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较长时间内保持与网络的连接。然而，通过支持一种不需要终端系统为了保持其网络“存在”而保持完全的、持续的连接的网络风格，可以获得很大的好处。在本项目中，我们将探索一种我们称之为“选择性连接”的网络风格，我们所说的“选择性连接”指的是终端系统可以根据内部或外部事件有意识地管理其网络连接的范围，因为它可以预测连接的变化。尽管选择性连接网络也适用于进入停机周期的终端系统(例如，用户关闭笔记本电脑或移动设备进入非覆盖区域)，但它可以实现一种非常重要的操作形式，即使终端系统进入某种程度的“睡眠”以便以更高的能效运行。这样的休眠不仅可以大大延长便携式设备的电池寿命，从而使其受益，而且还可以通过使台式机系统和机顶设备进入处理大大减少的状态而不牺牲其网络状态，在全国范围内实现节能。在这个项目中，研究人员对新的体系结构组件进行了初步设计，以更好地支持选择性连接的网络，通过这种网络，休眠的主机可以保持他们在网络中的地位，或者委托代理在他们不在的时候代表他们行事。这些跨度包括：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”与休眠的终端系统协同工作；探索应用程序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终端系统同样处于休眠状态时能够自身休眠的网络链路。

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.