Active control architecture implementing policy-based routing

Active Networks give users the ability to program the network. We propose a management architecture that takes advantage of this ability combined with the potentials of Policy-Based Routing. It allows active applications to manipulate the routing configuration (e.g. routing table entries) of a group of active nodes communicating with each other using an overlay. These nodes may observe and constantly monitor the quality of Internet paths between them, and pick the path that has the best quality. We demonstrate the potential benefits of this architecture by deploying a congestion recovery application, able to detect and recover from congestion by routing the packets via an alternative path.