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.