Middleware 2005 - Demonstration Overlay Networks – Implementation by Specification

Implementing overlay software is non-trivial. Current projects build overlays or intermediate frameworks on top of low-level networking abstractions. This leaves implementing the topologies, their maintenance and optimisation strategies, and the routing to the developer. The program committee of the Middleware conference 2005 has accepted a paper by the author that presents a novel approach to overlay implementation [3]. This approach, named “Node Views”, abstracts from low-level issues like I/O and message handling. Instead, it moves ranking nodes and selecting neighbours into the heart of the overlay software development process. It decouples maintenance components in overlay software and allows implementing them in a generic, configurable way for pluggable integration in frameworks. We will additionally present our work in the course of a demo session. Our prototype is nearing completion and we believe that a visual presentation will reinforce the impact of these new overlay design techniques.