Context-Based Name Resolution Servicefor the Next-Generation Internet

Rodolfo VillacaEngineering and Exact Sciences Department

Federal University of Espırito SantoSao Mateus, ES, Brazil

Email: rodolfovillaca@ceunes.ufes.br

Fabio Luciano Verdi, Mauricio Ferreira MagalhaesSchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering

State University of CampinasCampinas, SP, Brazil

Email: verdi, mauricio@dca.fee.unicamp.br

Abstract—With the advent of new communication technologiesand the ubiquity of wireless networks, computing devices havebecome portable and mobile, increasing the need to interconnectthem. The new generation of applications tend to be ubiquitousand context-aware. In the current Internet, the existing nameresolution service, the DNS, has a key role, since most of theapplications make use of a name resolution to obtain the IPaddress of a host. However, it is proven that the DNS does notadequately support the requirements of the new generation ofapplications. This paper presents an architecture for a context-based name resolution service, along with a review of its mainconcepts and related works.

I. INTRODUCTION

Currently, an issue under discussion is the definition of aname resolution service that meets the requirements of thenext-generation Internet. It is known that the current solution,the DNS, does not satisfactorily meet these requirements,and does not allow the adaptation of the names in differentcontexts.

It is considered that, in a next-generation Internet scenario,both the computer devices and its networks become ubiqui-tous. In this scenario, no matter the location of users andservices, they must always be accessible. Names are used asthe main reference for location and identification of users,services and objects in a network. It highlights the importanceof the name resolution service in the Internet. The namecontextualization enhances the expressiveness and increasesits flexibility, without loss of comprehension by the nameresolution service.

Proposals for next generation name resolution services aredivided into 3 categories: 1) DNS extensions, 2) developmentof new services, usually based on DHTs (Distributed HashTables), and 3) name-based routing. In developing this workwe also includes a discussion on the use of contexts in thename resolution service.

As the main contribution, we describe a model for a nameresolution service making use of ontologies for the descriptionof contexts, and context information (tags) from sensors andobservers outside the application, to allow the context deter-mination and to help the name resolution process. The mainidea of our proposal is to unbind names and domains and bindnames and contexts.

II. NAMES, ADDRESSES, CONTEXTS AND RESOLUTION

Shoch [1] distinguishes the terms name and address propos-ing a generic model in which the term “name” is used todescribe the desired object, while the term “address” is used toindicate the location of this object. Examples of named objectsare: processes, places, people, work stations and services. Themapping process between a name and an address is called“resolution”.

The namespace represents all the names that can be used todescribe objects. A namespace can be structured (hierarchical)or non-structured (flat).

Balakrishnan [2] considers that names, addresses and re-solution have three fundamental principles: 1) names must beassociated with only the relevant aspects of the named object,2) names should not impose restrictions on the named objectand, 3) resolution should be held in different contexts. Inour work, we define context as all the information needed tocharacterize objects in a communications network. Context-aware applications have the ability to obtain and use thisinformation.

The association between a name and a context influencesthe name resolution process, since different contexts causesdifferent associations between the names and its named objects(Fig. 1). In (a) we have the concept of a universal namespace,where all names are originated, but they are resolved indifferent contexts; in (b) there is one context and severalnamespaces. In this situation we can say that the names,although having different origins, have the same interpretationfor being in the same context; finally, in (c), we say that thenames are global, as there is only one context and a universalnamespace, as in DNS.

III. SCENARIOS

In our proposal for the context-based name resolution ser-vice, the only restriction imposed to the names is such that itmust be possible to extract some context information to helpthe resolution. Before starting the details of the proposal wewill describe some use cases:

• Suppose that a user has two contacts referenced by thename ”Mary”, one in his family and the other in hiswork. Through external information such as location,date, time, network and application, the name resolution

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Fig. 1. Contexts and Namespaces

may determine the context and distinguish one of the twopossible ”Mary”.

• Names may be used for naming services. Assuming thatthe most common services, such as ”Printing”, ”Authenti-cation”, ”Charging”, ”Internet”, for example, are namedin a standardized way, the context information may beused to differentiate the names in different networks.

• The context name resolution service can also be appliedin content networks. One possible scenario is the resolu-tion of the name ”Content”. Assuming that this contentexists in the same context that the user looking for it, thename can be resolved locally and found without the needof an external infrastructure as the DNS.

Each context is associated with a particular name resolutionservice, which may be interconnected with other services ona network as the Internet.

IV. ARCHITECTURE AND IMPLEMENTATION

The most important restriction to the implementation of thecontext-based name resolution service requires that it must bepossible to obtain the context information (tags) to assist thecontext determination. The name resolution process can bedivided into two phases: 1) the context determination, usingthe context information obtained from sensors and externalobservers; 2) the name resolution, translating it into a locatoror identifier, or even a record containing contact information.Figure 2 summarizes the two phase architecture.

The service proposed in this work provides the existence ofa context description layer, which interacts with sensors andexternal observers in order to obtain the context information.

Ontologies can be used to describe concepts and rela-tionships between objects in certain areas of knowledgement(contexts). Broens [3] suggests the service discovery usingontologies and context informations to assist in its recovery. Tocompose our context-based name resolution service we need:(i) an ontology description language, (ii) a repository and (iii)a reasoner, to carry out the relations between ontologies andcontext information (tags).

The ontology repository will be organized through an over-lay network exploring the relationships between ontologies forthe establishment of routing fingers. Each node of the overlaynetwork store ontologies having semantic relationships. These

Fig. 2. Name Resolution Process

relationships are defined in a top-level domain ontology,describing generic classifications and relationships betweencontexts, thus ensuring the network aggregation. This is similarto the the upper ontology presented in [4].

V. CONCLUSIONS AND RELATED WORKS

The beginning of this work has been with the proposal andimplementation of a next-generation Internet architecture [5].In this study we concluded the need for specification of anext-generation name resolution service. Ford [6] presents anarchitecture called UIA for personal names in personal deviceswith no context definition. Another study focused on namescustomization is presented in [7]. In this work names arecontext-based, but in a simple way, without using ontologies.

In the current stage we are implementing a prototype forvalidation of the requirements. The decision by ICANN re-garding gTLDs [8], can be seen as a first step to customize thenamespaces, whose implementation is still under discussion.

REFERENCES

[1] J. F. Shoch, “Inter-Network Naming, Addressing and Routing,” in 17thIEEE Conference on Computer Communication Networks, 1978.

[2] H. Balakrishnan, K. Lakshminarayanan, S. Ratnasamy, S. Shenker, I. Sto-ica, and M. Walfish, “A Layered Naming Architecture for the Internet,”in ACM SIGCOMM, September 2004.

[3] T. Broens, “Context-aware, Ontology based, Semantic Service Discovery,”Master’s thesis, University of Twente, Telematica Institute, Enschede, TheNetherlands, July 2004.

[4] T. Gu, D. Zhang, and H. K. Pung, “A two-tier semantic overlay net-work for p2p search,” in 13th International Conference on Parallel andDistributed Systems, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2007.

[5] L. B. de Paula, R. Villaca, F. Verdi, and M. Magalhaes, “A webservice-based network composition architecture for the next generationinternet,” in 5th International Workshop on Next Generation NetworkingMiddleware, Samos Island, Greece, September 2008.

[6] B. Ford, J. Strauss, C. Lesniewski-Laas, S. Rhea, F. Kaashoek, andR. Morris, “Persistent Personal Names for Globally Connected MobileDevices,” in Proc. of the 7th OSDI, May 2006.

[7] Y. C. Chung and D. Lee, “Non-anchored Unified Naming for UbiquitousComputing Environments,” in Proc. 6th IEEE Int. Conference on Perva-sive Computing and Communications, Washington, USA, March 2008.

[8] Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-program.htm, 2009.