Gossiping on MANETs: the Beauty and the Beast

International audienceGossip protocols have emerged as a powerful technique for implementing highly scalable and robust services, such as information dissemination and aggregation. The fact that gossip protocols require very little or no structure to operate makes them particularly appealing to apply in dynamic systems, where topology changes are common (for instance, due to frequent faults or high churn rates). Therefore, gossip protocols seem particularly well fit to operate in wireless self-organizing networks. Unfortunately, these networks have a number of characteristics that impede the deployment of gossip protocols designed for wired networks. In this work we identify the inherent differences in communication between wired and wireless networks and their impact on the design and implementation of gossip protocols. In particular, our comparison includes drawing a distinction between the gossiping primitives suitable for each of these environments. In the context of this analysis, we conclude by presenting a list of open research questions