Management of Overlay Networks: A Survey

Overlay networks are becoming widely used for content delivery and file sharing services because they provide effective and reliable services by creating a virtual topology on top of existing networks. However, the management of overlay networks meet new challenges in the structure, security, services and deployment. This paper presents a survey of the overlay networks and correlated management. The management issues of two typical overlay networks: peer-to-peer and Virtual Private Network are investigated. As a conclusion, the management of overlay networks must import self-management (self-*) and intelligent strategies to deal with the complex management tasks, which are to deal with the dynamic, salability, resilient and security challenges on overlay networks.