Clean Slate Research Projects
1.) Flow-level Models for the Internet
Internet research largely consists of a cycle involving design and validation. Of the two validation methodologies---simulation and theoretical modeling, simulation has been by far the better developed and, hence, the more successful. Indeed, the highly-used simulation platform ns allows detailed transaction-level modeling of the Internet. But, the very detail that has endeared ns to researchers has made it difficult to simulate large-scale networks...Read more
2.) Wireless Spectrum Usage
The FCC today maintains relatively tight control of spectrum access, through a variety of regulations and licensing programs. However, this is an artifact of the past more than a harbinger of the future. We propose a ``clean slate'' design of wireless spectrum allocation, to deal with a future where multiple devices will share resources across broad ranges of space, time, and frequency...Read more
3.) Fast Dynamic Optical Light Paths
The core of the Internet has evolved over the last 20 years. In the 80's and most of the 90's, IP packet traffic was adapted and carried in TDM circuits optimized for carrying telephony voice traffic. This trend was further continued with the addidtion of the WDM layer beneath the TDM layer...Read more
4.) Enterprise Network Security: Ethane
Ethane is a new architecture for enterprise networks which provides a powerful yet simple management model and strong security guarantees. Ethane allows network managers to define a single, network-wide, fine-grain policy, and then enforces it at every switch. Ethane policy is defined over human-friendly names (such as "bob, "payroll-server", or "http-proxy) and dictates who can talk to who and in which manner...Read more
5.) Rate Control Protocol
Rate Control Protocol (RCP) is a new congestion control algorithm designed for fast download times (i.e. aka user response times, or flow-completion times). Whereas other modifications to TCP (e.g. STCP, Fast TCP, XCP) are designed to work for specialized applications that use long-lived flows (scientific applications and supercomputer centers), RCP is designed for the typical flows of typical users in the Internet today....Read more
6.) The NetFPGA platform
The NetFPGA is an open platform and available to developers worldwide. Reference designs included with the system include an IPv4 router, an Ethernet switch, and a four-port NIC. Researchers have used the platform to build advanced network flow processing systems. Multiple platforms could be connected together to route packets over multiple subnets...Read more
7.) Web Security Projects
The Web Security Group is a part of the Stanford Security Laboratory. Research projects focus on various aspects of browser and web application security. Reasearch includes work on securing the web as an application platform, privacy protection, and improved authentication and authorization mechanisms for the web.
8.) Programmable Virtual Infrastructure for Virtual Worlds
Virtual world systems are very demanding on the network and push the Internet as currently deployed to its limits. We are using a programmable virtual infrastructure to investigate how we can build a better network to support such demanding applications. Using this infrastructure we're investigating ways to make virtual worlds more efficient, using multicast, high-level routing identifiers, and advanced content distribution systems... Read more
9.) OpenFlow
OpenFlow is a way for researchers to run experimental protocols in the networks they use every day. OpenFlow is based on an Ethernet switch or WiFi access point, with an internal flow-table and a standardized interface to add and remove flow entries. Network switch vendors will add OpenFlow to their switch products for deployment in college campus backbones and wiring closets.
OpenFlow is a pragmatic compromise: it allows researchers to run experiments on a variety of switches and access points in a uniform way at line-rate and with high port-density. Vendors do not need to expose the internal workings of their switches...
