Motivation for IBN

Instance-Based Networking

Motivation

Consider a file archiving system over a peer-to-peer network. Files in this system are defined by content identifiers and the system keeps track of different versions of the same file. A user of such a system can request to retrieve a specific version of the file or can request the latest version stored in the system. The file archiving system is an example of a larger class of peer-to-peer applications where entities (files in the file archiving system) are defined by content identifiers (file names) and different instances (file versions) of the same content can exist at the same time. Other examples of applications in the same class include:

peer-to-peer anycasting where a service is defined by a content ID (service name) and different instances of the same service represent nodes offering the same service. The instance identifier is used to select the closest node to the requesting node depending on some metric.

a pervasive environment, e.g. the Autonomous Transport Protocol, where application endpoints are defined by content IDs. Applications can migrate from one node to the other and the established communication connections should continue transparently without interruption. Different agents from the same application (instances) work on behalf of the application on different nodes to maintain the connection.

We propose the Instance-Based Network (IBN) as a communication paradigm to support this class of applications. In an IBN, endpoint entities called "contents' are addressed or located by its name, properties or attributes, independent of its physical location. The content could be a user, an application service, a document, a network node, a network connection or any other object. Unlike IP networks where the IP address is not just a unique ID but also a locator, IBN addressing is decoupled from the location of contents. Contents can actively communicate with each other by sending or receiving messages, or performing a lookup for other contents. Other content types, such as a document, can be passively stored in the network.

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Department of Computer Science

Last changed: February 20, 2004

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