NETCOM Research Group

Throughout its history, the Internet community has faced the challenge of providing the scalability needed to enable it to cope with the growth imposed by its own success. Moreover, new technologies boost the amount of information that the network can course, as well as the number of users connected to the net. For instance, the deployment of network core using optical technology provides an increased transmission capability and the new Internet Protocol generation (a.k.a. IPv6) multiplies in several orders of magnitude the number of users that can obtain global connectivity. Other relevant aspects related to the scalability of the systems include the provision of mechanisms to assure the quality of the provided service, both at the network level (DiffServ) and at the different link levels. The objective of this project is the analysis and evaluation of the scalability challenges faced by the actual Internets due to the adoption of these new technologies and the proposal of alternative solutions to them. Several aspect of the problem will be explored as follows: - Access network scalability (EPON technology) and Transport Network Scalability (including switching, OPS, OBS, ASON, GMPLS, OIF, optical network routing)- Network layer-link layer interaction scalability (the study will be focused on the mapping between the QoS levels available in the involved link layer technologies (WDM, WLAN and Ethernet) and those used by IPv6 QoS mechanisms).- TCP/IP scalability. Mechanism to provide multi-homed site support and ISP migration without imposing additional volume in the default free zone routing tables. The impact of the enhanced transmission capabilities in the TCP protocol will also be studied and optimization will be proposed.All these studies will be validated by means of tests and/or simulations, in two stages: in a first stage, local tests will be carried out by the partner involved in the particular deployment. The second stage will deal with a common trial, that will integrate, in a single testbed, all the previously developed mechanisms in order to validate scalability on a global basis.