Enhanced DNS message compression - Optimizing mDNS/DNS-SD for the use in 6LoWPANs

Abstract

With the integration of smart objects into the Internet with the help of tiny IP stacks, a direct connection between these objects and ordinary computational devices can be realized at the IP layer. As IP alone cannot ensure an automatic integration at the higher layers, an homogeneous access via services (e.g., discovery, self-configuration) for the Internet of Things vision should be provided for all connected device types. Multicast DNS and DNS Service Discovery are established and widely used standards in current IP-based networks to enable the discovery of devices and services at the application layer with DNS messages. To comply with the current Internet infrastructure, the lightweight implementation uBonjour makes mDNS and DNS-SD available on smart objects. As DNS does not meet the requirements of low data rate smart object networks, we propose to extend DNS with enhanced message compression mechanisms to effectively reduce the number of exchanged IP packets in 6LoWPANs while ensuring backward compatibility.