Towards Halos Networks ubiquitous networking and computing at the edge (original) (raw)

Networks for Pervasive Services: Six Ways to Upgrade the Internet

"Sample chapter "A Peek at the Future Internet" available at http://www.springer.com/978-94-007-1472-4 << Beautifully written, this book takes the reader on a compelling tour of the state of affairs in today’s Internet and the challenges it faces for supporting pervasive services of tomorrow. The approach adopted by the authors looks at the big picture, discussing the evolution of the Internet from a rigidly defined layered architecture to an interactive multi-faceted system providing, beyond connectivity, a more generative next-generation network infrastructure. In this context, the authors describe a selection of some of the prominent network mechanisms that may help in shaping the architecture of the future Internet. Overall, this book is informative, enjoyable, and an excellent reference source for every student, network professional, or researcher interested in the post-Internet era. >> Prof. Raouf Boutaba, University of Waterloo (Canada) Since its inception in the 1970s the Internet has become larger, faster and wireless. It is the biggest machine ever built, the “generative” engine of our digital society. However, the software that runs the global network has not seen any substantial upgrade since the early 1990s. It is now evident that the existing mechanisms that transport data around the Internet are no longer adequate for the new breed of Web applications. This book explains why the time is ripe for a complete overhaul in view of the Future Internet. Through a series of simple examples, the authors present a wealth of network mechanisms, starting from those that sustain the Web today. Readers will become familiar with a range of advanced protocols that will make the Internet more ubiquitous, reactive, proactive, information-driven, distribution-efficient and searchable. This book presents a selection of remarkable research ideas, making them accessible to the non-specialist reader. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Preface Acknowledgements 1. On the Way to the Pervasive Web 1.1 The Net, a Tool for Everyone 1.2 The Inexorable Transformation of Internet applications 1.3 The Application’s Mutiny 1.4 Everything on the Move 1.5 New Interaction Paradigms Emerge 1.6 The Scent of Pervasive Applications 1.7 The Billion Dollar Question.- References. 2 The Network, as We Know It 2.1 The Multiple Facets of Networks 2.2 Networks from the Eyes of an Ordinary User 2.3 Invite a Programmer to Understand What’s in the Cloud 2.4 A Network Engineer to Turn a Switch into a Router 2.5 The Computer Science of a Router 2.6 Simple Math to Stabilize the Net 2.7 Life of a Commuter 2.8 The Three Fundamental Principles.- References. 3 Six Problems for the Service Provider 3.1 The Net has Ossified 3.2 Problem 1: Not Truly Ubiquitous 3.3 Problem 2: The Unresponsive Net 3.4 Problem 3: Too Much, Too Stale Signaling 3.5 Problem 4: Lack of Parallelism 3.6 Problem 5: Data Agnosticism 3.7 Problem 6: Inadequate Net-search Engine 3.8 Concluding Remarks.- References. 4 Spontaneous Networks 4.1 The Gift of Ubiquity 4.2 Spontaneous Connectivity 4.3 The Hidden-terminal Problem 4.4 The Exposed-terminal Problem 4.5 Preventive Measures to Avoid Collision 4.6 Path Discovery in a Volatile Network 4.7 The KISS Approach.- References. 5 Reactive Networks 5.1 Why Networks on Demand? 5.2 A Traffic-free Network 5.3 Our First Path 5.4 Path Management 5.5 Our Second Path 5.6 Global Synchronization 5.7 Error Management 5.8 Remarks on Reactive Networks.- References. 6 Proactive networks 6.1 From Reactive to Responsive 6.2 Keep the Network Ready 6.3 How do I Find My Multipoint Relay? 6.4 Life of an OLSR Node 6.5 The Node’s Information Repository 6.6 Shortest Path over the MPR Sub-topology 6.7 A Complete Example 6.8 How Proactive Can You Be? 6.9 The Power of Hybrid Protocols.- References. 7 Content-aware Networks 7.1 Routers Should Read the Content 7.2 A Network on Top of the Physical Network 7.3 Centralized Assignment of Node Identifiers 7.4 Centralized Entry-point Discovery 7.5 Multiple Bootstrap Servers 7.6 Decentralized Assignment of Node Identifiers 7.7 Entry Point Discovery via Underlying Links 7.8 Content is an Asset at the Edges.- References. 8 Distribution-efficient Networks 8.1 Publishing goes beyond Bootstrapping 8.2 The Two Flavors of Virtual Networking 8.3 Creating Unstructured Neighborhoods 8.4 Making Yourself Known in Unstructured Neighborhoods 8.5 Unstructured Resource Publishing 8.6 Secure a Role in Structure Worlds 8.7 Build Strict Formations 8.8 Place Links and Resources into a Structured Ring 8.9 Data-awareness via Protocol-agnosticism.- References. 9 Discovering Virtual Resources 9.1 Four Ways to Reach a Resource 9.2 Assessment of Discovery Mechanisms 9.3 Containing the Proliferation of Discovery Messages 9.4 Blind Discovery for Unstructured Networks 9.5 Informed Discovery in Unstructured Networks 9.6 Discovery in Loosely-Structured Networks 9.7 Deterministic Discovery in Structured Networks.- References. 10 A Peek at the Future Internet 10.1 The Fourth Networking Principle: Beyond Mere Connectivity 10.2 Internet of Things: Sense and Influence your Environment 10.3 Small, Large Networks 10.4 Manage the Autonomics 10.5 Dependable Networks 10.6 The Fine Line Between Freedom, Security and Privacy 10.7 Energy-efficient Networks 10.8 No Matter What, the Network will Remain Generative.- References. Index"

Virtual Organizations, Pervasive Computing, and an Infrastructure for Networking at the Edge

Information Systems Frontiers, 2002

That the Internet is undergoing explosive growth is not news. However, how that growth is happening might come as a surprise to many. We are quickly reaching the point (if we have not already) when the majority of nodes on the Internet are not computers running browsers or web servers that are directly used by humans. Instead, the Internet is becoming the communication fabric for devices to talk to services, which in turn talk to other services. Humans are quickly becoming a minority on the Internet, and the majority stakeholders are computational entities that are interacting with other computational entities without human intervention. Such change brings significant challenges and opportunities to those who wish to use or aid in the use of this connecting fabric. In a world of humans browsing the net, we could design our network-available services assuming that the use and applicability of those services could be recognized by something with human intelligence. When services must be recognized and used by other computational entities, no such assumption can be made. The intrinsically human abilities of understanding the meanings of descriptions and being able to figure out how to interact with a service are not currently within the scope of computational entities, and may never be. With a human in the loop, we have been able to go far by using the well-understood client-server model of distributed computing. But as the human moves out of the loop, we enter into the realm of peer-to-peer distribution, an area in which our understanding is far more limited. At the same time that we are switching to this new model of services, we are also expanding the set of client devices that are used to access services over the network. We can no longer assume a pc-class device running a full browser on a megapixel bitmap screen. Instead, the services on the network will be accessed by cell phones, palm devices, home appliances, and embedded systems in our automobiles. Some of these devices will be stationary, but many of them will be mobile. The set of devices will be constantly changing, and the protocols needed to talk to these devices will be constantly evolving. Our current models for system administration are insufficient for this environment, and new models will need to be adopted that allow dynamic evolution and rapid change. This paper will center on the new problems that will be encountered as we go through this change in the Internet, and discuss some of the more promising approaches to the problems. In particular, we will see how a combination of traditional techniques in distributed systems and some of the technologies traditionally associated with agents can lead to a network that is self-administering and allows the kinds of rapid change and evolution that will be required if the Internet is to continue to grow and thrive.

Managing ubiquitous networks — how do they do it?

2010 Second International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN), 2010

At last year's ICUFN we presented an architecture for managing ubiquitous computing networks and applications . This year we want to show how we can implement this architecture to realise and deploy a small yet powerful management system. The use case for demonstrating our implementation is one of the most commonly used ubiquitous service -instant messaging. The described management system is currently deployed in a distributed testbed between several Irish universities and Cisco.

Preparing the Edge of the Network for Pervasive Content Delivery

In this paper, we address the problem of delivering content in a pervasive environment characterized by high variability in network conditions, client devices and user context (e.g. location and preferences). This variability results in non-uniform user experience due to high and variable latency and could lead to user frustration during service access. We propose a methodology to tackle this issue and present a test-bed system that we are currently developing to verify our hypotheses.

Connecting the Edges: A Universal, Mobile-Centric, and Opportunistic Communications Architecture

IEEE Communications Magazine, 2018

The Internet has crossed new frontiers with access to it getting faster and cheaper. Considering that the architectural foundations of today's Internet were laid more than three decades ago, the Internet has done remarkably well until today to cope with the growing demand. However, the future Internet architecture is not only expected to support the ever-growing number of users and devices but also a diverse set of new applications and services. Departing from the traditional host-centric access paradigm where access to a desired content is mapped to its location, an informationcentric model enables the association of access to a desired content with the content itself, irrespectively of the location where it is being held. UMOBILE tailors the information-centric communication model to meet the requirements of opportunistic communications, integrating those connectivity approaches into a single architecture. By pushing services near the edge of the network, such an architecture can pervasively operate in any networking environment and allows for the development of innovative applications, providing access to data independently of the level of endto-end connectivity availability.

A Pervasive Collaborative Architectural Model at the Network’s Periphery

IoT

Pervasive collaborative computing within the Internet of Things (IoT) has progressed rapidly over the last decade. Nevertheless, emerging architectural models and their applications still suffer from limited capacity in areas like power, efficient computing, memory, connectivity, latency and bandwidth. Technological development is still in progress in the fields of hardware, software and wireless communications. Their communication is usually done via the Internet and wireless via base stations. However, these models are sometimes subject to connectivity failures and limited coverage. The models that incorporate devices with peer-to-peer (P2P) communication technologies are of great importance, especially in harsh environments. However, their power-limited devices are randomly distributed on the periphery where their availability can be limited and arbitrary. Despite these limitations, their capabilities and efficiency are constantly increasing. Accelerating development in these are...

Sharing Networking Resources to Create a Pervasive Infrastructure

We propose a range of techniques to motivate people to share a small fraction of their available resources in designing a new networking technology to provide near-ubiquitous connectivity to others. Such technology can be used whenever the infrastructure is unavailable to provide general connectivity between individuals, and to to the Internet at large, and particularly in cases of emergency. People’s motivations for action range from selfish to altruistic, including mixed motivations that might be hard to classify as either one or the other. We would like to support individual choices to use our technology using any such motivations. Gaining credit within an online community and providing resources when abundant for the individual so that others will provide when the individual’s resources are scarce are often considered selfish motivations, but they support the communication and online community as well. More directly altruistic motivations include participating in and supporting emergency communications, providing a service to others, and contributing in building a new online community. Generally, we hope to cater to a range of motivations with the benefits that the new technology can provide to the individual, as well as the benefits the technology can provide to society and large numbers of individuals.

Specification and Unattended Deployment of Home Networks at the Edge of the Network

IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics

Consumer devices continue to expand their capabilities by connecting to digital services and other devices to form information-sharing ecosystems. This is complex and requires meeting connection requirements and minimal processing capabilities to ensure communication. The emergence of new services, and the evolution of current technologies, constantly redefine the rules of the game by opening up new possibilities and increasing competition among service providers. Paradigms such as edge computing, softwarization of physical devices, self-configuration mechanisms, definition of software as a code and interoperability between devices, define design principles to be taken into account in future service infrastructures. This work analyzes these principles and presents a programmable architecture in which services and virtual devices are instantiated in any computing infrastructure, as cloud or edge computing, upon request according to the needs specified by service providers or users. Considering that the target computing infrastructures are heterogeneous, the solution defines network elements and provides network templates to ensure it can be deployed on different infrastructures irrespectively of the vendor. A prototype has been developed and tested on a virtualized cloud-based home network relying on open source solutions.

Providing scalable data services in ubiquitous networks

Database Systems for …, 2010

Topology is a fundamental part of a network that governs connectivity between nodes, the amount of data flow and the efficiency of data flow between nodes. In traditional networks, due to physical limitations, topology remains static for the course of the network operation. Ubiquitous data networks (UDNs), alternatively, are more adaptive and can be configured for changes in their topology. This flexibility in controlling their topology makes them very appealing and an attractive medium for supporting "anywhere, any place" communication. However, it raises the problem of designing a dynamic topology. The dynamic topology design problem is of particular interest to application service providers who need to provide cost-effective data services on a ubiquitous network. In this paper we describe algorithms that decide when and how the topology should be reconfigured in response to a change in the data communication requirements of the network. In particular, we describe and compare a greedy algorithm, which is often used for topology reconfiguration, with a non-greedy algorithm based on metrical task systems. Experiments show the algorithm based on metrical task system has comparable performance to the greedy algorithm at a much lower reconfiguration cost.