A. Innovative Claims

We completed the implementation of a broadband kernel, a flexible open programmable networking platform, for creating, deploying and managing sophisticated next generation multimedia services called xbind. xbind currently supports the creation, deployment and management of networked multimedia services (e.g., virtual networks, multicast, etc.) and mechanisms for efficient resource allocation (e.g., QOS routing, admission control, QOS mapping, etc.) The building blocks of the broadband kernel consist of a set of objects typically modeling the underlying resources (“hardware”) and a set of objects modeling controllers (“software resources ” belonging to the network control space). We propose to investigate the feasibility of deploying a set of controllers on an arbitrarily defined set of resources in such a way as to realize a fully operational service architecture controlling those resources. As a proof of concept we propose to demonstrate the deployment of virtual networks on demand that exhibit distinctive architectural characteristics and investigate trade-offs of location and degree of cooperation and competition among the various controllers that define the architecture