Designing Policy Networking System Using Active Networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a new policy networking system, which introduces programmable packets using Active network technology. The architecture has two novel features: 1) Allowing network elements to become a decision point so that the traffic between network elements and the system dramatically decreases 2) The programmable packet that can itself be a part of a “decision” pointls is generated by the system and executed in the network element, allowing the network element’s decision point to be autonomously “intelligent”. After describing the current status of policy networking and Active networking, the paper shows the framework of new architecture and two advantages of this novel architecture that are crucial to deploy and develop policy networking system: 1) More customizability than existing policy networking architectures. 2) Less control traffic by reducing interaction between Policy Server and network elements. Finally, the paper discusses the future direction of policy networking and feasibility of this new architecture.