The pervasive distribution of digital devices (e.g., laptops, mobile phone, digital camera, music players, RFID, sensors, smart cards) will create a large distributed computational and networking environment that will foster the evolution towards ecosystems of resource, services and data. Dynamicity and ubiquity of said future environments pose new challenges and requirements that current infrastructures cannot meet. Several limitations have to be overcomed, for instance: low flexibility and scalability, missing optimized cross-layer/cognitive (and cross-domain) resources allocation, limited potentialities of fostering new business models and above all a brittle integration of IT and network solutions/technologies. This paper proposes a systemic design to develop a future network architecture overcoming said limitations. Architecture is based on three main decentralised planes: the Knowledge Plane (KP), the Network Control Plane (NCP) and the Resource Control Plane (RCP). The three planes are implemented a distributed way and interact with each other (through a signalling overlay) for the allocation and management of virtual (communication, storage and processing) resources in overlay networks: novelty stands in coupling some enabling technologies with the creation and use of a cross-layer network knowledge. Paper also presents, as an example, some simulation results showing the optimal allocation of resources for the proposed architecture. Eventually, recommendations and future work conclude the paper.

Peer Reviewed