Designing and Running Concurrent Future Networks

In the future, many new services can be expected to be running on a multitude of devices and networks with diverse requirements. For example, in sensor-actuator networks energy awareness is important; in car-2-car communication one pos- sible goal is reliable low delay data dissemination of critical traffic events; and in inter-planetary networks delay-tolerant delivery of data is one of the main issues. With network virtualization, one could run different networks in parallel that are tailored to the individual needs of the application. It also allows for an easy instantiation of new network architectures. In the proposed demo, we will show how our concepts support the rapid development of application-tailored com- munication protocols for such network architectures and their easy deployment within a run-time environment. This way, the development of innovative services is no longer limited to the application, but can also easily happen further down the protocol stack. The demo features a graphical design tool supporting our design process for protocol development. Using this tool, a simple protocol will be created, which will be subsequently instantiated on nodes running the Node Architecture in a demo-network. The Node Architecture, developed within the 4WARD project1, is our run-time environment for so-called Netlets, which can be roughly described as containers for protocol stacks. The design tool is used to create Netlets by composing basic protocol building blocks. Using a simple video application, we will show the impact of degrading network conditions that will lead to a deterio- rated service quality. This would require further measures to be taken either in the application or in the communication protocol in order to cope with the changed situation. Rather than adapting the application, we will show how we can also re-design the simple Netlet used before to enhance it with further protocol mechanisms. The enhanced Netlet will then be deployed on the Node Architecture and the selection process will decide to use the new Netlet since it provides a more robust data delivery. The key features presented in our demo include: Rapid creation of composed protocols (Netlets) using a graphical design tool.