Design and analysis of a new distributed IP router framework

Recently, we have seen routers' life expectancy dramatically shortened as a result of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and enterprise companies equipment replacement patterns: new, high performance routers are usually introduced in the core of their network, pushing existing routers towards the network edge, with routers already at the edge being often decomissioned before the end of their hardware life cycle. Furthermore, ISPs' customers interconnection demands have become more difficult to meet considering that they might change in time and that ISPs not only need to provide an inteconnection link but also a whole network solution. For solving the previous problems, this thesis focuses to explore alternative ways to utilise routers which can further extend their serviceability life cycle while providing a flexible platform that can facilitate ISPs to meet customers interconnection demands. We investigate new methods that could allow us to decouple routers logical routing and forwarding functionalities from the hardware that implements them. In contrast with the traditional and well-known techniques for achieving the lat- ter, we employ an automatic configuration management approach that modifies dynamically the configurations of a set of routers which can further exploit their usefulness by using them in conjuncture. The previous approach relies on the flexibility that routers offer through their configuration interface, hence including most routers regardless its type and make. Our proposed approach is based on a routers management architecture, namely RoMa, aimed at hosting multiple and various routers through a set of interconnected routers. Such architecture not only considers to host routers using a single but multiple hardware chassis. To demonstrate the feasability of providing the means for building a logical router using multiple hardware routers represents the core of this thesis. For this, we have designed a logical entity called distributed IP router. We focus on two key issues for building this type of logical routers. First, supporting the intra-domain routing function in these logical entities. Second, provisioning such logicial entities with aggregated links. Our findings suggest that such logical routers are feasible and can provide new highly desirable features in comparison with standard routers, as it is the case of the aggregated links.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo