NeTS-FIND: An Architecture for Network Control Management

目前的互联网网络控制是通过协议、自动配置和手动配置的特殊组合来实现的。这种特殊的环境使提供具体的行为保证变得困难。此外，整个系统可能会阻止难以预测、测试、调试或纠正的有害紧急行为。因此，未来互联网的体系结构应该消除当前的临时做法，从头开始。这个项目正在开发一种新的体系结构，在这种体系结构中，每个网络控制功能都被实现为运行在操作平台之上的应用程序。操作平台提供关键的抽象、接口和服务，以允许应用程序对底层网络节点进行更改，支持多个应用程序的组合和并发执行，并提供保护机制以防止应用程序的潜在有害操作。正在研究新一代网络控制应用的智能挑战，如调度、同步、应用间通信、资源多路复用和操作不变保护。广泛的影响：该项目直接解决了未来网络的一个关键挑战，即网络可管理性。网络的可管理性问题会影响我们所依赖的网络的健康状况，也会影响这些网络可能出现的创新和经济增长。我们新的可管理性方法，即操作平台架构，可以潜在地刺激各种第三方网络控制应用的市场。最后，该项目为本科生和研究生的培训提供了特别令人兴奋的机会，因为他们开发应用程序的方式是基本的，但解决了影响重大的当前问题。我们希望将这个项目的发现传播到网络管理的前沿课程中。

Current Internet network controls are realized by an ad hoccombination of protocols, automated configurations, and manualconfigurations. This ad hoc environment makes it difficult to provideconcrete behavioral assurances. Moreover, the entire system mightexhibit harmful emergent behaviors that are difficult to anticipate,test for, debug, or correct.The architecture for the future Internet should thus eliminate thecurrent ad hoc practices and start from a clean slate. This project isdeveloping a new architecture in which each network control functionis realized as an application that runs on top of an operatingplatform. The operating platform provides crucial abstractions,interfaces, and services to allow applications to effect changes inthe underlying network nodes, to enable the composition and concurrentexecutions of multiple applications, and to provide protectionmechanisms to guard against potentially harmful actions ofapplications. Intellectual challenges such as scheduling,synchronization, inter-application communication, resourcemultiplexing, and operational invariant protection for the new breedof network control applications are being investigated.Broader Impacts: This project directly addresses a key challenge forfuture networks, namely network manageability. Problems in networkmanageability affect the health of the networks we depend on, and they affect the manner in it is possible for innovation and economic growth to occur with these networks. Our new approach to manageability, the operating platform architecture, can potentially stimulate a market for a variety of 3rd-party network control applications. Finally, this project provides particularly exciting opportunities for the training of undergraduate and graduate students because they develop applications in a fundamental way, but addressing high-impact current issues. We expect to diffuse the findings from this project into cutting-edge courses on network management.