Showing papers by "George Xylomenos published in 2014"

A Survey of Information-Centric Networking Research

Abstract: The current Internet architecture was founded upon a host-centric communication model, which was appropriate for coping with the needs of the early Internet users. Internet usage has evolved however, with most users mainly interested in accessing (vast amounts of) information, irrespective of its physical location. This paradigm shift in the usage model of the Internet, along with the pressing needs for, among others, better security and mobility support, has led researchers into considering a radical change to the Internet architecture. In this direction, we have witnessed many research efforts investigating Information-Centric Networking (ICN) as a foundation upon which the Future Internet can be built. Our main aims in this survey are: (a) to identify the core functionalities of ICN architectures, (b) to describe the key ICN proposals in a tutorial manner, highlighting the similarities and differences among them with respect to those core functionalities, and (c) to identify the key weaknesses of ICN proposals and to outline the main unresolved research challenges in this area of networking research.

Reducing forwarding state in content-centric networks with semi-stateless forwarding.

Abstract: Routers in the Content-Centric Networking (CCN) architecture maintain state for all pending content requests, so as to be able to later return the corresponding content. By employing stateful forwarding, CCN supports native multicast, enhances security and enables adaptive forwarding, at the cost of excessive forwarding state that raises scalability concerns. We propose a semi-stateless forwarding scheme in which, instead of tracking each request at every on-path router, requests are tracked at every d hops. At intermediate hops, requests gather reverse path information, which is later used to deliver responses between routers using Bloom filter-based stateless forwarding. Our approach effectively reduces forwarding state, while preserving the advantages of CCN forwarding. Evaluation results over realistic ISP topologies show that our approach reduces forwarding state by 54%-70% in unicast delivery, without any bandwidth penalties, while in multicast delivery it reduces forwarding state by 34%-55% at the expense of 6%-13% in bandwidth overhead.

Accelerating File Downloads in Publish Subscribe Internetworking with Multisource and Multipath Transfers

Abstract: We present mmFTP, a file transfer protocol for the Publish Subscribe Internetworking (PSI) architecture, which follows the Information-Centric Network (ICN) paradigm. mmFTP is designed to utilize diverse in-network resources: (i) it is receiver-driven, thus supporting on-path caching, (ii) it downloads files from multiple sources, thus utilizing off-path caching and (iii) it offers multipath transfers, thus exploiting path diversity and assisting network load-balancing. mmFTP combines these features into a single framework without complicating network operation. This is achieved by exploiting the functional organization of the PSI architecture which - among other aspects - separates routing from packet forwarding, delegates routing control to a logically centralized module and employs an explicit routing scheme for packet forwarding. In this paper we introduce the basic operation of mmFTP and present preliminary experimental performance results from a prototype implementation deployed in the PlanetLab testbed.

Ultra low delay switching for networked music performance

Abstract: Low latency is essential for videoconferencing applications such as presence and collaboration between remote participants. In modern videoconferencing systems, the Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) has the role of transparently duplicating and forwarding media streams between participants, hence it must be able to process large volumes of incoming packets at very high rates. SFU performance is heavily affected by the network I/O mechanisms employed to move packets from the Network Interface Card (NIC) to user space, and then move the copies back to the NIC. Traditional mechanisms, such as POSIX sockets, are not designed for high performance networking and prove to be a major bottleneck in such scenarios, by increasing packet latency and undermining the SFU's scalability. In this paper, we present a novel SFU platform which was designed to handle the ultra-low latency requirements of Networked Music Performance (NMP) applications, that is, the collaboration of musicians in real time. We implement a prototype SFU based on POSIX sockets and outline its performance bottlenecks. To overcome them, we turn to the netmap framework for fast packet I/O, which provides direct but safe access to the NIC buffers. We argue that ultralow latency videoconferencing is a natural application for netmap and thus design and implement a netmap-based SFU.

The MusiNet project: Towards unraveling the full potential of Networked Music Performance systems

Abstract: The MusiNet research project aims to provide a comprehensive architecture and a prototype implementation of a complete Networked Music Performance (NMP) system. In this paper we describe the current status of the project, focusing on critical decisions regarding the system's architecture and specifications, the low delay audio and video coding techniques to be employed, the media relay design, and the synchronous and asynchronous collaboration algorithms to be adopted.

Towards improving the efficiency of ICN packet-caches

Abstract: In-network packet-level caching is one of the most promising features offered by Information-centric Networking (ICN) architectures. In ICN, routers can use their queueing buffers as temporal storage units, thus allowing on-path caching by exploiting the network's storage resources. Packet-caches can be highly beneficial for content delivery, but they are also known to have three significant weaknesses: (i) packet-granularity produces huge cache indexes, (ii) Zipf-like content popularity penalizes the hit-ratio at core nodes and (iii) any discontinuity in the stored packets disrupts RTT-based congestion control. This paper presents OPC, a novel caching management strategy designed to support wire-speed in-network caching, while dealing with the above problems. OPC works at the object-level, thus reducing indexing requirements, is destined for access routers, thus avoiding the small hit-ratios of caches at core-nodes, and stores contiguous groups of packets, thus easing RTT-based congestion control.

Access control delegation for the Cloud

Abstract: Cloud computing has become the focus of attention in the industry, from the point of view of both providers and customers, as well as researchers. However, security concerns still impede the widespread adoption of this technology. Most enterprises are particularly worried about the lack of control over their outsourced data since the authentication and authorization systems of Cloud providers are generic and they cannot be easily adapted to the requirements of each individual enterprise. An adaptation process requires the creation of complex protocols, often leading to security problems and "lock-in" conditions. In this paper we present the design of a lightweight solution that overcomes these problems. We have implemented and incorporated this solution in a popular open-source Cloud stack: OpenStack. Our solution eliminates the need for developing complex adaptation protocols, offers data owners the flexibility to switch among Cloud providers, or use multiple, different Cloud providers concurrently, and enhances end-user privacy.

Sink controlled reliable transport for disaster recovery

Abstract: We present a reliable transport layer protocol for sensor networks, targeting disaster recovery applications where human or robotic rescuers try to gather information from a possibly fragmented sensor network by moving through the disaster area. The mobility of the information sink means that the protocol must quickly adapt to a constantly changing view of the network, where connections and disconnections are the norm. Our protocol is purely sink driven, that is, the sink controls congestion by rate limiting the sensors, choosing how to assign the available bandwidth to different sensor types and deciding on the level of reliability to be achieved. In addition, our protocol operates at the application layer with minimal requirements from lower layers, allowing its integration with a disaster recovery application that will set its parameters depending on the disaster scenario. As a result, our protocol allows simple and inexpensive fixed sensors to be combined with expensive but reusable mobile equipment for disaster recovery purposes.

I-CAN: Information-centric future mobile and wireless access networks

Abstract: This short paper describes the objectives and initial results of project I-CAN: Information-Centric Future Mobile and Wireless Access Networks. I-CAN seeks to radically advance the integration of cellular and wireless access technologies by developing and evaluating architectures and procedures for future access networks based on Information-Centric Networking (ICN).