UFO: A Resilient Layered Routing Architecture

Report ID: TR-780-07
Author: Feamster, Nick / Rexford, Jennifer / Zhu, Yaping / Bavier, Andy
Date: 2007-06-00
Pages: 6
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Abstract:

Conventional wisdom has held that routing protocols cannot achieve both scalability and high availability. Despite scaling rather well, today's Internet routing system does not react quickly to changing network conditions. Overlay networks, on the other hand, can respond quickly to changing network conditions, but their reliance on aggressive probing does not scale to large topologies. This paper presents an Underlay Fused with Overlays (UFO), which achieves the best of both worlds by providing router support for overlay routing mechanisms. UFO comprises two changes to existing routers: (i) data-plane support for deflecting packets at the behest of the overlay and (ii) explicit notification about significant changes in network conditions. We discuss how these two mechanisms facilitate the scalable deployment of overlay routing mechanisms at the network layer.