Designing Run-Time Environments to Have Predefined Global Dynamics

Abstract

The stability and the predictability of a computer network algorithm's performance are as important as themain functional purpose of networking software. However, asserting or deriving such properties from thefinite state machine implementations of protocols is hard and, except for singular cases like TCP, is notdone today. In this paper, we propose to design and study run-time environments for networking protocolswhich inherently enforce desirable, predictable global dynamics. To this end we merge two complementarydesign approaches: (i) A design-time and bottom up approach that enables us to engineer algorithms basedon an analyzable (reaction) flow model. (ii) A run-time and top-down approach based on an autonomousstack composition framework, which switches among implementation alternatives to find optimal operationconfigurations. We demonstrate the feasibility of our self-optimizing system in both simulations and real-world Internet setups

On Hardware Programmable Network Dynamics With a Chemistry-Inspired Abstraction

“…Before discussing specifically the chemical middleware abstraction for hardware, we need to briefly introduce CAs in general. For the sake of completeness and contextualisation, in the next section, we summarise main principles and concepts (retrievable in [15]- [20], [46]).…”

“…In past works [15]- [20], we have introduced a class of algorithms founded on operational principles of chemical reaction networks, and demonstrated their suitability for (expressible state-space representation) and usefulness in (analysability/verification) the design of control functions for various tasks pertinent to network dynamics. In this paper, we capitalise on, and complete, this work in the context of programmable networks, and we show that these "chemical" algorithms (CAs) are fast to deploy and easy to re-program and modify at runtime on FPGA hardware.…”