Implementation of a Media Aware Network Element for Content Aware Networks

摘要

ALICANTE is a recently proposed architecture that enables a lightweight form of virtualization for the purpose of offering QoS to media streams across the internet. A content aware network (CAN) is a cross domain overlay, which is provisioned in advance in order to provide preferential treatment to media streams. While it uses legacy infrastructure, such as core IP/MPLS routers and provisioned links, it relies on a special border router, called MANE (Media Aware Network Element). This paper presents a modular implementation of such a network element using off-the-shelf hardware and open source software. The implementation uses Click modular router to implement flow classification, MPLS encapsulation and decapsulation, separation between virtual CANs, and enforcement of separation between networks. Based on incipient measurements in a virtual testbed, we show that the implementation imposes minor overheads over existing routing infrastructure.