Application-driven network management with ProtoRINA

Traditional network management is tied to the TCP/IP architecture, thus it inherits its many limitations. Additionally there is no unified framework for application management, and service providers have to rely on their own ad-hoc mechanisms to manage their application services. The Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) is our solution to achieve better network management. RINA provides a unified framework for application-driven network management along with built-in mechanisms. It allows the dynamic formation of secure communication containers for service providers in support of various requirements. In this paper, we focus on how application-driven network management can be achieved over the GENI testbed using ProtoRINA, a user-space prototype of RINA. We use video multicast as an example, and experimental results show that application-driven network management enabled by ProtoRINA can achieve better network and application performance.