Dynamic Control of Network Protocols - A New Vision for Future Self-organising Networks

In recent years communication protocols have shown an increasing complexity, in particular in terms of the number of variable parameters. Data communication networks like, e. g. , the Internet reach the limits of their extensibility which leads to initiatives coping with the future of the Internet and data communication in general. A first step towards creating a sustainable solution without exchanging the whole system is to make the static character of network protocols more flexible. An adaptive behaviour of nodes within a network and an autonomous, self-organising concept for their control strategies leads to a possible increase in performance accompanied by an increase of extensibility. This paper presents a new vision of how to establish these new control strategies mostly independent of the particular protocol by using the concepts of Organic and Autonomic Computing. We introduce an adaptive and automated network control system for the dynamic and self-organised control of protocol parameters. This system consists of two sub-systems: an on-line adaptation mechanism and an off-line learning component. The current status is introduced in combination with the definition of further challenges and fields of research.