Reliable server pooling for future combat systems

In a highly mobile ad-hoc environment, traditional client-server sessions may be disrupted due to lossy and intermittent conditions. The reliable server pooling (RSP) is a comprehensive framework to handle session failures and increase the system's availability. It is an overlay network providing several reliability services, from simple server selection to a full session-failover capability. In FCS networks, server pools can be used to reliably replicate services such as mobile command and control, redundant databases and proxies, situational awareness, tactical public key infrastructure (TPKI), DNS, PCS backbone management, and bandwidth brokerage. One approach to RSP is the IETF RSerPool. Simulation experiments indicate that the performance of the RSerPool worsens rapidly as the networks become more unreliable or mobile due to two main shortcomings: the inaccuracy of the failure-detection mechanism for pooled servers, and high overhead of finding name servers. We introduce and evaluate alternative mechanisms that overcome these problems.