Impact of Sensor Networks on Future InterNet Design

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Impact of Sensor Networks on Future InterNet
Design

• David E. Culler
• University of California, Berkeley
• culler_at_cs.berkeley.edu
• Arched Rock Corporation
• dculler_at_archedrock.com
• NSF FIND Info Meeting
• 12-5-2005

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What does the Internet look like in 10 years?
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In 10 years

• 90 of the nodes on the Internet will embedded
  devices connected to the physical world
• Universal, host-host file-transfer and console
  access is the dominant usage pattern..
• NOT!
• So does it make sense to pay attention to the
  characteristics of these kind of nodes and
  applications in designing the future Internet?

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Canonical Sensor Net Architecture Today
Patch Network
Sensor Node
Sensor Node
Sensor Patch
Gateway
Gateway
Transit Network (IP or not)
Access point - Base station - Proxy
Verification links
Other information sources
Data Service

• An Analysis of a Large Scale Habitat Monitoring
  Application, Szewczyk, Polastre, Mainwaring,
  Anderson, and Culler, Sensys04

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The Next Tier
Clients
Servers
Internet

• Small sensors will be the most common nodes on
  the internet
• How will they be represented and accessed?

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How will SensorNets and IP play together?
XML / RPC / REST / SOAP / OSGI
?
HTTP / FTP / SNMP
TCP / UDP
IP
802.15.4, CC,
802.11
Ethernet
Sonet
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Full IP stack throughout
XML / RPC / REST / SOAP / OSGI
HTTP / FTP / SNMP
TCP / UDP
IP
802.15.4, CC,
802.11
Ethernet
Sonet
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Beware IP hype

• Transmitting HTML over a wireless connection to a
  serial port attached to a PC is NOT running IP on
  the sensor network

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Where has Internet Research Reached and
struggled?

• Aggregate communication gt Multicast
• Resource constraints gt QoS, DIFFSERV
• Communicate with data or logical services, not
  just devices gt URNs (DHTs?)
• Mobility gt MobileIP, MANET
• In-network processing and storage gt ActiveNets
• Intermittent connectivity gt DTN ???

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What are the main characteristics of Sensor
Networks?

• Aggregate communication
• dissemination, data collection, aggregation
• Resource constraints
• Limited bandwidth, limited storage, limited
  energy
• Communicate with data or logical services, not
  just devices
• Datacentric
• Mobility
• Devices moving, tags, networks moving through
  networks
• In-network processing and storage
• Really
• Intermittent connectivity
• Low-power operation, out of range, obstructions

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Facing these challenges

• Today, we use a wide range of ad hoc, application
  specific techniques in the SensorNet patch
• Zillion different low-power MACs
• Many link-specific, app-specific multihop routing
  protocols
• Epidemic dissemination, directed diffusion,
  synopsis diffusion,
• All sorts of communication scheduling and power
  management techniques

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Edge Network Approach
XML / RPC / REST / SOAP / OSGI
HTTP / FTP / SNMP
TCP / UDP
IP
802.15.4, CC,
802.11
Ethernet
Sonet
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Hacking it in may not be so bad

• Security
• No IP to the nodes, attacks have to get through
  the gateway or be physically close
• Namespace management
• Name nodes, networks, services
• Hosts, URLs,
• Mask intermittent connectivity
• Terminate IP on the powered side
• Loosely couple, energy aware protocols on the
  other
• Distillation proxies
• Small binary packets where constrained
• Expanded to full text, XML, HTML, web services
• Rich suite of networking techniques in the Patch
  unimpeded by the ossification of the rest

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Rethinking at Layer 7
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Opportunity to rethink more deeply

• No dusty-decks yet
• Not a bunch of laptops running around with their
  sockets open trying to route through other
  laptops running around
• Meaningful set of applications and associated
  traffic loads
• Environments, individual objects, interactions
• Chance to think through control as well as
  monitoring
• Physical embedding matters
• Techniques are likely to apply to the rest of the
  Internet

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Traditional Analysis
Delivered Performance
Offered Load
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Analysis that really matters
Reliability
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SensorNets need the Wisdom of the Internet
Architecture

• Design for change!
• Network protocols must work over a wide variety
  of links
• Links will evolve
• Network protocols must work for a variety of
  applications
• Applications will evolve
• Provide only simple primitives
• Dont confuse the networking standard with a
  programming methodology
• Dont try to lock-in your advantage in the spec
• Open process
• Rough consensus AND running code

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XETF (Xternet Engineering and Technology Forum)
???

• Mission
• Foster an open, innovative, and technically sound
  ecosystem around interconnecting the physical
  world with modern networking and information
  technology through the creation of technical
  documents, protocols, reference implementations
  and APIs.
• Structure
• Lean. Volunteer BOD, steering comm., working
  groups.
• Membership
• Individuals, corporate, academic, and govt
• Participation
• Open. Role determined by contribution.
• IP Policy
• Non-confidential. Disclosure and Contribution
  process.
• Companies can develop own implementation.
• BSD? Apache-like credit? MPL? LGPL?
• Output
• RFC-like documents, reference implementations,
  forum for exchange and viz.
• Rough consensus AND running code

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Uniting long-lost relatives
Instrumentation Computers
General Purpose Computing
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Tides of Change
Innovation
Log Stuff
The Future Internet probably exists today go
find it
Time
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Discussion
Thanks