CLiSuite: simplifying the development of cross-layer adaptive applications

Abstract

Mobile multimedia applications often need to adapt in real-time to changes in the network. Such cross-layer adaptation mechanisms retrieve and analyse data from the underlying protocols, e.g., at the link layer. This destroys the independence of applications from network technology that is provided by IP, i.e., applications are "hard-wired" to the lower-level protocols they adapt to. We developed CLiSuite to re-create this transparency and at the same time simplify development of cross-layer adaptive applications. CLiSuite enables applications to perform protocol independent cross-layer adaptations through the concept of protocol independent network states and their mapping to protocol specific data. Adaptive application development is simplified by relieving the developer from understanding the details of the lower layer protocols. Efficiency is achieved using core techniques from complex event processing and source filtering. Our ns-3 implementation and extensive simulation studies with two adaptive applications and several network protocols demonstrate the advantages and efficiency of CLiSuite.