Abstract

In this paper, we motivate and describe the architecture of Resilient Overlay Networks (RON), an application-level packet forwarding service that gives end-hosts and applications the ability to take advantage of network paths that traditional Internet routing cannot make use of, thereby improving their end-to-end reliability and performance. A RON system consists of a per-host forwarding and routing system; programs to measure the quality of paths between participating hosts; and mechanisms for interpreting this measured data and making routing decisions based upon that interpretation. RONs are usable as a purely user-level library system, with kernel support for packet encapsulation, or as a router to overlay entire leaf networks. We explain the reasons for the architectural design of RON, and argue that end-host controlled Resilient Overlay Networks provide a good framework for distributed applications to transmit data with greater robustness and higher performance over the wide-area...

Citations