Service-Centric End-to-End Abstractions in Next-Generation Networks

Abstract

Next-generation network architectures will be governed by the need for flexibility. Heterogeneous end-systems, novel communication abstractions, and security and manageability challenges will require networks to provide a broad range of services that go beyond the simple store-and-forward capabilities of today's Internet. This paper introduces new abstractions for information transfer and data services in the network, which overcome the constraints of the end-to-end argument that has dominated current network designs. The explicit separation of communication and processing allows the composition of a variety of information transfer patterns that expand the capabilities of the network to meet its next-generation challenges. We discuss implementation issues that arise in this network architecture and present several examples of how applications can utilize the proposed abstractions. This present a first step towards a unified view of the convergence of networking, processing, and their distributed applications.

A Survey of the Research on Future Internet and Network Architectures

“…Several service centric frameworks [119]- [121] are proposed to flexibly develop a service using building blocks, too. [119] defines a service architecture, called Information Transfer and Data Service (ITDS), which bases communication abstractions on the transfer of information rather than the process of sending data (cited from [119]).…”

“…[119] defines a service architecture, called Information Transfer and Data Service (ITDS), which bases communication abstractions on the transfer of information rather than the process of sending data (cited from [119]). The separation of communication and processing enables to provide various information transfer patterns.…”

Securing the data path of next-generation router systems

“…Many proposed architectures include software processing in the data path of routers, spanning active networks [5], programmable routers [2], and configurable protocol stacks [6]. In next-generation networks, where deviations from the current Internet architecture [1] can be considered, a variety of protocol features and data path services can be implemented in routers [7,8]. These services could be implemented on a variety of platforms ranging from workstation routers [9] to programmable routers [10] and virtualized router platforms [11].…”

Design of a network service processing platform for data path customization

“…Our network service architecture [6] uses a similarly structured approach, where services usually implement full network functionalities or protocols, which represent self-contained network processing and protocol operations. The concept of network services was first introduced in [26]. Similar approaches permit composition of protocol functionality in form of stacks [8,15,24], protocol heaps [2], and per-flow stacks [4].…”

“…This processing functionality can be seen as a network service that implements custom data path features for each connection [26].…”