NeTS-FIND: Collaborative Research: Architectural Support for Selectively-Connected End Systems: Enabling an Energy-Efficient Future Internet

当今互联网的许多架构元素都隐含地假设主机在很长一段时间内保持连接到网络。 然而，通过支持一种不需要终端系统保持完全的、持续的连接以保持其网络存在的网络风格，可以获得很多好处。在这个项目中，我们探索了一种我们称之为“选择性连接”的网络风格，我们的意思是终端系统可以有意识地管理其网络连接的范围，以响应内部或外部事件，因为它预计连接的变化。 虽然选择性连接的网络也具有用于进入中断时段的终端系统的应用（例如，用户关闭笔记本电脑或移动终端进入无覆盖区域），其能够实现的一种非常重要的操作形式涉及将终端系统置于某种程度的“睡眠”，以便以更高的能量效率操作。 这种休眠不仅可以通过极大地延长便携式设备的电池寿命而使便携式设备受益，而且还可以通过使桌面系统和机顶盒设备能够进入极大地减少处理的状态而不牺牲它们的网络存在而在全国范围内实现节能。 在这个项目中，研究人员对新的架构组件进行了初步设计，以更好地支持选择性连接的网络，通过这种方式，睡眠主机可以保持其在网络中的地位，或者在其缺席期间委托代理代表其行事。 这些跨度：暴露选择性连接;将软状态演化为“可代理”或“不稳定”状态的概念;促进基于主机的控制;引入“助手”以与休眠的端系统协同工作;探索应用可能用来表达它们在选择性连接时希望保留的语义的原语;以及考虑当它们所服务的端系统同样休眠时自身可以休眠的网络链路。

Many architectural elements of today's Internet implicitly assume that hosts remain attached to the network over extended periods of time. However, there is much to be gained by supporting a style of networking that does not require an end system to maintain full, ongoing connectivity in order to maintain its network "presence." In this project we explore a style of networking that we term "selectively-connected", by which we mean an end system, can knowingly manage the extent of its network connectivity in response to internal or exterior events, as it anticipates changes in connectivity. While selectively-connected networking also has applications for end systems that enter outage periods (e.g., a user closing a notebook, or a mobile device entering no-coverage area), one highly significant form of operation it can enable concerns placing end systems into some degree of "sleep" in order to operate with much greater energy efficiency. Such sleeping not only can benefit portable devices by greatly extending their battery lifetime, but can also realize energy savings at a national scale by enabling desktop systems and set-top devices to enter states of greatly reduced processing without sacrificing their network presence. In this project the researchers undertake initial designs of new architectural components for better supporting selectively-connected networking, by which sleeping hosts can retain their standing in the network or delegate agents to act on their behalf during their absence. These span: exposing selective connectivity; evolving soft state into notions of "proxyable" or "limbo" state; facilitating host-based control; introducing "assistants" to work in concert with sleeping end systems; exploring primitives that applications might use to express the semantics they wish to preserve when selectively-connected; and considering network links that can themselves sleep when the end systems they serve are likewise sleeping.