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

当今Internet的许多架构元素都隐含地假设主机在很长一段时间内都与网络保持连接。然而，通过支持一种不需要终端系统维护完整的、持续的连接以维持其网络“存在”的网络风格，可以获得很多好处。在这个项目中，我们探索了一种网络风格，我们称之为“选择性连接”，我们的意思是一个终端系统，可以在响应内部或外部事件时有意识地管理其网络连接的程度，因为它预测了连接的变化。虽然选择性连接的网络也有进入中断期的终端系统的应用（例如，用户关闭笔记本电脑，或移动设备进入无覆盖区域），但它可以使终端系统进入某种程度的“睡眠”状态，以便以更高的能源效率运行。这种休眠不仅可以大大延长便携式设备的电池寿命，而且还可以在全国范围内实现节能，使桌面系统和机顶盒设备进入大大减少处理的状态，而不会牺牲它们的网络存在。在这个项目中，研究人员进行了新的架构组件的初步设计，以更好地支持选择性连接的网络，通过这种网络，睡眠的主机可以保持他们在网络中的地位，或者在他们不在的时候委托代理代表他们行事。它们包括：暴露选择性连接；将软状态演变为“可代理”或“边缘”状态的概念；促进基于主机的控制；引入“助手”配合睡眠终端系统工作；探索应用程序可能用来表达他们希望在选择性连接时保留的语义的原语；考虑到当它们服务的终端系统也处于睡眠状态时，网络链路本身也会处于睡眠状态。

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.