LandMARC is investigating state-of-the-art active networking technologies.
The distinction between programming paradigms of network devices and end systems has led to an ever- growing gap between capabilities of end nodes and intermediate devices. While, for example, programmable end systems have included sophisticated support for multimedia streaming for many years, multimedia support for network devices is still in the process of standardization, and deployment is held back by the problems of upgrading significant amounts of network hardware and software.
Building on lessons learned from the development of LARA, the Lancaster Active Router Architecture, developed as a prototype implementation for active network research, LandMARC is developing its successor, LARA++. This next generation programmable router is designed for on-demand deployment of new and enhanced network services for current and future network technologies.
LARA++ provides a programmable platform for active services based on the composition of many small software components. These "active" components are dynamically loadable onto LARA++ active routers where they provide additional or extended services for dedicated data streams or even for whole protocol families.
The motivation for the component-based approach arises from the fact that conventional active node architectures provide one of two architectures – either fixed execution environments, which can “only” be programmed through in-band active programs (also referred to as active capsules), or a programmable switch platform, which enables users to download and install active programs. While the former approach is limited by the programming capabilities offered by the execution environments, the latter is usually restricted by the support the programmable switch provides for interaction between single active software components and service composition.
LARA++ tries to resolve these limitations of conventional active router architecture by providing a sophisticated composition framework for active components. This enables active services to be split into many simple and easy to develop tasks (each processed by a single active component). The services are then built from the individual components, as they are needed. This “divide and conquer” approach also simplifies extensibility of the router functionality. Individual software components can be upgraded more easily and new components can be gradually added. Consequently, LARA++ is advantageous over conventional implementations in terms of reusability of active code and customisability of user tailored services.
A set active networking related publications and presentations already delivered in the scope of the LandMARC project are available here.