same data needs to be retrieved from that element at a later point. The primary goal of using such a network memory is to minimize or eliminate any redundant traffic when delivering any content from its server to any client, and hence, reducing the bandwidth requirements. Intellectual Merit: The underlying fabric of the Internet consisting of the content Servers, routers, and clients perform very little, if any, memorization and hence re-use of the memorized content. The focus of this research is to rethink this aspect of the Internet for the design of the future Internet architecture. The investigators introduce network memory as a new layer 3.5 for the future Internet, residing beneath the transport layer and above the network layer. The overall benefits of using network memory are better network delivery performance and higher network utilization levels through the exploitation of redundancies. Previous techniques such as web-caching, CDNs, and P2P applications, while in principle try to leverage redundancy, either do not harness the redundancy available or are too narrow in their scope to even attempt leveraging redundancies along the various (temporal and spatial) dimensions. A subset of the questions that the investigators plan to address through the work includes: 1. What is the granularity at which data should be memorized in the network memory? Should it be sub-packet, packet-level, or even super-packet level granularity? 2. Who are the participants in the network memory? Is it the clients, content-servers, or routers, or perhaps all of them? 3. How does the network memory work? How is the memory location determined for any given data? How is addressing of the network memory performed? 4. Should the network memory support sophisticated operations beyond just store and retrieve? The investigators will also explore fundamental issues with the network memory such as the nature of traffic redundancies and the concept of network compression. Finally, the research will address several key systems issues pertaining to the network memory including overheads of realization, protocol and header formats, and impact on other Internet protocols. Broader Impact: In addition to graduate and undergraduate training opportunities, the research will be aimed at the standardization and technology transfer for the network-memory-layer solutions. The broader impact also includes: (a) Undergraduate curriculum development through senior undergraduate classes taught by the PIs, (b) Graduate curriculum development through two graduate-level classes on networking and information theory taught by the PIs, (c) Support for minority students.