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Active Programmable Networks

Muhammad Farooq (820307-T413) and Farooq Sultan (811007-3395)

The ability to develop new networking software- As APN

Abstract—The current network technology is based on IP and decouples the software from the hardware which provides the
may not be able to support the future application of internet opportunity and encourages to software developers to develop
which requires integration of services over a single new software.
communication line. The traditional IP network hides the Rapid evolution of networking software- In APN any new
network from the end users. Active programmable network is a
software which can improve the performance of the network
new technology in the field of networking which gives
opportunity to users to add programmability in to the network can be adopted very quickly because APN give the right to the
infrastructure according to their own specifications. Internet Service Providers (ISP) to make changes to the
router’s software.
Index Terms—APN (Active Programmable Network), Specialization of protocols- The traditional routers are coming
VM (Virtual machine), EE (Execution Environment), with software for general use of large customers. In APN the
API (Active programmable interface), QoS (Quality of service), programmable router can be programmed according to their
ISP (Internet Service Provider), CDP (Code distribution own networking conditions.
protocol) etc Rapid deployment of new networking services-In APN
additional services can be added to the router software which
can improve the performance. For example dynamic
linking/loading removes the need to reboot router and Code
I. INTRODUCTION Distribution Protocol (CDP) which distribute the new

T he APN network infrastructure enhances the capability of

the internet to meet the current challenges and issues of
traditional IP based network infrastructure. The current
service’s code to programmable router can save a valuable
time.
Better response to market demand- As the speed of internet is
infrastructure is a black box which hides the network from the improving day by day through broadband technology which
hosts’ at large level. In traditional network switches and router will decrease the cost of bandwidth. The customer’s selection
functionality are built into the preinstalled software’s provided of ISP will be based on value-added services which can be
by the vendors. Therefore development as well as deployment achieved by APN.
of new protocols is a very long process and hard to establish. Creating new markets- APN gives the opportunity where the
The traditional network does not support all future ISP can introduce new services of their own for their
applications. customers to generate more revenue.
The concept of APN gives the opportunity to end user to
utilize the network according to their own requirements. It III. APN ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
allows the user to inject customized programs into to the The most common APN architecture includes the following
nodes of the network. Secondly it contains active nodes which components.
are capable of processing these programs. Active nodes
perform computations on the data injected by the users. So Kernel OS- It works as an interface to the hardware and
APN is a two way process which include the execution of provides resource management and control. It also defines
programs by the network elements and the injection of security mechanism, Real time operations and kernel threads.
programs to the network by the users. APN enable the users to Virtual machine- It provides some sort of security and
add particular application service or other values added performs dynamic linking and loading of different software
services. components. VM include Execution Environment where
The current network infrastructure is a packet switched active packets are decoupled and executed. The EE dictates
network which is passive in nature and forward packet from the router to take the required action as specified in the
source to destination based on information in the packet injected program by the end user.
header. The network nodes only provide the connectivity and
ensure packet delivery from source to destination by following Service Module- The service module provides different
the predefined rules. APN ensures data delivery based on services as required per active packet. The service module can
smart packets which makes the network to act dynamically. be invoked by the Execution Environment.
II. MOTIVATION
APN has become an attractive approach towards networking
due the following abilities.
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required resource. It will also require a distribution and

scheduling mechanism which will enforce the appropriate
sharing of resources among different programs.
Latency- Latency is one of the issues with APN. In APN
technology packets contains injected codes which needs to be
downloaded, processed and executed by the active nodes. This
process produces unwanted latency in the current
infrastructure of APN. Research is already underway in this
regard to reduce the time of latency. The approach of Active
messages is one of the mechanisms in this regard which can
reduce the time of latency.
Platform independency- One of the main purposes of APN
Fig.1. General APN Architecture Design infrastructure is its platform independency which can be
achieved by the use of platform independent language like
IV. ACTIVE PROGRAMMEABLE APPROCHES java etc. This role is still limited and is under process because
a standard language which can be applicable by all APN
There are different types of active network approaches. architecture has yet not been defined.
Capsules- This is an integrated approach which contains data Security- As packets in APN technology carries injected
and programs all together in one capsule. In this approach user programs which can be executed by the active node of the
data can be embedded within the programs. network and has the ability to change the behavior of the
Switch Ware- In this approach the injection of program is network can increase the security issues. The security issues
separated from the processing of messages. Before the data is can be minimized by authentication of active packets,
sent through the node the method is downloaded and executed. monitoring and control, limitation techniques and proof
The router then performs authentication and computation. carrying code (FCC).
Net script- In this approach a virtual network is created which Complexity- Although APN provides flexibility and
view the network as a single network rather than a extensibility but the overall network infrastructure becomes
combination of routers and switches. more complex in terms of schedule processes, algorithms and
Smart packets- Smart packets are capable to carry programs latency.
which are executable at each node as it passes through the
network.
Control on demand- This approach support control policies for VII. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
the connection and applications.
Programming language that can be suitable for APN must
V. CHARACTRISTICS OF APN have some characteristics like fast execution speed, fast
verification, high degree of programmability, secure, mobile,
Programmable network API- APN provides programmable and portability. Most of the APN architectures use java
API which makes the user capable of writing their own programming language while some have designed their own
programs according to their own requirements. languages like Smart Packets and Switch Ware.
Application performance enhancement- APN improves the There are various programming languages which can be used
performance of application by reducing the demand for for APN. Some of them are generic while others are specially
bandwidth and reduced network congestion. designed for APN. Java and CAML can be used for general
Rapid response to the network events- The APN has the purpose applications. Java and CAML provide re-usability of
ability to quickly respond to the network events by collocating code, better support and flexibility. PLAN is used for Active
control algorithms with network elements. Packets and Sprocket is designed for network management.

VI. QOS REQUIREMENTS IN APN

Soft QoS requirements- Routers that support APN must be VIII. APPLICATIONS OF APN
able to define different classes of service for active APN support reliable multicasting. It uses RMANP which
computations. It also requires the mechanism that enables performs ACK fusing and NACK suppression from
active programs to specify their class of services, queuing downstream routers. APN has the ability to support mobile
mechanism and resource scheduler that support the required agents. APN enhances feedback congestion control
classes of service. mechanism. APN support the ACC (Active congestion
Hard QoS requirements- Hard QoS deals with resource control) which include program in data packet that inform the
reservation and resource policing mechanism which is very router how to deal congestion. APN provide better network
important in active network. Resource reservation mechanism management mechanism.
must be defined which will enable the active program to
reserve the required resource and a policing mechanism which
will prevent the active program from holding more than the
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IX. CONCLUSION
APN is a service based infrastructure and demand of end user
is increasing day by day. The current infrastructure is missing
the support for high multimedia bandwidth applications. APN
can play a very vital role in service oriented multimedia
applications in future. Faster service deployment and
scalability can be achieved through APN.

X. REFERENCES
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