Virtual Internet Connections Over Dynamic Peer-to-Peer Overlay Networks Telesphore Tiendrebeogo, Damien Magoni University of Bordeaux – LaBRI Bordeaux, France {tiendreb,magoni}@labri.fr Oumarou Si´ e University of Ouagadougou Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso sie@univ-ouaga.bf Abstract—Current Internet applications are still mainly bound to the state of their transport layer connections. This prevents many features such as end-to-end security and mobility from functioning smoothly in a dynamic network. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture for decoupling communications from their supporting devices. This enables the complete separation of the devices, applications and users. Our architecture is based on a peer-to-peer overlay network that provides its own distributed hash table system. Preliminary simulation results show that our proposal is feasible. Keywords-Overlay; virtual connection; distributed hash table. I. I NTRODUCTION Current Internet communications are still based on the paradigms set by the TCP/IP protocol stack 30 years ago and they are lacking several key features. Although many efforts have been done during the last decade to provide mobility, security and multicasting, those efforts have mainly been focused on the equipments themselves (e.g., computers, smart phones, routers, etc.) and not on the logical part of the communications. In fact, although we already have a lot of mobile equipments, it is still impossible to transfer a com- munication from one device to another without interrupting the communication (and thus start it all over again). In the same way, although we have the choice of many applications for carrying one task, it is also still impossible to transfer a communication from one application to another without interrupting the communication. Layer 2 device mobility (e.g., WiFi, WiMAX, 3G and beyond) is nowadays well supported but users still have a very limited access to upper layers mobility (e.g., MobileIP, TCP-Migrate). In this paper we propose and describe a new architecture for using virtual connections setup over dynamic P2P overlay networks built on top of the TCP/IP protocol stack of the participating devices. We have called this architecture CLOAK (Covering Layers Of Abstract Knowledge). This architecture supports names for entities (i.e., users) and devices, virtual addresses for devices and logical sessions that enable a full virtualization of all kinds of Internet communications. The new semantics brought by our proposal open up many novel possi- bilities for Internet communications. The virtual connections setup and managed by our solution enable for instance the transparent handling of the breakdown and restore of transport layer connections (e.g., such as TCP or SCTP connections). The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Sec- tion II outlines the related previous work done on virtual connections. Section III presents the design and features of our architecture. Section IV describes its implementation. Section V presents some preliminary results obtained by simulations. Finally, we conclude the paper and present our future research directions. II. RELATED WORK Virtual connections, as we define them, can be considered as providing (among other benefits) transport layer connection mobility. Research on such transport layer connection mobility has mainly remained experimental up to now. Concerning the TCP connection management, several solutions have been pro- posed. TCP-Migrate [1], [2] developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides a unified framework to support address changes and connectivity interruptions. Mi- grate provides mobile-aware applications with a set of system primitives for connectivity re-instantiation. Migrate enables applications to reduce their resource consumption during peri- ods of disconnection and resume sessions upon reconnection. Rocks [3] developed at the University of Wisconsin, protect sockets-based applications from network failures, such as link failures, IP address changes and extended periods of discon- nection. Migratory TCP [4], developed at Rutgers University, is a transport layer protocol for building highly-available net- work services by means of transparent migration of the server endpoint of a live connection between cooperating servers that provide the same service. The origin and destination servers cooperate by transferring the connection state in order to accommodate the migrating connection. Finally, the Fault- Tolerant TCP [5], [6] developed at the University of Texas, allows a faulty server to keep its TCP connections open until it either recovers or it is failed over to a backup. The failure and recovery of the server process are completely transparent to client processes. However, all these projects only deal with TCP re-connection. They do not enable the total virtualization of a communication. They also do not allow to switch both applications and/or devices from any communicating user at will. 58 INTERNET 2011 : The Third International Conference on Evolving Internet Copyright (c) IARIA, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-61208-141-0