An overlay network for autonomous information discovery in the post-composition registries of ambient networks

Ambient Networks (ANs) is a new networking concept for beyond 3G. It was developed in the context of the AN project of the European Union Sixth Framework Program. Network composition is a core concept of ANs, envisioned to allow a level of network cooperation, which goes far beyond the static cooperation of today. It allows on-demand, autonomous, scalable, and uniform cooperation between heterogeneous networks. Ambient networks can host several registries (e.g. MIB and SQL database). When ANs compose, the hosted registries need to compose. Registry composition is a sub-process of network composition. Information discovery is a key feature of registry composition. Entities may need access to content hosted by a registry that was in a different network before composition. The interface of such a registry (e.g. SNMP and SQL) may be different from the one used by the interested entity. Our objective is to provide clients the ability to autonomously and seamlessly access the content of registries in the composed network. This paper proposes a solution based on an overlay network. We give background information on ambient networks, network composition, and registry composition. Related work is reviewed. The overlay network and its implementation are described, and its performance is evaluated.