Accommodating the Disruption-Tolerant Network

Paradigm within GENI

Mostafa AmmarCollege of Computing

Georgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, GA

The Rise of DTNs

The Main Message

DTNs: Where mobility is your friend A novel realistic network paradigm

DTNs: The rest of the ICEBERG MANETS are really a special case!

Challenge for GENI: So Many Wireless Networks and so little time. The goal should be the entire WAM space

Sparse Wireless Networks

Disconnected By Necessity By Design (e.g. for power considerations)

Mobile With enough mobility to allow for some

connectivity over time Data paths may not exist at any one point

in time but do exist over time

Mobility-Assisted Data Delivery:

A New Communication Paradigm

Mobility used for connectivityNew Forwarding Paradigm Store Carry for a while forwardSpecial nodes: Transport entities that

are not sources or destinations

Epidemic Routing

Epidemic Routing

Epidemic Routing

Epidemic Routing

message isdelivered…

SWIM

Vehicles on Highways Networks

SourceDestination

Vehicles on Highways Networks

SourceDestination

Vehicles on Highways Networks

SourceDestination

DakNet (Pentland, Fletcher, and Hasson)

Message Ferrying System (cont.)

D

MF

M

S

MF

S

M

D

The DTN paradigm

Mobility-Assisted Data DeliveryFINALLY! A realistic mobile wireless

network paradigmEverything looks familiar but this is a truly

different environmentTechniques developed have wide

applicabilityFertile Ground for both networking

problems and novel application paradigms

DTNs and GENI

DTNs are an important class of wireless/mobile networks

Should accommodate the DTN paradigm within the GENI facility

Is this Yet Another Network?Is this a distraction

The Wireless/Mobile Network Space

Need to distinguish Mobile/Wireless Environment Techniques we apply to achieve

communication

Some Terminology

A Space Path: A multi-hop path where all the links are active at the same time

A Space/Time Path: A multi-hop path that exists over time

NOTE: S path is a special case of S/T path

Example

A Space Paths Network

Example

A No Path Network

Example

A Space Time Path

Example

A Hybrid Network

The Wireless and Mobile (WAM) Space

Node Density

“Mob

ilit

y”

High

Low

High

Space Paths

Low

No (Space/Time)Paths

Space/Time Paths

Hybrid Environments

Mapping Solutions to WAM Space

Node Density

“Mob

ilit

y”

High

Low

Low

High

Space Paths

No (Space/Time)Paths

Space/Time Paths

Hybrid Environments

MF is necessaryhere

Traditional MANET solutions apply here

MF is applicable for the entire space

Epidemic Routingnecessary here

Epidemic Routingusable here

DTNs in GENI

Will come naturally if GENI facility accommodates entire wireless/mobile network space.

Challenges: Formalizing/parametrizing Space (including

mobility modeling) Accommodating mobility in facility (intrinsic

and controlled) Ability to navigate WAM space in experimental

design