Structured Overlay Networks for a New Generation of Internet Services

Abstract

The dramatic success and scaling of the Internet was made possible by the core principle of keeping it simple in the middle and smart at the edge (or the end-to-end principle). However, new applications bring new demands, and for many emerging applications, the Internet paradigm presents limitations. For applications in this new generation of Internet services, structured overlay networks offer a powerful framework for deploying specialized protocols that can provide new capabilities beyond what the Internet natively supports by leveraging global state and in-network processing. The structured overlay concept includes three principles: A resilient network architecture, a flexible overlay node software architecture that exploits global state and unlimited programmability, and flow-based processing. We demonstrate the effectiveness of structured overlay networks in supporting today's demanding applications and propose forward-looking ideas for leveraging the framework to develop protocols that push the boundaries of what is possible in terms of performance and resilience.