Logical Networks: Towards Foundations for Programmable Overlay Networks and Overlay Computing Systems

We propose and discuss foundations for programmable overlay networks and overlay computing systems. Such overlays are built over a large number of distributed computational individuals, virtually organized in colonies, and ruled by a leader (broker) who is elected or imposed by system administrators. Every individual asks the broker to log in the colony by declaring the resources that can be offered (with variable guarantees). Once logged in, an individual can ask the broker for other resources. Colonies can recursively be considered as evolved individuals who can log in an outermost colony governed by another (super)-broker. Communications and routing intra-colonies goes through a broker-2-broker PKI-based negotiation. Every broker routes intraand interservice requests by filtering its resource routing table, and then by forwarding the request first inside its colony, and second outside, via the proper super-broker (thus applying an endogenous-first-estrogen-last strategy). Theoretically, queries are formulæ in first-order logic equipped with a small program used to orchestrate and synchronize atomic formulæ. When the client individual receives notification of all (or part of) the requested resources, then the real resource exchange is performed directly by the server(s) individuals, without any further mediation of the broker, in a pure peer-to-peer fashion. The proposed overlay promotes an intermittent participation in the colony, since peers can appear, disappear, and organize themselves dynamically. This implies that the routing process may lead to failures, because some individuals have quit, or are temporarily unavailable, or they were logged out manu militari by the broker due to their poor performance or greediness. We design, validate through simulation, and implement these foundations in a programmable overlay computer system, called Arigatoni. “Computer is moving on the edge of the Network...” [Jan Bosch, Nokia Labs, Keynote ARCS, LNCS 4415, 2007]