An Instrumented Multi-Platform Overlay for Networked Systems Research

Goal

To enable CISE researchers to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate networked systems, services, and protocols using modern real-world devices and platforms.

Technical Approach: Sidecar Networking

Each device in the overlay network contains a software-base sidecar proxy , responsible for all networking. The overlay manager authenticates, configures, and gets telemetry from all proxies. Overlay network links are implemented via HTTPS between sidecar proxies. Each sidecar proxy implements the overlay network’s protocol.

Architecture

Architecture Diagram

Code and Sample Scenarios

IMO is under active development, and we have released several software versions for experimentation.

  • General IMO architecture

    Illustrative implementations of scenarios, including remote access, video streaming, Named Data Networking support, legacy DB access support, and policy-based routing. Includes the go-lang overlay manager and integrated Android client.

    Github Repository

  • Overlay Chat System

    A peer-to-peer chat system, enabling communication between multiple users over an overlay and AI models including GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and Mistral. Leverages lighter-weight web components and simpler management.

    Github Repository

  • Telemetry Visualization Example with Web Server

    Suitable for installation on a developer laptop using docker.

    Github Repository

Key Open-Source Technologies Used

Publications

  • Farkiani B, Liu F, Yang K, DeHart J, Parwatikar J, Crowley P. Hermes: A General-Purpose Proxy-Enabled Networking Architecture. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.13668. 2024 Nov 20. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.13668
  • Behrooz Farkiani, John DeHart, Jyoti Parwatikar, and Patrick Crowley. 2023. Mitigating Intermittent Links With Name-Based Networking. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Information-Centric Networking (ACM ICN '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 121–123. https://doi.org/10.1145/3623565.3623756
  • DeHart, John, et al. "General Purpose Overlay Network Using Sidecar Model in Presence of Intermittent Links with Monitoring." 2023 IEEE 31st International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP). IEEE, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICNP59255.2023.10355647

Join the Community

Click here to join the mailing list, to keep up with developments and events.