Practical network applications on a lightweight active management environment

Abstract

The main focus of active networking research so far has been at the infrastructure level, facing the challenges of designing suitable node operating system structures and the study of different programming models. This has left exploration of the actual utility of active networks to rather simple applications that have yet to exploit the full potential of the programmable network. In this paper we present an application-driven study of active networks, identifying unique and practical applications that make full use of the active infrastructure. We explore a class of applications in network monitoring that indicate a clear need for programmability as offered by active networking technology. We have built several monitoring applications on an active substrate that is synthesized from off-the-shelf components. We demonstrate the flexibility provided while showing that for certain application workloads such a system can efficiently operate at modern backbone network speeds. Our performance study also leads to design considerations for scaling up the infrastructure to future network speeds.