Review: Active network vision and reality

Active networks are networks in which packets (capsules) that flow
through the network can dynamically modify the behaviour of the
network. One of the selling points of active networks is that they lend
themselves to developing new and different types of Internet services
that otherwise could not be developed using existing network
architectures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the feasibility of active
networks. In particular, the paper reports on lessons learned from the
design and implementation of the ANTS active network toolkit.

The "capsule" design is one of the main features of the ANTS active
network toolkit. Capsules are special types of packets that are
extensions of the regular IP packet format. They are essentially
"mobile agents" that route themselves through the network using their
own forwarding routine.

The main results of the paper are that: modelling packets transferred
in an active network as capsules is extremely valuable; it is possible
to design a network that any untrusted user can freely modify and
change to their own needs; and the most important application of
capsules is network layer service evolution.

Overall, I thought this was a poor paper. It is full of too much jargon
that is not explained up front. Instead one has to read through the
paper until there a somewhat reasonable explanation appears somewhere
in the middle. For example, the term "capsule" is never defined until 3
pages into the paper, but is used numerous times before that.
Received on Wed Nov 22 2006 - 01:34:48 EST