SeaFan A Safe, Efficient, and Adaptive Framework for End-to-end QoS using Active Networks

Overview

The SeaFan project addresses the integration, interaction, and inter-operation of existing and new QoS mechanisms based on network processors in order to build adaptive end-to-end QoS guarantees. In traditional IP networks this task is not solvable on the protocol level. Hence, SeaFan, introduces a safe, efficient, and adaptive framework using active networks that is flexible enough to address certain QoS tasks even in the data path of network processors. Safety and security requirements are ensured by the combination of a byte-code language, the introduction of the resource bound vector, the definition of a safety hierarchy, and a sandbox environment. SeaFan explicitely allows the concept of having several QoS capabilities running at the same time.

In the context of the SeaFan project new QoS mechanisms are introduced that address relative and absolute bandwidth differentiation with responsive and non-responsive protocols, including packet-drop-rate differentiation. Scalability is ensured by the aggregation of flows and the careful limitation of the distribution of information even when acting on the end-to-end service from within the network.

The excellent performance of the new QoS mechanisms has been shown by means of simulations in ns-2 and the feasibility of and the benefits from the existence of a programmable networking infrastructure have been shown in a reference implementation on the IBM PowerNP 4GS3.

Further optimization methods using just-in-time compilation revealed additional potential in byte-coded active networks.

The combination of the active networking framework and the QoS mechanism enable the deployment of adaptive end-to-end services over heterogeneous IP networks.

Publications

Architecture and Optimizations

• Andreas Kind, Roman Pletka and Marcel Waldvogel - "The Role of Network Processors in Active Networks" Fifth Annual International Working Conference on Active Networks IWAN 2003, December 2003 (abstract| pdf| bibtex| ppt).

• Roman Pletka and Burkhard Stiller - "Adaptive End-to-End Quality-of-Service Guarantees in IP Networks using an Active Networking Approach" OpenSig , Lexington, October 2002 (abstract| pdf| bibtex| ppt).

• Andreas Kind, Roman Pletka, Burkhard Stiller - "The Potential of Just-In-Time Compilation in Active Networks based on Network Processors" - The Fifth IEEE Conference on Open Architectures and Network Programming (OPENARCH 02), New York, June 2002 (abstract| pdf| bibtex).

QoS Mechanisms

• Roman Pletka, Andreas Kind, Marcel Waldvogel and Soenke Mannal - "Closed-Loop Congestion Control for Mixed Responsive and Non-Responsive Traffic" Proceedings of the Conference on Global Communications (GLOBECOM), San Francisco, December 2003 (abstract| pdf| bibtex| ppt).

• Roman Pletka, Marcel Waldvogel and Soenke Mannal - "PURPLE: Predictive Active Queue Management Utilizing Congestion Information" Proceedings of the 28th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), Bonn, October 2003 (abstract| pdf| bibtex| ppt).

• Roman Pletka, Patrick Droz, Burkhard Stiller - "A Buffer-Management Scheme for Bandwidth and Delay Differentiation using a Virtual Scheduler" - In Proceedings of the International Conference on Networking (ICN '01), Colmar, July 2001 (abstract| pdf| bibtex).

Contact

Mail to: roman.pletkaswitzerlandorg