Aspects for untangling cross-layer design and policy support

Programming language concepts have inspired some networking design decisions. For example, concepts such as object encapsulation and interface invocation have been borrowed, at the time of their adoption, from an already well established object oriented programming paradigm. The authors suggest in this paper that it may be time again to revisit emerging software engineering programming paradigms to learn from them. More specifically, this paper discusses the practical tangling problem, embedded in conventional layercoupling (linking) network software design and highlighted by recent research proposals for cross layer design. The adopted solution is based on the aspect-oriented programming paradigm. We show its programming efficiency, limitations and role in the seamless enforcement of multiple policy scenarios while emphasizing little design changes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.