On flexible topology formation in publish-subscribe networks

In this work we analyze topology discovery and the procedure for joining the network in the information-centric context. We develop and evaluate such a network attachment procedure in an information-centric network utilizing the publish-subscribe paradigm for the data exchange. In our work the publish-subscribe concept is not only used as a communication means, but we aim at fully exploiting its characteristics for native merging of fine-grained network operations such as topology management and network connectivity establishment. Such an integration adds not only to the simplicity of the network and efficiency of the network information gathering, but includes the means for handling mobility issues. We examine the performance characteristics of the proposed solution particularly focusing on complexity and introduced message overhead. The evaluation results obtained from the testbed experiments show the outstanding performance in terms of delay, while the signaling overhead remains at a very low level.