Selecting Concurrent Network Architectures at Runtime

The current Internet architecture nicely structures functionality into layers of protocols. While this reduces complexity, many tweaks have emerged because of the architecture's limited flexibility. Cross Layer Functionality corrodes the layer boundaries, intermediate layers had to be introduced for protocols like MPLS and IPsec, and middleboxes - like in case of NAT - further complicate the interaction of protocols. To overcome these problems, many publications have proposed modular solutions or protocol composition, allowing software engineering ideas to improve protocol design. Other publications state that instead of choosing a single common network architecture for the Future Internet, it might be advantageous to run multiple different architectures in parallel. We combine both approaches and make it possible to rapidly create and run different network architectures in parallel. While this allows for simplified Future Internet development, it requires the network architecture to be dynamically chosen. This paper not only presents a node architecture enabling the parallel operation of different network architectures but also introduces algorithms for their selection at runtime.