A Principled Approach to the Management of Overlay Networks Using Reflection

Overlay networks could be defined as a technique used by application developers to create virtual networks that suit their (applications´) operating environment. Overlay networks are developed on top of physical networks and are typically used in distributed systems such as client-server applications, cloud computing and peer-to-peer networks. Recent implementations of peer-to-peer applications such as file sharing and Voice over IP (VoIP) have increasingly meant that overlay networks have almost become ubiquitous. As a result, future overlay networks will increasingly coexist on the same node. A number of middleware frameworks such as GRIDKIT [1], P2 [2] and ODIN-S [3] currently offer support for the co-existence of multiple overlay networks. However, co-existing overlay networks interfere with each other´s performance either through competition for resources or the lack of collaboration between them. This paper introduces a principled approach called virtual overlays which uses reflection to manage competition and collaboration between co-existing overlay networks in a way that is expressive, flexible, configurable and dynamically adaptable.