Layering As Optimization Decomposition: Current Status and Open Issues

Network protocols in layered architectures have historically been obtained on an ad-hoc basis, and much of the recent cross-layer designs are conducted through piecemeal approaches. Network protocols may instead be holistically analyzed and systematically designed as distributed solutions to some global optimization problems in the form of generalized network utility maximization (NUM), providing insight on what they optimize and structures of the network protocol stack. This paper presents a short survey of the recent efforts towards a systematic understanding of "layering" as "optimization decomposition", where the overall communication network is modeled by a generalized NUM problem, each layer corresponds to a decomposed subproblem, and the interfaces among layers are quantified as functions of the optimization variables coordinating the subproblems. Furthermore, there are many alternative decompositions, each leading to a different layering architecture. Industry adoption of this unifying framework has also started. Here we summarize the current status of horizontal decomposition into distributed computation and vertical decomposition into functional modules such as congestion control, routing, scheduling, random access, power control, and coding. Key messages and methodologies arising out of many recent work are listed. Then we present a list of challenging open issues in this area and the initial progress made on some of them.