An active network approach to support multimedia relays

Abstract

This paper summarizes a pragmatic technical approach to active networks that supports prototyping of multimedia transport protocols. One of the targets of the architecture defined is the extension of the processing capabilities of existing routers trying to keep up the forwarding performance of regular packets. This work presents practical results obtained from the development of a Java execution environment based on the design principles presented and proposes a method for the transparent deployment of multimedia relays over a source-destination path, tested in several experiments.