Storage-Aware Routing Protocol for the MobilityFirst Network Architecture

This paper presents an overview of the storage-aware routing protocol proposed for the MobilityFirst network architecture being developed as a part of the NSF Future Internet Architecture (FIA) project. The storage-aware routing method described here is a generalized form of delay-tolerant network (DTN) intended to work seamlessly across both wired and wireless networks. An adaptive storage-aware routing algorithm (ASTAR) which uses a combination of short and long-term path quality metrics along with available buffer storage to make store vs. forward decisions at routers is described. Selected experimental trace-driven validation results are given for an example hybrid network incorporating wired backbones and heterogeneous radio access technologies. The proposed storage-aware routing algorithm under consideration is shown to provide significant capacity and performance gains for the mobile/wireless usage scenarios considered. It is further demonstrated that the ASTAR adaptation algorithm provides a unified mechanism for adjusting store/forward decisions in response to variations in path quality, available router storage and traffic levels, achieving up to 20% capacity improvement over baseline non-adaptive schemes.