1. Simple Economic Management Approaches of
Overlay Traffic in Heterogeneous Internet Topologies
European Seventh Framework STREP FP7-2007-ICT-216259
http://www.smoothit.org
Information Flows in an Economic Aware Context
UZH, DoCoMo, TUD, AUEB, PrimeTel, AGH, ICOM, UniWue, TID
Session on Novel Networking and
Ioanna Papafili, http://nes.aueb.gr Relationship with Applications –
Network Economics and Services Lab The Value of Information Flows
Athens University of Economics and Business between Application and Networks
FIA Aalborg, May 10, 2012

2. The SmoothIT project - Economic Traffic Management (ETM)
• Context: SmoothIT focused on overlay application and p2p
– Addressed the Information Asymmetry problem
• Concept: ETM employs mechanisms addressing the incentives of players
– They are compatible to users’ benefit, but also function complementarily
to the self-organization of the overlay
• Objective: To bridge the information gap between overlay and underlay and
to optimize overlay traffic mutually beneficially for all: ISP, user, ASP 
– TripleWin: the system operates in an equilibrium point
– Traditional traffic optimization would aim at a global optimum of a single
combined optimization metric
• Results: ETM mechanisms indeed lead the system to desirable equilibria,
although a different mechanism can be appropriate in each case
– Are highly distributed and scalable
– Stimulate information sharing among players
• Next steps: Handle new types of overlay traffic stemming from
– Social networks, cloud applications, mobile applications
7/2/2012 2

3. The SmoothIT Information Service (SIS)
AS 65504
SIS
P9
AS 65510
AS 65508
SIS
AS 65509 P8
IP/MPLS transit P7
SIS SIS
P4 P5 P6
New P3
P2 P1 Candidates: P1,P2,…,P9
Peer
SIS: SmoothIT Information Service Sorted List: P1,P2,P3,P7,…
• Each SIS component can convey information between overlay and underlay
• E.g. overlay components interact with SIS to select “better” peers
• The application client can ignore SIS recommendations if not beneficial!
7/2/2012 3

4. SIS-compatible/-enabled ETM mechanisms
• BGP-based Locality Promotion
– Neighbors list provided by peer requesting ‘advice’
– A server provides proximity-related information/’advice’
• Insertion of ISP-owned Peer(s)
– Intervention of resourceful caches in the overlay, transparently or not
– Tranparent: Selected by regular peers only based on overlay criterion
(e.g. T4T)
– Non-transparent: Advertised by SIS (or possibly the overlay tracker)
• Promotion of Highly Active Peer(s)
– ISP boosts regular high activity peers’ capacity
– Evaluates their behavior, e.g. large seeding time
– Incentive for regular peers to act as IoPs
• All provide freedom to peers to decide whether they will adopt them
7/2/2012 4

5. Exchange of Information*
*accepted as a new seed in FIArch’s document on FI Design Principles
(collaboration with the FP7 SESERV project)
• Address the Information Asymmetry between layers and players
• Design for Tussle (introduced by D. D. Clark)
• Abstraction – Exposure – Collection – Assessment – Decision Making
• Aim at All-Win
ISP2 ISP1
Inter-layer overlay optimization tier-2 tier-1 ICN
max profit
overlay network
ISP3
tier-3
traffic matrix
overlay information global
QoS impact rendezvous
‘advice’ - abstract traffic demand
network information
ISP4 Inter-player
tier-2
underlay network
transit link
traffic management peering link
min operational cost rendezvous
7/2/2012 5

6. Thank you for your attention!
This research has been co-financed by the European
Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national
funds through the Operational Program "Education and
Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference
Framework (NSRF) – Research Funding Program:
Heracleitus II. Investing in knowledge society through
the European Social Fund.