SCANDEX: Service Centric Networking for Challenged Decentralised Networks

Abstract

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) networks are decentralised networks built by an (often) amateur community. As DIY networks do not rely on the need for backhaul Internet connectivity, these networks are mostly a mix of both offline and online networks. Although DIY networks have their own homegrown services, the current Internet-based cloud services are often useful, and access to some services could be beneficial to the community. Considering that most DIY networks have challenged Internet connectivity, migrating current service virtualisation instances could face great challenges. Service Centric Networking (SCN) has been recently proposed as a potential solution to managing services more efficiently using Information Centric Networking (ICN) principles. In this position paper, we present our arguments for the need for a resilient SCN architecture, propose a strawman SCN architecture that combines multiple transmission technologies for providing resilient SCN in challenged DIY networks and, finally, identify key challenges that need to be explored further to realise the full potential of our architecture.