New Models and Algorithms for Active Networks.
Danny Raz and Yuval Shavitt.

Abstract:
=========
In todays IP networks most of the network
control and management tasks are performed at the end points.
As a result, many important network functions cannot be optimized due to
lack of sufficient support from the network.  
The growing need for quality guaranteed services brought on 
suggestions to add more computational power to the network elements.  
 
This paper studies the algorithmic power of networks
whose routers are capable of performing complex tasks.
It presents a new model that captures the hop-by-hop datagram
forwarding mechanism deployed in todays IP networks, as well as the
ability to perform complex computations in network elements as proposed
in the active networks paradigm.  Using our framework, we present and
analyze distributed algorithms for basic problems that arise in the
control and management of IP networks.  These problems include:  route
discovery, message dissemination, topology discovery, and bottleneck
detection.

Our results prove that, although adding computation power to the
routers increases the message delay, it shortens the completion time for
many tasks.  The suggested model can be used to evaluate the
contribution of added features to a router, and allows the formal
comparison of different proposed architectures.