Abstract
The authors use P2P communications for building a powerful service oriented architecture capable of orchestrating advanced services. Underlying mechanisms can be supported even when subject to the high churn of some of the P2P elements. This work proposes a management framework that ties together P2P and SOC technologies to reach new work scenarios for the future Internet. P2P nodes dynamically form networks to emulate the services offered by a traditional “dedicated” server. Such behavior of P2P-based services is highly dynamic and requires the use of a real-time control plane such as the one proposed in this chapter. The authors therefore argue that a policy based management middleware offers a good alternative for such endeavor. They recommend that emerging SOC/SOA development should consider the addition of a special intermediary component that transparently deals with highly dynamic P2P nodes and services as they expect these to become the rule rather than the exception in certain scenarios. Although not all the issues have been dealt with here in this chapter, it can certainly be seen as a step in the right direction.
TopBackground
Current technologies and solutions form the basis for facing the challenge of managing the Future Internet.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Future Internet: Refers to future networking and telecommunication technologies and applications characterized by high integration via IP protocol, dynamic behavior of endpoints (due mobility, for example) and user-centric services, among other features.
Ambient Networks (AN): Ambient Networks are beyond-4G telecommunication networks aimed at supporting seamless access to network resources for roaming mobile users (although AN architecture being not limited to wireless technologies).
Network Composition: It is a feature envisioned in the AN project defined as dynamically merging, in a logical sense, networks belonging to different administrative domains. Management functions of merged networks should cooperate to allow transparent and almost-instantaneous access to resources to users of the networks involved, with minimal human interference.
Peer-to-Peer Communication (P2P): P2P is a networking paradigm where collaborating peers or partners play similar roles in the communication, in opposition to the Client/Server paradigm that defines clear functions for the parties involved: either consume or provide resources. In the P2P paradigm, the parties involved are assumed to both consume and provide services.
Service Composition: Consists of aggregating services — often from diverse providers —, in order to provide a more specific, value-added service.
Service Orchestration: It is a service composition paradigm where the execution of subordinate services is coordinated in a centralized fashion. It is often referred to as a concrete service composition, which can be executed by a service engine or container.
Policy Based Management (PBM): PBM comprises a number of technologies that employ so-called “policies” (rules or guidelines) provided by the system administrator to govern information systems and networks behavior. PBM systems are expected to support changes in policies in runtime without the need to stop the service or system recoding.
Service Oriented Architectures (SOA): Defines a development paradigm which has loosely coupled, distributed modules called “services” as its build blocks. Services offer clear interfaces through which service consumers can discover and make use of them.
Service Choreography: It is a service composition paradigm where no centralized entity is responsible for coordinating the execution of the subordinate services. It is often seen as an abstract service composition since it defines cooperation (e.g., message exchanging) rules but no actual execution flow.