A Framework-Based Approach to the Development of Network-Aware Applications

A Framework-Based Approach to the Development of Network-Aware Applications (1998)

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by J. Bolliger , T. Gross

Venue:	IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Citations:	83 - 10 self

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@ARTICLE{Bolliger98aframework-based,
    author = {J. Bolliger and T. Gross},
    title = {A Framework-Based Approach to the Development of Network-Aware Applications},
    journal = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering},
    year = {1998},
    volume = {24},
    pages = {376--390}
}

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Abstract

Abstract — Modern networks provide a QoS (quality of service) model to go beyond best-effort services, but current QoS models are oriented towards low-level network parameters (e.g., bandwidth, latency, jitter). Application developers, on the other hand, are interested in quality models that are meaningful to the end-user and therefore struggle to bridge the gap between network and application QoS models. Examples of application quality models are response time, predictability, or a budget (for transmission costs). Applications that can deal with changes in the network environment are called network-aware. A network-aware application attempts to adjust its resource demands in response to network performance variations. This paper presents a framework-based approach to the construction of networkaware programs. At the core of the framework is a feedback loop that controls the adjustment of the application to network properties. The framework provides the skeleton to address two fundamental challenges for the construction of network-aware applications: (i) how to find out about dynamic changes in network service quality and (ii) how to map applicationcentric quality measures (e.g., predictability) to network-centric quality measures (e.g., QoS models that focus on bandwidth or latency). Our preliminary experience with a prototype network-aware image retrieval system demonstrates the feasibility of our approach. The prototype illustrates that there is more to network-awareness than just taking network resources and protocols into account and raises questions that need to be addressed (from a software engineering point of view) to make a general approach to network-aware applications useful.

Keyphrases

network-aware application framework-based approach prototype network-aware image retrieval system networkaware program dynamic change network environment network service quality network resource application developer low-level network parameter network property best-effort service application qos model response time general approach fundamental challenge resource demand quality model current qos model network-aware application attempt feedback loop network performance variation network-centric quality measure preliminary experience application quality model abstract modern network applicationcentric quality measure transmission cost software engineering point qos model