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SeaFan A Safe,
Efficient, and
Adaptive
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The SeaFan project addresses the integration, interaction, and inter-operation of existing and new QoS mechanisms based on network processors in order to build adaptive end-to-end QoS guarantees. In traditional IP networks this task is not solvable on the protocol level. Hence, SeaFan, introduces a safe, efficient, and adaptive framework using active networks that is flexible enough to address certain QoS tasks even in the data path of network processors. Safety and security requirements are ensured by the combination of a byte-code language, the introduction of the resource bound vector, the definition of a safety hierarchy, and a sandbox environment. SeaFan explicitely allows the concept of having several QoS capabilities running at the same time.
In the context of the SeaFan project new QoS mechanisms are introduced that address relative and absolute bandwidth differentiation with responsive and non-responsive protocols, including packet-drop-rate differentiation. Scalability is ensured by the aggregation of flows and the careful limitation of the distribution of information even when acting on the end-to-end service from within the network.
The excellent performance of the new QoS mechanisms has been shown by means of simulations in ns-2 and the feasibility of and the benefits from the existence of a programmable networking infrastructure have been shown in a reference implementation on the IBM PowerNP 4GS3.
Further optimization methods using just-in-time compilation revealed additional potential in byte-coded active networks.
The combination of the active networking framework and the QoS mechanism enable the deployment of adaptive end-to-end services over heterogeneous IP networks.
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