Language of choice: On embedding choice-related semantics in a realizable protocol

Choice-based future Internet architectures, in which choice is offered for fine-grained network services to different traffic flows, have been proposed in the literature. Such choice-based architectures have been envisioned in literature as realizing an economy of networking services that can give rise to a beneficial ecosystem of providers and consumers over time. Such an architecture would use an economy plane to allow service providers and customers to exchange information about available service alternatives, complete purchase and payment interactions, and use purchased services. While samples of such semantics have been proposed in these previous works, embedding them in specific realizations by defining messages to be exchanged and their syntax is a separate challenge, in which the needs for efficiency, ease of implementation, and extensibility, all need to be balanced. In this paper, we present the design of a possible embedding of the entities, and a functionally complete set of interactions, comprising a choice-based architecture. Further, to show the practical realizability of this embedding, we report on a prototype built on the GENI environment, and our experience in confronting real-world design issues. The prototype showcases new service models for value-added transport in such an architecture.