Light, Efficient Multicast with B.I.E.R.
B.I.E.R. (Bit-Indexed Explicit Replication) is a multicast mechanism wherein the source of the multicast data packet (i.e. the ingress router which injects the multicast data packet into a B.I.E.R. domain) explicitly identifies and indicates (by way of a destination bit-vector) the destination set for each data packet. It then relies on each intermediate router to use the bit-vector for determining over which interfaces to retransmit the multicast packet, using an unicast routing protocol to provide shortest paths to these destinations. One advantage of B.I.E.R. is, that intermediate routers do not maintain per-flow, or per-group, state, and incur minimal incremental per-packing overheard. Another advantage is, that no group management protocols is required.
Research Topics
Epizeuxis has a working implementation of B.I.E.R. for the NS-3 simulator, and is in the process of rigorously modelling and testing B.I.E.R, as well as of developing optimisations, and innovative functional extensions (notably with respect to reliability, caching, service chaining), hereto. The objective of this research internship is to contribute to these ongoing activities, which includes:
- Contribute to maintaining the B.I.E.R. implementation, and conduct experimental evaluation of B.I.E.R. performance — in particular in comparison to other multicast approaches. This evaluation may be both within the network simulator, and in real-world deployment.
- Extend B.I.E.R. towards stateless reliable multicast — this includes contribution to specification and formalisation of a large set of potential reliable multicast extensions, to modelling, analysis, implementation, and evaluation of these, for applicability in diverse application scenarios.
- Study the use of B.I.E.R. for efficient content dissemination in wireless (potentially mobile) MESH, and sensor, networks.
- Study the use of B.I.E.R. for large-scale data dissemination.
Candidate Qualifications and Skills
- The working language is English, thus a high level of English (written and oral) is required.
- Strong background in networking and communications is required.
- Being at ease with programming (particularly in C/C++) is required.
- The ability to work efficiently and autonomously, in a multi-cultural team, is required.
- Experience with network simulators (NS-3) is appreciated.
- Experience with Linux kernel programming is a bonus.
Period & Practicalities
- Starting date: Either early spring, or early Fall, 2017. Duration: 5-6 months.
- Contact: BIER-internship@epizeuxis.net