Active Element Network with P2P Control Plane

Multi-point data distribution for synchronous multimedia communication poses interesting problem for networking environment usually implemented by either native or virtual multicast. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a scalable network of Active Elements (AE) that implements user-empowered virtual-multicast overlay network for synchronous data distribution and processing in the network. The AE network is based on strict separation of control plane and data plane. The control plane is organized as peer-to-peer network in order to achieve robustness and user-empowered approach while sacrificing efficiency to some extent. The data plane which handles the actual data distribution is optimized for efficiency and allows pluggable implementation of different distribution models. We present a prototype implementation with control plane based on JXTA peer-to-peer substrate and evaluate its behavior, robustness, and efficiency. We also describe some pilot applications the AEs network can be used with.