Showing papers on "Internetwork protocol published in 2009"

Delay-/Disruption-Tolerant Networking State of the Art and Future Challenges

Abstract: Networking for challenged environments, or Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networking as it is now most commonly referred to, has attracted great attention in the past few years by the networking research community Connectivity disruptions, limited network capacity, energy and storage constraints of the participating, mobile devices and the arbitrary movement of nodes are only a few of the challenges that the protocol stack has to deal with Clearly, current Internet protocols (ie, the TCP/IP protocol stack) suer and can fail under such conditions In this paper, we initially give the DTN Problem Statement; we contend that not all applications have the same requirements from the system and hence, equal (blind) treatment of all data packets will result in reduced network eciency Based on that we propose a Design Position for DTN protocols, which states that protocol design has to be done proactively, on the basis of the application’s requirements We then survey the most recent contributions on the whole spectrum of Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networking, from the architectural and the application point of view down to the transport- and the network-layer of the emerging DTN protocol stack We nd that although not explicitly mentioned

Method and apparatus for downlink data arrival

Abstract: A method is provided to generate messages for wireless communications. The method includes encapsulating a first message protocol within the framework of a second message protocol and generating a message from the first message protocol and the second message protocol. The method transmits the first message protocol to an allocation space designated for the second message protocol.

Streamlined guest networking in a virtualized environment

Abstract: Networking speed in a virtualized environment can be improved by utilizing an enhanced protocol and parallel stack to bypass restrictions of a conventional network stack that complies with standard networking protocols. In one embodiment, an enhanced TCP protocol enables large packets received from a guest application to bypass the guest networking stack and be received to a bottom conversion layer of the enhanced stack, which is able to segment the packet into appropriately sized segments that conform to the conventional protocol. These segments can be passed to a network interface card (NIC) or other device for encapsulation, framing, or other such processing to be transmitted to the destination as Ethernet frames or other such packets.

MAC Protocol Engine for Sensor Networks

Abstract: We present a novel approach for Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design based on protocol engine. Current way of designing MAC protocols for a specific application is based on two steps: First the application specifications (such as network topology and packet generation rate), the requirements for energy consumption, delay and reliability, and the resource constraints from the underlying physical layer (such as energy consumption and data rate) are specified, and then the protocol that satisfies all these constraints is designed. Main drawback of this procedure is that we have to restart the design process for each possible application, which may be a waste of time and efforts. The goal of a MAC protocol engine is to provide a library of protocols together with their analysis such that for each new application the optimal protocol is chosen automatically among its library with optimal parameters. We illustrate the MAC engine idea by including an original analysis of IEEE 802.15.4 unslotted random access and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) protocols, and implementing these protocols in the software framework called SPINE, which runs on top of TinyOS and is designed for health care applications. Then we validate the analysis and demonstrate how the protocol engine chooses the optimal protocol under different application scenarios via an experimental implementation.

Multipath at the transport layer: An end-to-end resilience mechanism

Abstract: As society's dependence on network technology increases, the need for resilience and survivability in these services becomes increasingly apparent. Since the user experience is ultimately determined by the dependability of the end-to-end service, we address this issue at the transport layer. In this paper we introduce a resilient multipath selection algorithm, which obtains multiple end-to-end paths in the WAN context through cross-layer interaction with lower layers of the network. This cross-layer interface is provided by a thin internetwork protocol (PoMo) that supports heterogeneity at trust and policy boundaries. The result is a more resilient end-to-end service provided to applications by taking advantage of redundancy in the underlying physical network. We evaluate the efficiency tradeoffs of the multipath approach on both a synthetic topology and a tier 1 ISP's backbone network topology.

Protocol adaptation layer for wireless communications

Abstract: Protocol adaptation layer for wireless communications. Communication devices that include one or more radio modules operable in accordance with multiple communication protocols establish communications using one communication protocol and then switch to another communication protocol. This switching to another communication protocol may be performed based on a variety of factors including effectuating communications of higher throughput, supporting uni-directional communications vs. bi-directional communications, or any other desired factor. In some embodiments, various communication devices include two radio modules that are each implemented to operate in accordance with one particular communication protocol. Alternatively, a multi-protocol capable radio module may support and operate in accordance with more than one communication protocol. Examples of possible communication protocols include those compliant with Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, and/or 802.15.3c.

Securing communications between different network zones

Abstract: In an embodiment, a method is provided for communicating a protocol request at a network zone. In this method, the protocol request is received from a computing device and this protocol request is encapsulated in a different protocol. The protocol request is then transmitted to a different network zone by way of the different protocol. A message is then accessed from the different network zone by way of the different protocol, and this message includes a protocol response to the protocol request. The protocol response is extracted from the message and transmitted to the computing device.

Simple Service Location Protocol (SSLP) for 6LoWPAN

Abstract: The Simple Service Location Protocol (SSLP) provides a framework for the discovery and selection of the services working on 6LoWPAN. The protocol has a simple structure that is easy to be implemented on 6LoWPAN devices that are characterized by short range, low bit rate and low power. The protocol also offers a mechanism for interoperability with the IP networks under SLP. It enables communication between 6LoWPAN and other IP networks.

Specifying and modelling secure channels in strand spaces

Abstract: We adapt the Strand Spaces model to reason abstractly about layered security protocols, where an Application Layer protocol is layered on top of a secure transport protocol. The model abstracts away from the implementation of the secure transport protocol and just captures the properties that it provides to the Application Layer. We illustrate the usefulness of the model by using it to verify a small single sign-on protocol.

Extensible Protocol Validation

Abstract: A method comprises operations for receiving a binary data structure including a portion representing a protocol validation specification expressed in a respective protocol validation specification language and for receiving a security policy rule having an action part specifying that the binary data structure is to be used for verifying that application protocol payload of network packets complies with the protocol validation specification. After receiving the binary data structure and the security policy rule, an operation is performed for verifying that application protocol payload of received network packets complies with the protocol validation specification. Such verifying is initiated in response to determining that the security policy rule applies to the received network packets and such verifying includes validating the application protocol payload of the received network packets against the binary data structure.

Contiki: Bringing IP to Sensor Networks

Abstract: The open-source Contiki operating system brings IP, the Internet Protocol, to sensor networks through the uIP (micro Internet Protocol), uIPv6 protocol stacks and the SICSlowpan IPv6-over-802.15.4 adaptation layer.

Zero-install IP security

Abstract: In an embodiment of a method of and system for secure communication, a computer system comprises a primary system protocol stack operative in kernel space and interfacing with an external network. A secondary system protocol stack, security software, and at least one application program operate in user space, and may be provided on a portable storage medium by a user who does not have privileges to install programs in kernel space. The application program interfaces with the secondary system protocol stack. The secondary system protocol stack interfaces with the primary system protocol stack. The security software operates on communications through the secondary system protocol stack.

A hardware accelerated implementation of the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol

Abstract: We present a hardware/software implementation of the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol. Processing-intensive and time-critical protocol tasks are handled by a protocol accelerator that is integrated on-chip with a 32-bit general-purpose processor in order to achieve a moderate (20---40 MHz) system clock frequency. This enables low-power wireless devices compliant with this standard, providing high data rate, multimedia communication. One of the main tasks of the protocol accelerator is to analyze received or transmitted beacons. Based on the channel time allocations broadcast in the beacon and frame information stored in a hardware transmission queue, frames are transmitted without immediate control of the processor. Other features of the protocol accelerator include CRC generation, handling of immediate acknowledgment frames, and direct memory access.

Performance analysis of SCTP protocol in WiFi network

Abstract: The Internet Protocol Stack provides a set of transport layer protocols. There are two dominant types of transport layer protocol used in the Internet: UDP (User Datagram Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). The transport layer provides end-to-end information transfer across a network with the quality of service needed by the application. In this paper, we provide a performance comparison of SCTP, TCP and UDP protocols in WLAN environments for different traffic flow: VoIP, video streaming and data traffic. The performance metrics used for this evaluation include throughput, end to end delay and packet loss rate. The comparison of performance of SCTP, UDP and TCP are done using the Network simulator NS-2.

A simple routing protocol for PLC-based AMR systems

Abstract: A new, simple and effective communication protocol is developed and evaluated for implementation in power line communication (PLC) based automatic meter reading (AMR) systems. The protocol involves request broadcasting by the data concentrator (DC) and subsequent re-broadcasting by lower level meters up till the third hop using a novel dual purpose packet for transmission. The proposed routing protocol employs CSMA-CA medium access control protocol for data transmission. The simulation model presents an unstructured network topology of the PLC access network assuming automatic 3-level clustering mechanism. The metering unit with “silent node” problem is represented by a two-state transition Markov model. The performance of the proposed routing protocol in terms of data collection delay and throughput is analyzed and compared with that of the Clustered Simple Polling (CSP) protocol. The proposed routing protocol ensures significantly higher performance than the CSP protocol, which results with a reduced data collection delay.

Bundle Protocol (BP) over Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP) for Cislunar Communications

Abstract: With demands increasing in lunar and Mars explorations, the need for a new space communication standard protocol is becoming more and more critical. The DTN Research Group (DTNRG) is developing a series of communication protocols with new architecture, generally called DTN protocols, to tolerate highly stressed communication environments with long propagation delays and frequent link disruptions. In this paper, we present an experimental investigation of the bundle protocol (BP), over Licklider transmission protocol (LTP - sometimes called the long-haul transmission protocol), operating with unreliable User Datagram Protocol (UDP), over an emulated cislunar networking under various channel conditions. Our intention is to investigate the transmission performance of the BP/LTP protocol, running on top of an unreliable UDP stack, over a cislunar link with long propagation delays, frequent disconnects, and a high bit error rate (BER). A comparison between BP/LTP/UDP and another DTN protocol suite is also presented.

Stability in Heterogeneous Multimedia Networks under Adversarial Attacks.

Abstract: A distinguishing feature of today's large-scale platforms for multimedia distribution and communication, such as the Internet, is their heterogeneity, predominantly manifested by the fact that a variety of communication protocols are simultaneously running over different hosts. A fundamental question that naturally arises for such common settings of heterogeneous multimedia systems concerns the presence (or not) of stability properties when individual greedy, contention-resolution protocols are composed in a large packet-switched multimedia network. A network is stable under a greedy protocol (or a composition of protocols) if, for any adversary of injection rate less than 1, the number of packets in the network remains bounded at all times. We focus on a basic adversarial model for packet arrival and path determination for which the time-averaged arrival rate of packets requiring a single edge is no more than 1. Within this framework, we study the property of stability under various compositions of contention-resolution protocols (such as LIS (Longest-in-System), FIFO (First-In-First-Out), FFS (Furthest-from-Source), and NTG (Nearest-to-Go)) and different packet trajectories trying to characterise this property in terms of network topologies. Such a characterisation provides us with the family of network topologies that, under specific compositions of protocols, can be made unstable by some adversarial traffic pattern. Finally, we present an experimental evaluation of the stability behaviour of specific network constructions with different protocol compositions under an adversarial strategy. Interestingly, some of our results indicate that such a composition leads to worst stability behaviour than having a single unstable protocol for contention-resolution. This suggests that the potential for instability incurred by the composition of protocols may be worse than that of any single protocol.

DRAPS: A Framework for Dynamic Reconfigurable Protocol Stacks

Abstract: Forthcoming networked systems require mechanisms for on-the-fly reconfiguration in their protocol stacks to be able to operate in different situations and networks. Since every protocol in a protocol stack has at least one peer protocol in another system, dynamic reconfiguration of a protocol raises the need for reconfiguration in the peer stack. For an assured dynamic (run-time) reconfiguration, executions of two peer protocols are stopped in a safe state, new protocols are initialized, and stacks switch to the new protocols at the same time. This paper proposes a software framework for dynamic reconfiguration of two communicating protocol stacks. A distributed algorithm is implemented in the framework of two communicating stacks in order to present an assured and synchronous reconfiguration of protocols. For demonstration, we have implemented a prototype of the framework and the algorithm to reconfigure two communicating TCP components by their secure version.

System with multiple network protocol support

Abstract: The present invention provides a system with multiple network protocol support. The system includes: a first memory, the first memory comprising program instructions for processing upper and lower layers of the network protocol; a first processor, where the first processor processes the upper layers of the network protocol for a data packet according to the program instructions in the first memory; and a second processor, where the second processor processes lower layers of the network protocol for the data packet according to the program instructions in the first memory. When the network protocol is changed, instructions for the new protocol is fetched from a second memory and placed in the first memory. Thus, the hardware of the system need not be redesigned when changing protocols, and the same on-system unit is used to implement each protocol. This increases flexibility, provides cost effectiveness, and increases the reliability of the system.

A TDMA-based protocol and implementation for avoiding inter-cluster interference of wireless sensor network

Abstract: A time division multiple access (TDMA) scheduling protocol is proposed for solving the inter-cluster interference of medium access control (MAC) in cluster-based wireless sensor networks (WSN). Through each cluster-head snooping into the neighbor nodes' networking packets and creating the TDMA schedule based on these packets, the protocol can avoid inter-cluster interference. The protocol is implemented in an assumed single-physical-channel network, thus its implementation does not depend on specific hardware, and has the advantage of generality. The implementation of the protocol is based on TinyOS software platform and MICA2 hardware platform. The generation of the cluster-heads, the networking cost, the networking packet loss rate and the accuracy of sensing data transmission are tested, and the results show that the protocol can avoid the inter-cluster interference and has moderate reliability.

Method and apparatus for providing interoperability between a first protocol and a second protocol

Abstract: The application discloses a method and apparatus for providing interoperability for a mobile subscriber unit (MSU), employing a first protocol e.g., SCEP, with a packet-data subsystem operating at a second protocol e.g., SNDCP. The method includes determining that the first protocol employed by the MSU is different from the second protocol operated by the packet data subsystem. The method then includes creating a context information for the MSU when the determined first protocol is different from the second protocol. Further, the method includes determining a header associated with the second protocol based on the created context information and then receiving at least one data packet associated with the first protocol from the MSU. The method then encapsulates the at least one data packet with the determined header associated with the second protocol. The method then transmits the at least one encapsulated data packet to the communication network through a context manager.

Distributed and Centralized Version of an Efficient Communication Protocol for Distributed Traffic Simulation

Abstract: Computer simulation of the road traffic is a very important tool for analysis and control of traffic networks. Because the simulation of a large traffic network (e.g. an entire city) can be computationally intensive, many simulators have been adapted for distributed computing environment. In this paper, an efficient communication protocol for distributed simulation of road traffic is described. The protocol is based on two formerly developed protocols – the traffic flow characteristics protocol and the long step protocol. The presented communication protocol combines the advantages of both approaches. Moreover, it utilizes binary coding of the vehicles transferred between particular traffic sub-networks. Two versions of the protocol have been developed – a centralized and a distributed version. Both versions were intensively tested. The results of the tests are also part of this paper.

UPS: Unified Protocol Stack for Wireless Sensor Networks (Extended Abstract)

Abstract: The complexity of allowing different protocols to operate in concert in the same layer has generally been ignored in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a complete protocol stack framework called UPS (Unified Protocol Stack) as a solution for incorporating different protocols within WSNs through enabling the co-existence of multiple modules in same stack layer as well as providing unified access to cross-layer data . The system block diagram for UPS is shown in Fig . 1. The use of a common interface of packet switching en­ ables the modules in the same layer and different layers to seamlessly work together. Furthermore, we refine the concept of centralized information sharing services by separating the concepts of "information" and "service" . Unlike previous approaches using a centralized unit outside the protocol stack or integrated within the protocols themselves, services should be self-sufficient protocol stack modules working side-by-side with other stack modules. Moreover, information should be retrieved from service modules through a unified interface. We demonstrate the gain of this novel approach by compar­ ing it with previous OSI stack designs with a single protocol at each layer through both implementation on Tmote Sky motes and simulation using the TOSSIM simulator. We implemented the XLM [1] cross-layer WSN protocol as well as a network layer multicast protocol (called RBMulticast [2]) as protocol modules in the network layer, showing that the network layer traffic co-exists and shares the same MAC layer without extra overhead. Our results show that utilizing UPS with both XLM and the multicast protocol running simultaneously, we can reduce the network traffic by up to 20% compared with a network that only runs XLM and by up to 42% compared with a network that only runs the multicast prot ocol.

Performance impact of task-to-task communication protocol in network-on-chip

Abstract: Network-on-Chip (NoC) is a strong candidate for scalable interconnect design of Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC). Software tasks of MPSoC require a certain protocol to communicate with each other. In NoC such a communication protocol should be handled at Network Interface and/or Processor Element level and it is expected that different protocols show their trade-offs. In consideration of the above, we employed two types of basic protocol and investigated their performance impact. The contribution of this work is to quantitatively evaluate effectiveness of using separate communication protocols depending on the task structure.

Dual protocol input device

Abstract: A dual protocol input device for use with a host system is provided. In one embodiment, the input device comprises a chip with a number of semiconductor devices integrally formed thereon, including: an optical navigation sensor (ONS) to sense movement of the ONS relative to a surface; a wired protocol block to communicate data from the ONS to the host system by a wired communication protocol; a wireless protocol block to communicate data from the ONS to the host system by a wireless communication protocol; and a micro-controller coupled to the ONS, the wired protocol block and the wireless protocol block, to switch the input device between the wireless communication protocol and the wired communication protocol.

Method and apparatus for using multiple protocols on a communication link

Abstract: Multiple protocols are utilized on a single communication link. Information received over the communication link includes a protocol identification field specifying if the communication link is to operate under a first protocol or a different protocol. The second device interprets information transferred on the communication link according to one of the first protocol and the other protocols according to the protocol identification field.

An improved adaptive MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks based on cross-layer architecture

Abstract: In this paper, we propose an improved adaptive MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks based on cross-layer architecture. The new protocol is inspired by SMAC, probably the most well-known sensor MAC scheme for energy efficiency. In the proposed new protocol, two major changes are made in original SMAC protocol, one is continual data transmission, and the other is graded contention window. The new MAC protocol is designed based on cross-layer architecture, so that nodes can switch their transmission mode adaptively according to the interface queue length. Simulations have been done to evaluate the performance of the proposed new protocol, by which we can find out that the new protocol can really reduce packet end-to-end delay and energy consumption in case of heavy traffic compared with SMAC.

ProMoX: A protocol stack monitoring framework

Abstract: In this paper, we present a preliminary glance on our framework for protocol stack monitoring using Xen (ProMoX). ProMoX uses the Xen hypervisor to virtualize entire instances of operating systems which may execute any arbitrary protocol implementation. By utilizing system virtualization for external monitoring, ProMoX can transparently inspect any protocol state and performance metrics of protocol implementations carried by a guest operating system. This way, ProMoX supports both the indentification of faults within early prototypes as well as the evaluation of new protocol designs.