PLANet: an active internetwork

We present PLANet: an active network architecture and implementation. In addition to a standard suite of Internet-like services, PLANet has two key programmability features: (1) all packets contain programs; and (2) router functionality may be extended dynamically. Packet programs are written in our special purpose programming language PLAN, the Packet Language for Active Networks, while dynamic router extensions are written in OCaml, a dialect of ML. Currently, PLANet routers run as byte-code-interpreted Linux user-space applications, and support Ethernet and IP as link layers. PLANet achieves respectable performance on standard networking operations: on 300 MHz Pentium-II's attached to 100 Mbps Ethernet, PLANet can route 48 Mbps and switch over 5000 packets per second. We demonstrate the utility of PLANet's activeness by showing experimentally how it can nontrivially improve application and aggregate network performance in congested conditions.

[1]  Ray Jain,et al.  The art of computer systems performance analysis - techniques for experimental design, measurement, simulation, and modeling , 1991, Wiley professional computing.

[2]  Michael Hicks.  Plan System Security , 1998 .

[3]  Robin Milner,et al.  Definition of standard ML , 1990 .

[4]  François Rouaix.  A Web Navigator with Applets in Caml , 1996, Comput. Networks.

[5]  Charles L. Hedrick,et al.  Routing Information Protocol , 1988, RFC.

[6]  Robbert van Renesse,et al.  Building Adaptive Systems Using Ensemble , 1998, Softw. Pract. Exp..

[7]  Carl A. Gunter,et al.  PLAN : A Programming Language for Active Networkssubmitted to PLDI ' 98 , 1998 .

[8]  Frann Cois Rouaix.  A Web Navigator with Applets in Caml , 1996 .

[9]  John H. Hartman,et al.  Joust: A Platform for Communication-Oriented Liquid Software , 1997 .

[10]  S. Bradner,et al.  IPng: Internet protocol next generation , 1996 .

[11]  Carl A. Gunter,et al.  PLAN: a packet language for active networks , 1998, ICFP '98.

[12]  Edoardo Biagioni.  A Structured TCP in Standard ML , 1994, SIGCOMM.

[13]  Xavier Leroy,et al.  Security properties of typed applets , 1998, POPL '98.

[14]  Wolfgang Effelsberg,et al.  Multicasting multimedia streams with active networks , 1998, Proceedings 23rd Annual Conference on Local Computer Networks. LCN'98 (Cat. No.98TB100260).

[15]  B. Leiner,et al.  The DARPA internet protocol suite , 1985, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[16]  G.J. Minden,et al.  A survey of active network research , 1997, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[17]  Angelos D. Keromytis,et al.  A secure active network environment architecture: realization in SwitchWare , 1998, IEEE Netw..

[18]  Carl A. Gunter,et al.  Network Programming Using PLAN , 1998, ICCL Workshop: Internet Programming Languages.

[19]  Larry L. Peterson,et al.  A dynamic network architecture , 1992, TOCS.

[20]  Sushil da Silva,et al.  TOWARDS PROGRAMMABLE NETWORKS , 1996 .

[21]  Peter Lee,et al.  Signatures for a network protocol stack: a systems application of Standard ML , 1994, LFP '94.

[22]  Robbert van Renesse,et al.  Building adaptive systems using ensemble , 1998 .

[23]  John V. Guttag,et al.  ANTS: a toolkit for building and dynamically deploying network protocols , 1998, 1998 IEEE Open Architectures and Network Programming.

[24]  Martin de Prycker,et al.  Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Solution for Broadband Isdn , 1991 .

[25]  Jon Postel,et al.  Internet Control Message Protocol , 1981, RFC.

[26]  Marianne Shaw,et al.  Active bridging , 1997, SIGCOMM '97.