A Requirement-Based Socket API for a Transition to Future Internet Architectures

The existing application programming interface (API) between applications and the network architecture is one reason that it is hard to deploy novel protocols into the network architecture. Coupling between applications and underlying protocols makes it almost impossible to change one without changing the other. Coupling can be loosened or resolved by not involving applications in protocols implementation details but, only in functionality necessary to establish a communication. This way underlying network can deploy novel or updated implementations of a functionality without needing to change the applications. Using intermediate abstraction layers is an approach to break the dependency between applications and network protocols. One of the major goals in future internet architectures is to be flexible enough to adapt to application's requirements. In this paper, a requirement-based API is presented as an abstraction layer to make applications independent of network mechanisms, which also helps in the transition to future internet architectures.