1. Smart Packet for Active Networks
Presented by
Anand P Santhanam
Nilesh J Gada
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2. Introduction
Active Networks is a framework users inject programs contained in messages into a network capable of performing computations and manipulations on behalf of the user.
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3. Moore’s Law
There is an exponential growth of computing power in the network.
This law didn’t work due to the following reasons :-
Growth rate of traffic
Number of Users
Number of connected sites
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4. Active Network Management
Reasons Behind :
The average device is not generating processing and receiving drastically more network management traffic that it was , an year ago.
More Per- Device Processing Power
Problems with Traditional Management System
Implosion of Packets
Multiple state changes in less than one round trip time.
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5. Advantages With Smart Packets
Information required can be selected properly
Management rules can be embodied and sent to nodes, which can correct problems.
Shortens the monitoring and control loop.
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6. Smart Packets It consists of four parts
A Specification of smart packet formats
Specification of High level language, its assembly language and compressed encoding representing that portion fo smart packet that gets executed.
A Virtual Machine in the node
A Security Architecture
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7. High-Level Entity Management
Query Language, tuned to monitoring and control of network entities.
Does not allow general Programming
No control to the Packet , over where it is sent
No limits on the size of a Query
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8. System Architecture A rich and flexible environment
Computing power should not be overloaded.
Environment should not be hard to secure.
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9. Design Decision
There would be no new persistent state in routers across packets
Fragmentation of smart packet is not permitted
Operating environment must provide safety and surety.
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10. ANEP Daemon Process Injection and Reception point for smart packets
For executing the programs received.
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11. Transmission of Smart Packets
Transmission Issues
How does the router know, whether the packet is a smart packet or not
Router should analyse the program, only if it supports smart packets
IP Option : Router Alert, Higher layer Headers are used to check whether the packet is a smart packet or not
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12. Packet Format Program Packet Data Packet Error Packet Message Packet
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13. ANEP Header Source Identifier Destination Identifier
Integrity Checksum
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14. Programming Languages
Language Issues
Packet needs to be compact with the code
The code needs to be safe – No File system Access, No General System Calls
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15. Survey With Fibonacci numbers Calculation Language Size(bytes)
Schema48 1M
Emacs
617
Java
370
OCAML
294
Sprocket 91
Spanner 51
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16. Sprocket Removal of Enumerations, typedef, structures and union.
C++ style comments & declarations everywhere
Int , short , char removed and replaced with types that explicitly define the size
Floating point values 32 to 64 bits wide
Built-in types for arrays strings and lists
New complex types – Packet Type, Address Type smart packet Identifier type and MIB Context type
Address type and Packet type are abstract types
Operations of complex types similar to C++ member function syntax.
C’s Grammer and Keywords
Self Referential Operations
Retrieving Node MIB information through General Querries and Short cut primitives
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17. Spanner Similar to Assembly language programming
Stack based CISC architecture
It differs from traditional assembly language as it has Declared Variables, and no access to memory, storage is in stack or variable
Virtual Machine needs to the type of variables
Operations are done based on stack, and the final result may also pushed into the stack
Stack Operations – push() and pop() are also defined
Branch Operations
Send Data and Message Packets back to the source
Syntax : starts with an operation and followed by arguments
Difference between Spanner and most assembly languages is that type information is embedded in the operations.
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