FIA-NP: Collaborative Research: The Next-Phase MobilityFirst Project - From Architecture and Protocol Design to Advanced Services and Trial Deployments

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The Next-Phase MobilityFirst (MF) project aims to have a major impact on the architecture of the future Internet by re-architecting it to address the needs of emerging mobile platforms and applications. Adoption of technologies arising from this project may be expected to provide improved efficiency, security and robustness that would benefit both network operators and end-users of the Internet. This project, originally funded as a collaborative research effort under the NSF Future Internet Architecture (FIA) program (2010-13) in which the MF architecture was designed over the past 3 years, is centered on a new name-based service layer which serves as the narrow-waist of the protocol; this name-based services layer makes it possible to build advanced mobility-centric services in a flexible manner while also improving security and privacy properties. The architecture incorporates novel storage-aware routing techniques which provide significant improvements in mobile network capacity and functionality. The next phase of the MobilityFirst project is aimed at making the transition from early-stage architecture and prototyping to advanced real-world services and trial network deployments. The research and experimental trials agenda is aimed at validating and refining the core name service, routing, security and management components of the MF architecture, while also responding to emerging trends in network technology and services such as the cellular mobile data explosion, the growth of content, the emergence of cloud computing, and software-defined network (SDN) technology. Intellectual Merit: This project includes several research thrusts aimed at transitioning the MobilityFirst architecture to advanced services and field deployable technology. These include: (1) advanced name-based network services and development of enhanced global name service (GNS) technology; (2) network security and privacy designs and enhancements; (3) design of advanced content services; (4) application of MobilityFirst protocols to next-generation mobile cloud computing; (5) design of advanced context-aware services; (6) technical and economic study of cellular-Internet convergence; (7) software-defined network (SDN) ready protocol design; and (8) technology platforms, router implementation and deployment strategies. These research thrusts will be informed by three distinct real-world network environment trials: a "mobile data services" trial with a wireless ISP (5Nines) in Madison; WI; a "content production and delivery network" trial involving several public broadcasting stations in Pennsylvania connected by a greenfield optical network called PennREN; and a "context-aware public service" weather emergency notification system (CASA) with end-users in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. These network environment trials are the centerpiece of the proposed project, and are expected to provide a firm basis for validation of the MobilityFirst protocol stack and its usefulness for developing advanced mobile, content, context and cloud applications, while also advancing the technology to the field-deployment stage. Expected outcomes from the project include research results on security, privacy, content/context/cloud services and SDN; MobilityFirst protocol stack software revisions; router technology implementations; multiple real-world trial deployments of the technology; and experimentally supported evaluations of the architecture. This project is a collaborative effort involving Rutgers, UMass, MIT, Duke, U Michigan, U Wisconsin, and U Nebraska with the participation of several industrial research and network environment trial partners.Broader Impacts: The MobilityFirst project will have impact as a new approach to a future Internet that by design addresses mobility and mobile platforms, and as an enabler of new mobile Internet applications of social value such as context-aware emergency notification services. The release of open source protocol software may be expected to help to stimulate further experimental research on future Internet architectures across the networking community. The project also contributes to education and training in the key areas of Internet and mobile network technology.