29521519
Linear Broadcast Routing
Abstract In this paper we examine the problem of performing broadcasts in networks where the messages are constrained to follow linear paths. Many high speed networks, where routing is done in specialized hardware, have this characteristic. We show that the general problem is NP-complete but find a polynomial time approximation algorithm which is guaranteed to provide a solution which is within twice the optimal. We also suggest some generalizations of this work and propose several open problems.
37293977
Mechanical Verification of Distributed Algorithms in Higher-Order Logic
The only way to verify the correctness of a distributed algorithm with a high degree of confidence is to construct a correctness proof that is so formal and rigorous as to be checkable by a machine. The chief aim of this paper is to show, via a simple but typical example, how such proofs can be constructed and checked using HOL—a mechanical theorem-proving system for higher-order logic. The secondary aim is to demonstrate a method for reasoning about distributed algorithms based on the notions of events and causality. The goal is to perform as much reasoning as possible in the events-and-causality view and then translate the results back to the processors-and-messages view, since the former is more abstract and easier to reason about than the latter. The example we use to illustrate our ideas is the verification of a simple distributed summation algorithm for trees. A companion paper [6] describes the formal graph theory needed for this task.
12857629
Simple Proof Techniques for Property Preservation via Simulation
Let s1 and s2 be two reactive systems related by simulation. For what kind of properties φ can one infer s1 ≒ φ (s1 satisfies φ) from s2 ≒ φ, or vice versa? This problem has been treated in the literature for various logics in which to express φ. In this paper we make two simple observations by which such results can be proved very easily: 
1. 
(1) proofs of property preservation can be made compositional, and 
 
2. 
(2) infinitary logics are very expressive. Neither observation is new, but together they yield modular proofs of nontrivial results.
33219681
Linear Broadcast Routing
14479349
Understanding and verifying distributed algorithms using stratified decomposition
Designers of autonomous distributed algorithms ( i.e., algorithms whose complete input is available before the start of execution) customarily refer to temporal ordering in describing the behavior of their algorithms-statements like “after A, task B is performed.” In the absence of an explicit termination detection for A built into the algorithm such a statement should be puzzling. However, the available proof methodologies do not seem to hinge on such statements. This paper provides firm theoretical ground for such as*Supported by NSF Presidential Young Investigators Award under grant DCR84-51396 and matching funds from IBM Faculty Development Award under grant D840622. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/ or specific permission.
14928068
Traffic engineering for MPLS-based virtual private networks
This paper considers the traffic engineering of MPLS-based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) with multiple classes of service in an offline and centralised setting. We focus on two main issues. Firstly, we point out that the one label switched path (LSP) per ingress-egress pair constraint can be relaxed for the case of MPLS-based VPNs due to the ease in classifying flows on a per-VPN basis. This allows us to use LSP with finer granularity and thus better load balancing. Secondly, we point out that the single objective traffic engineering formulations proposed in literature address only one particular aspect of the traffic engineering problem. In this paper, we propose a multiobjective traffic engineering problem which takes resource usage, link utilisation and number of LSPs into account. The proposed optimisation problem is NP-complete and involves a large number of variables. We propose an heuristic to solve this problem.
7989034
Internal popularity of streaming video and its implication on caching
As most proxy caches for streaming media cache only a part of the video, the most important issue for a caching algorithm is to determine which portion of the video should be cached. Due to different part of the video can have different popularity, the studying of the internal popularity characteristics of streaming videos is very important for the development of efficient cache mechanisms. In this paper, we showed that the internal popularity of the majority of the most popular videos obeys a k-transformed Zipf-like distribution through analyzing two 7-month long traces recorded at different streaming video servers of an entertainment video-on-demand provider. Based on this empirical internal popularity distribution model, we then proposed a new dynamical caching algorithm. The results of simulations proved that this algorithm can have better performance than algorithms based on other models and it has similar performance compare with fine-grained caching but requires significantly less state information.
14766680
QoS Driven Parallelization of Resources to Reduce File Download Delay
In this paper, we propose a novel approach for reducing the download time of large files over the Internet. Our approach, known as parallelized file transport protocol (P-FTP), proposes simultaneous downloads of disjoint file portions from multiple file servers. P-FTP server selects file servers for the requesting client on the basis of a variety of QoS parameters, such as available bandwidth and server utilization. The sensitivity analysis of our file server selection technique shows that it performs significantly better than random selection. During the file transfer, P-FTP client monitors the file transfer flows to detect slow servers and congested links and adjusts the file distributions accordingly. P-FTP is evaluated with simulations and real-world implementation. The results show at least 50 percent reduction in download time when compared to the traditional file-transfer approach. Moreover, we have also carried out a simulation-based study to investigate the issues related to large scale deployment of our approach on the Internet. Our results demonstrate that a large number of P-FTP users has no adverse effect on the performance perceived by non-P-FTP users. In addition, the file servers and network are not significantly affected by large scale deployment of P-FTP
34878054
Improving Data Transmission with Helping Nodes for Geographical Ad Hoc Routing
Ad hoc networks have been extensively deployed in recent years. In such networks, obtaining a high efficiency is difficult to achieve due to mobility. Many routing approaches have been proposed to improve the performance of ad hoc networks, including table-driven and demand-driven routing protocols. Geographic routing provides a suitable solution for large-scale and dynamic networks, and reduces link failure problems during packet routing. In wireless networks, nodes movement may cause a network partition, which hinders both data transmission and information availability within the network. Several schemes have been proposed for resolving the partition problem in wireless ad hoc networks. In general, the previous solutions either relied on the use of mobile devices with known trajectories or introduced additional specific mobile nodes. By contrast, this paper proposes a scheme for overcoming the problem of network partitions using only the available devices in the environment. With the scheme, the source node searches for another mobile node, designated as the helping node, which is able to meet the destination. The selected mobile node then carries the packet toward the destination. If the helping node changes its trajectory before it forwards the packet to the destination node, a hand-off scheme is activated and the data packet is transferred to another mobile node for onward transmission
1923772
An energy efficient select optimal neighbor protocol for wireless ad hoc networks
We propose two location-aware select optimal neighbor (SON) algorithms that are suitable for CSMA/CA based MAC protocols for wireless ad hoc networks. Both algorithms optimize the energy efficiency by reducing the effective number of neighbors and thus reduce the transmission power as well as the overhearing power consumption at irrelevant receivers. NS-2 simulations show that our algorithms can achieve about 28% and 38% average energy savings per node compared to CSMA/CA based MAC protocols such as IEEE 802.11.