Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) Page
The RSPLIB Project
University of Essen / Institute for Experimental Mathematics / Computer Networking Technology Group / Thomas Dreibholz
Latest News Looking for a large-scale, realistic Internet testbed infrastructure for research on multi-homed systems (like RSerPool and SCTP applications)? Have a look at the NorNet project website here!
Happy new year!
New stable version 3.0.1 is available now!
The second release candidate for the upcoming version 3.0.0 is available now!
Version 3.0.0 is coming soon. A new release candidate is available for download now!
Our cooperation project with Hainan University on RSerPool optimizations has been awarded with the "Scientific Research Accomplishments of Institutions of Higher Education of Hainan Province Award". A scan of the award document, including an English translation, can be found here!
I have been awarded for my work on RSerPool with the award "Wissenschaftspreis der Sparkasse Essen".
RSerPool/RSPLIB presentation to software developers and press in Haikou, Hainan/China.
The development and standardization of an application-independent server pooling architecture has been set as the goal of the IETF RSerPool WG. As a result, the working group has created their concept Reliable Server Pooling, abbreviated as RSerPool, which at the moment consists of eight RFCs, several Internet Drafts and our prototype RSPLIB as reference implementation.
As key requirements to the Reliable Server Pooling architecture, the following points has been identified:
The RSerPool solution may not require a significant amount of resources (e.g. CPU power or memory). In particular, it should be possible to realize RSerPool-based systems also on low-power devices like mobile phones, PDAs and embedded devices.
Real-time services like telephone signalling have very strict limitations on the duration of failovers. In the case of component failures, it may be necessary that a "normal" system state is re-established within a duration of just a few hundreds of milliseconds. In telephone signalling, such a feature is in particular crucial when dealing with emergency calls.
Providing services like distributed computing, it is necessary to manage pools of many hundreds or even thousands of servers (e.g. animation rendering pools). The RSerPool architecture must be able to efficiently handle such pools. But the amount and size of pools are limited to a company or organization. In particular, it is not a goal of RSerPool to handle the global Internet in one pool set.
It must be possible to easily adapt the RSerPool architecture to future applications. In particular, this means to have the possibility to add new server selection procedures. That is, new applications can define special rules on which server of the pool is the most appropriate to use for the processing of a request (e.g. the least-used server). The configuration effort of RSerPool components (e.g. adding or removing servers) should be as small as possible. In the ideal case, the configuration should happen automatically, i.e. it should e.g. only be necessary to turn on a new server and it will configure automatically.
The figure above shows the building blocks of the RSerPool architecture, which has been defined by the IETF RSerPool WG in RFC 5351. In the terminology of RSerPool a server is denoted as a Pool Element (PE). In its Pool, it is identified by its Pool Element Identifier (PE ID), a 32-bit number. The PE ID is randomly chosen upon a PE's registration to its pool. The set of all pools is denoted as the Handlespace. In older literature, it may be denoted as Namespace. This denomination has been dropped in order to avoid confusion with the Domain Name System (DNS). Each pool in a handlespace is identified by a unique Pool Handle (PH), which is represented by an arbitrary byte vector. Usually, this is an ASCII or Unicode representation of the pool, e.g. "DownloadPool" or "WebServerPool".
Each handlespace has a certain scope (e.g. an organization or company), which is denoted as Operation Scope. It is an explicit non-goal of RSerPool to manage the global Internet's pools within a single handlespace. Due to the limitation of operation scopes, it is possible to keep the handlespace "flat". That is, PHs do not have any hierarchy in contrast to the DNS with its top-level and sub-domains. This constraint results in a significant simplification of the handlespace management.
Within an operation scope, the handlespace is managed by redundant Registrars. In literature, this component is also denoted as ENRP Server or Name Server. Since "registrar" is the most expressive term, this denotation is used here. PRs have to be redundant in order to avoid a PR to become a single point of failure (SPoF). Each PR of an operation scope is identified by its Registrar ID (PR ID), which is a 32-bit random number. It is not necessary to ensure uniqueness of PR IDs. A PR contains a complete copy of the operation scope's handlespace. PRs of an operation scope synchronize their view of the handlespace using the Endpoint HaNdlespace Redundancy Protocol (ENRP) defined in RFC 5353. Older versions of this protocol use the term Endpoint Namespace Redundancy Protocol; this naming has been replaced to avoid confusion with DNS, but the abbreviation has been kept. Due to handlespace synchronization by ENRP, PRs of an operation scope are functionally equal. That is, if any of the PRs fails, each other PR is able to seamlessly replace it.
By using the Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP), defined in RFC 5352, a PE can add itself to a pool or remove it from by requesting a registration or deregistration from an arbitrary PR of the operation scope. In case of successful registration, the PR chosen for registration becomes the PE's Home-PR (PR-H). A PR-H not only informs the other PRs of the operation scope about the registration or deregistration of its PEs, it also monitors the availability of its PEs by ASAP Keep-Alive messages. A keep-alive message by a PR-H has to be acknowledged by the PE within a certain time interval. If the PE fails to answer within a certain timeout, it is assumed to be dead and immediately removed from the handlespace. Furthermore, a PE is expected to re-register regularly. At a re-registration, it is also possible for the PE to change its list of transport addresses or its policy information (to be explained later).
To use the service of a pool, a client – called Pool User (PU) in RSerPool terminology – first has to request the resolution of the pool's PH to a list of PE identities at an arbitrary PR of the operation scope. This selection procedure is denoted as Handle Resolution. For the case that the requested pool is existing, the PR will select a list of PE identities according to the pool's Pool Member Selection Policy, also simply denoted as Pool Policy. RFC 5356 defines some standard pool policies.
Possible pool policies are e.g. a random selection (Random) or the least-loaded PE (Least Used). While in the first case it is not necessary to have any selection information (PEs are selected randomly), it is required to maintain up-to-date load information in the second case of selecting the least-loaded PE. By using an appropriate selection policy, it is e.g. possible to equally distribute the request load onto the pool's PEs.
After reception of a list of PE identities from a PR, a PU will write the PE information into its local cache. This cache is denoted as PU-side Cache. Out of its cache, the PU will select exactly one PE – again by applying the pool's selection policy – and establish a connection to it by using the application's protocol, e.g. HTTP over SCTP or TCP in case of a web server. Over this connection, the service provided by the server can be used. For the case that the establishment of the connection fails or the connection is aborted during service usage, a new PE can be selected by repeating the described selection procedure. If the information in the PU-side cache is not outdated, a PE identity may be directly selected from cache, skipping the effort of asking a PR for handle resolution. After re-establishing a connection with a new PE, the state of the application session has to be re-instantiated on the new PE. The procedure necessary for session resumption is denoted as failover procedure and is of course application-specific. For an FTP download for example, the failover procedure could mean to tell the new FTP server the file name and the last received data position. By that, the FTP server will be able to resume the download session. Since the failover procedure is highly application-dependent, it is not part of RSerPool itself, though RSerPool provides far-reaching support for the implementation of arbitrary failover schemes by its Session Layer mechanisms.
To make it possible for RSerPool components to configure automatically, PRs can announce themselves via UDP over IP multicast. These announces can be received by PEs, PUs and other PRs, allowing them to learn the list of PRs currently available in the operation scope. The advantage of using IP multicast instead of broadcast is that this mechanism will also work over routers (e.g. LANs connected via a VPN) and the announces will – for the case of e.g. a switched Ethernet – only be heard and processed by stations actually interested in this information. For the case that IP multicast is not available, it is of course possible to statically configure PR addresses.
RSerPool is a completely new protocol framework. To make it possible for existing specialized or proprietary server pooling solutions to iteratively migrate to an RSerPool-based solution, it is mandatory to provide a migration path. For clients without support for RSerPool, the RSerPool concept provides the possibility of a Proxy PU (PPU). A PPU handles requests of non-RSerPool clients and provides an intermediation instance between them and the RSerPool-based server pool. From a PE's perspective, PPUs behave like regular PUs. Similar to a PPU allowing the usage of a non-RSerPool client, it is possible to use a Proxy PE (PPE) to continue using a non-RSerPool server in an RSerPool environment.
The figure above shows the protocol stack of PR, PE and PU. The ENRP protocol is only used for the handlespace synchronization between PRs, all communications between PE and PR (registration, re-registration, deregistration, monitoring) and PU and PR (handle resolution, failure reporting) is based on the ASAP protocol. The failover support, based on an optional Session Layer between PU and PE, is also using ASAP. In this case, the ASAP protocol data (Control Channel) is multiplexed with the application protocol's data (Data Channel) over the same connection. By using the Session Layer functionality of ASAP, a pool can be viewed as a single, highly available server from the PU's Application Layer perspective. Failure detection and handling is mainly handled automatically in the Session Layer, transparent for the Application Layer.
The transport protocol used for RSerPool is usually SCTP, defined in RFC 4960. The important properties of SCTP requiring its usage instead of TCP are the following:
Multi-homing and path monitoring by Heartbeat messages for improved availability and verification of transport addresses,
Dynamic Address Reconfiguration (Add-IP, see RFC 5061) to enable mobility and interruption-free address changes (e.g. adding a new network interface for enhanced redundancy),
Message framing for simplified message handling (especially for the Session Layer),
Security against blind flooding attacks by 4-way handshake and verification tag, and
Protocol identification by Payload Protocol Identifier (PPID) for protocol multiplexing (required for the ASAP Session Layer functionality).
For the transport of PR announces by ASAP and ENRP via IP multicast, UDP is used as transport protocol. The usage of SCTP is mandatory for all ENRP communication between PRs and the ASAP communication between PEs and PRs. For the ASAP communication between PU and PR and the Session Layer communication between PE and PU, it is recommended to use SCTP. However, the usage of TCP together with an adaptation layer defined in [draft-ietf-rserpool-tcpmapping] is possible. This adaptation layer adds functionalities like Heartbeats, message framing and protocol identification on top of a TCP connection. But nevertheless, some important advantages of SCTP are missing – especially the high immunity against flooding attacks and the multi-homing property. The only meaningful reason to use TCP is when the PU implementation cannot be equipped with an SCTP stack, e.g. when using a proprietary embedded system providing only a TCP stack.
Watch an RSerPool/RSPLIB demonstration video here (Xvid codec required)!
A screenshot of our fractal graphics demo application: two PEs provide a fractal graphics computation service, which is requested by two PUs.
Click here to view in full size!
The complete BibTeX references in a single file can be found here!
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Applicability of Reliable Server Pooling for Real-Time Distributed Computing´´ (TXT, 18 KiB, 
), Internet Draft Version 14, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-distcomp-14.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Pulinthanath, Jobin: ``Applicability of Reliable Server Pooling for SCTP-Based Endpoint Mobility´´ (TXT, 16 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 13, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-mobility-13.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing: ``Definition of a Delay Measurement Infrastructure and Delay-Sensitive Least-Used Policy for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 17 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 11, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-delay-11.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Handle Resolution Option for ASAP´´ (TXT, 13 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 12, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt-12.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Coene, Lode; Conrad, Phillip T.: ``Reliable Server Pooling Applicability for IP Flow Information Exchange´´ (TXT, 15 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 15, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-coene-rserpool-applic-ipfix-15.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael: ``Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) Bakeoff Scoring´´ (TXT, 19 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 12, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-score-12.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing: ``Takeover Suggestion Flag for the ENRP Handle Update Message´´ (TXT, 13 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 09, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-enrp-takeover-09.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Becke, Martin; Adhari, Hakim; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``RspSim – A Simulation Model of the Reliable Server Pooling Framework´´ (PDF, 226 KiB, ), OMNeT++ Code Contribution, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Experimental Mathematics, February 6, 2012, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Becke, Martin: ``The RSPLIB Project – From Research to Application´´ (PDF, 2105 KiB, ), Demo Presentation at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Miami, Florida/U.S.A., December 8, 2010, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing; Becke, Martin; Pulinthanath, Jobin; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Du, Wencai: ``On the Security of Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 540 KiB, ), in International Journal on Intelligent Information and Database Systems (IJIIDS), vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 552–578, DOI 10.1504/IJIIDS.2010.036894, ISSN 1751-5858, December 2010, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Becke, Martin; Pulinthanath, Jobin; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Du, Wencai: ``The Software Modeling and Implementation of Reliable Server Pooling and RSPLIB´´ (PDF, 2764 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 8th ACIS Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA), pp. 129–136, DOI 10.1109/SERA.2010.26, ISBN 978-0-7695-4075-7, Montréal, Québec/Canada, May 24, 2010, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Du, Wencai: ``A PlanetLab-Based Performance Analysis of RSerPool Security Mechanisms´´ (PDF, 721 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Conference on Telecommunications (ConTEL), pp. 213–220, ISBN 978-953-184-131-3, Zagreb/Croatia, June 8, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Overview and Evaluation of the Server Redundancy and Session Failover Mechanisms in the Reliable Server Pooling Framework´´ (PDF, 1157 KiB, ), in International Journal on Advances in Internet Technology (IJAIT), vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–14, ISSN 1942-2652, June 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Du, Wencai: ``Takeover Suggestion – A Registrar Redundancy Handling Optimization for Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 543 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 10th IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing (SNPD), pp. 168–173, DOI 10.1109/SNPD.2009.17, ISBN 978-3-642-01202-0, Daegu/South Korea, May 27, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Fa, Fu; Du, Wencai; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Evaluation and Optimization of the Registrar Redundancy Handling in Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 484 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the IEEE 23rd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), pp. 256–262, DOI 10.1109/AINA.2009.25, ISBN 978-0-7695-3638-5, Bradford, West Yorkshire/United Kingdom, May 26, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Mulik, Jaiwant: ``Reliable Server Pooling MIB Module Definition´´ (TXT, 84 KiB, ), RFC 5525, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, April 22, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``SimProcTC – The Design and Realization of a Powerful Tool-Chain for OMNeT++ Simulations´´ (PDF, 552 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/ICST International Workshop on OMNeT++, pp. 1–8, DOI 10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2009.5517, ISBN 978-963-9799-45-5, Rome/Italy, March 6, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Du, Wencai; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Evaluation of Attack Countermeasures to Improve the DoS Robustness of RSerPool Systems by Simulations and Measurements´´ (PDF, 471 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 16. ITG/GI Fachtagung Kommunikation in Verteilten Systemen (KiVS), Informatik aktuell, pp. 217–228, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-92666-5_18, ISBN 978-3-540-92665-8, Kassel, Hessen/Germany, March 5, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Towards the Future Internet – An Overview of Challenges and Solutions in Research and Standardization´´ (PDF, 1643 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 2nd GI/ITG KuVS Workshop on the Future Internet, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg/Germany, November 11, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Schöttle, Pascal; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``On the Application of Anomaly Detection in Reliable Server Pooling Systems for Improved Robustness against Denial of Service Attacks´´ (PDF, 563 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), pp. 207–214, DOI 10.1109/LCN.2008.4664171, ISBN 978-1-4244-2413-9, Montréal, Québec/Canada, October 16, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Lei, Peter; Ong, Lyndon; Tüxen, Michael; Dreibholz, Thomas: ``An Overview of Reliable Server Pooling Protocols´´ (TXT, 33 KiB, ), Informational RFC 5351, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael: ``Reliable Server Pooling Policies´´ (TXT, 33 KiB, ), RFC 5356, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing: ``SCTP and RSerPool: Architectures and Protocols for the Future Internet´´ (PDF, 2256 KiB, ), Invited Talk, Hainan University, College of Information Science and Technology, Haikou, Hainan/People's Republic of China, September 26, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Zhou, Xing: ``On Robustness and Countermeasures of Reliable Server Pooling Systems against Denial of Service Attacks´´ (PDF, 479 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 7th International IFIP Networking Conference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4982, pp. 586–598, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-79549-0_51, ISBN 978-3-540-79548-3, Singapore, May 7, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``An Evaluation of the Pool Maintenance Overhead in Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 3289 KiB, ), in SERSC International Journal on Hybrid Information Technology (IJHIT), vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 17–32, ISSN 1738-9968, April 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``A Powerful Tool-Chain for Setup, Distributed Processing, Analysis and Debugging of OMNeT++ Simulations´´ (PDF, 558 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 1st ACM/ICST International Workshop on OMNeT++, DOI 10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2008.2990, ISBN 978-963-9799-20-2, Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône/France, March 7, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``A New Server Selection Strategy for Reliable Server Pooling in Widely Distributed Environments´´ (PDF, 444 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Digital Society (ICDS), pp. 171–177, DOI 10.1109/ICDS.2008.12, ISBN 978-0-7695-3087-1, Sainte Luce/Martinique, February 14, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Reliable Server Pooling – A Novel IETF Architecture for Availability-Sensitive Services´´ (PDF, 504 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Digital Society (ICDS), pp. 150–156, DOI 10.1109/ICDS.2008.11, ISBN 978-0-7695-3087-1, Sainte Luce/Martinique, February 14, 2008, [BibTeX, XML]. Awarded with the Best Paper Award.
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``A New Approach of Performance Improvement for Server Selection in Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 10141 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication (ADCOM), pp. 117–121, DOI 10.1109/ADCOM.2007.19, ISBN 0-7695-3059-1, Guwahati/India, December 19, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Evaluation of a Simple Load Balancing Improvement for Reliable Server Pooling with Heterogeneous Server Pools´´ (PDF, 456 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Future Generation Communication and Networking (FGCN), vol. 1, pp. 173–180, DOI 10.1109/FGCN.2007.119, ISBN 0-7695-3048-6, Jeju Island/South Korea, December 8, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``An Evaluation of the Pool Maintenance Overhead in Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 482 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Future Generation Communication and Networking (FGCN), vol. 1, pp. 136–143, DOI 10.1109/FGCN.2007.62, ISBN 0-7695-3048-6, Jeju Island/South Korea, December 6, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``An Introduction to Reliable Server Pooling and the RSPLIB Implementation´´ (PDF, 7736 KiB, ), Invited Talk, Hainan University, College of Information Science and Technology, Haikou, Hainan/People's Republic of China, December 2, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Zhou, Xing; Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Improving the Load Balancing Performance of Reliable Server Pooling in Heterogeneous Capacity Environments´´ (PDF, 408 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 3rd Asian Internet Engineering Conference (AINTEC), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4866, pp. 125–140, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-76809-8_12, ISBN 978-3-540-76808-1, November 28, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Hochverfügbarkeit mit Reliable Server Pooling´´ (PDF, 7740 KiB, 
), in Proceedings of the Linuxtage in Essen, Essen, Nordrhein-Westfalen/Germany, November 10, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``A Performance Evaluation of RSerPool Server Selection Policies in Varying Heterogeneous Capacity Scenarios´´ (PDF, 383 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE EuroMirco Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, pp. 157–164, DOI 10.1109/EUROMICRO.2007.9, ISBN 0-7695-2977-1, Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein/Germany, August 29, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Towards the Future Internet – A Survey of Challenges and Solutions in Research and Standardization´´ (PDF, 1669 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 7th Joint EuroFGI and ITG Workshop on Visions of Future Network Generations (EuroView), Würzburg, Bayern/Germany, Poster Presentation, July 23, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Reliable Server Pooling – Evaluation, Optimization and Extension of a Novel IETF Architecture´´ (PDF, 9080 KiB, ), Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Economics, Institute for Computer Science and Business Information Systems, URN urn:nbn:de:hbz:465-20070308-164527-0, March 7, 2007, [BibTeX, XML]. Awarded with the Sparkassenpreis 2008 of the Sparkasse Essen.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``On Improving the Performance of Reliable Server Pooling Systems for Distance-Sensitive Distributed Applications´´ (PDF, 393 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 15. ITG/GI Fachtagung Kommunikation in Verteilten Systemen (KiVS), Informatik aktuell, pp. 39–50, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-69962-0_4, ISBN 978-3-540-69962-0, Bern/Switzerland, February 28, 2007, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``rsplib – Eine Open Source Implementation von Reliable Server Pooling´´ (PDF, 7868 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the Linuxtage in Essen, Essen, Nordrhein-Westfalen/Germany, September 9, 2006, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``The Performance of Reliable Server Pooling Systems in Different Server Capacity Scenarios´´ (PDF, 679 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the IEEE TENCON, DOI 10.1109/TENCON.2005.300939, ISBN 0-7803-9312-0, Melbourne, Victoria/Australia, November 22, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``On the Performance of Reliable Server Pooling Systems´´ (PDF, 673 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) 30th Anniversary, pp. 200–208, DOI 10.1109/LCN.2005.98, ISBN 0-7695-2421-4, Sydney, New South Wales/Australia, November 16, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Silverton, Aron J.; Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael; Xie, Qiaobing: ``Reliable Server Pooling Sockets API Extensions´´ (TXT, 19 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 00, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-api-00.txt, work in progress, October 17, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``RSerPool – Providing Highly Available Services using Unreliable Servers´´ (PDF, 429 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 31st IEEE EuroMirco Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, pp. 396–403, DOI 10.1109/EUROMICRO.2005.50, ISBN 0-7695-2431-1, Porto/Portugal, September 2, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``draft-ietf-rserpool-mib-01.txt – Management Information Base Definition for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (PDF, 2249 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 63rd IETF Meeting, Paris/France, August 1, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Das rsplib–Projekt – Hochverfügbarkeit mit Reliable Server Pooling´´ (PDF, 1154 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the LinuxTag, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg/Germany, June 24, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``Implementing the Reliable Server Pooling Framework´´ (PDF, 467 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Telecommunications (ConTEL), vol. 1, pp. 21–28, ISBN 953-184-081-4, Zagreb/Croatia, June 15, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul; Tüxen, Michael: ``Load Distribution Performance of the Reliable Server Pooling Framework´´ (PDF, 219 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Networking (ICN), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3421, pp. 564–574, Springer, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-31957-3_65, ISBN 3-540-25338-6, Saint Gilles Les Bains/Reunion Island, April 21, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Rathgeb, Erwin Paul: ``An Application Demonstration of the Reliable Server Pooling Framework´´ (PDF, 330 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 24th IEEE INFOCOM, Miami, Florida/U.S.A., Demonstration and Poster Presentation, March 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``draft-ietf-rserpool-policies-00.txt – Definition of Member Selection Policies´´ (PDF, 2729 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 61st IETF Meeting, Washington, DC/U.S.A., November 8, 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``An Overview of the Reliable Server Pooling Architecture´´ (PDF, 66 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), Berlin/Germany, Poster Presentation, October 7, 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Member Selection Policies for the Reliable Server Pooling Protocol Suite´´ (PDF, 3299 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 60th IETF Meeting, San Diego, California/U.S.A., August 5, 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Policy Management in the Reliable Server Pooling Architecture´´ (PDF, 4930 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the Multi-Service Networks Conference (MSN, Cosener's), Abingdon, Oxfordshire/United Kingdom, July 8, 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Jungmaier, Andreas; Tüxen, Michael: ``A New Scheme for IP-based Internet Mobility´´ (PDF, 210 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 28th IEEE Local Computer Networks Conference (LCN), pp. 99–108, DOI 10.1109/LCN.2003.1243117, ISBN 0-7695-2037-5, Königswinter, Nordrhein-Westfalen/Germany, October 22, 2003, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael: ``High Availability using Reliable Server Pooling´´ (PDF, 79 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the Linux Conference Australia (LCA), Perth, Western Australia/Australia, January 24, 2003, [BibTeX, XML].
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``An Efficient Approach for State Sharing in Server Pools´´ (PDF, 111 KiB, ), in Proceedings of the 27th IEEE Local Computer Networks Conference (LCN), pp. 348–349, DOI 10.1109/LCN.2002.1181806, ISBN 0-7695-1591-6, Tampa, Florida/U.S.A., November 8, 2002, [BibTeX, XML].
The complete BibTeX references in a single file can be found here!
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Applicability of Reliable Server Pooling for Real-Time Distributed Computing´´ (TXT, 18 KiB, 
), Internet Draft Version 14, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-distcomp-14.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-distcomp-13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Pulinthanath, Jobin: ``Applicability of Reliable Server Pooling for SCTP-Based Endpoint Mobility´´ (TXT, 16 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 13, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-mobility-13.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-applic-mobility-12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing: ``Definition of a Delay Measurement Infrastructure and Delay-Sensitive Least-Used Policy for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 17 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 11, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-delay-11.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-delay-10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Handle Resolution Option for ASAP´´ (TXT, 13 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 12, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt-12.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt-11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Coene, Lode; Conrad, Phillip T.: ``Reliable Server Pooling Applicability for IP Flow Information Exchange´´ (TXT, 15 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 15, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-coene-rserpool-applic-ipfix-15.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-coene-rserpool-applic-ipfix-14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael: ``Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) Bakeoff Scoring´´ (TXT, 19 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 12, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-score-12.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-score-11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Zhou, Xing: ``Takeover Suggestion Flag for the ENRP Handle Update Message´´ (TXT, 13 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 09, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-dreibholz-rserpool-enrp-takeover-09.txt, work in progress, January 2, 2013, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-dreibholz-rserpool-enrp-takeover-08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Mulik, Jaiwant: ``Reliable Server Pooling MIB Module Definition´´ (TXT, 84 KiB, ), RFC 5525, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, April 22, 2009, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-mib-12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-mulik-rserpool-mib-00.
Stewart, Randall R.; Xie, Qiaobing; Stillman, Maureen; Tüxen, Michael: ``Aggregate Server Access Protcol (ASAP)´´ (TXT, 116 KiB, ), RFC 5352, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-asap-21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-xie-rserpool-asap-01, 00.
Stewart, Randall R.; Xie, Qiaobing; Stillman, Maureen; Tüxen, Michael: ``Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP) and Endpoint Handlespace Redundancy Protocol (ENRP) Parameters´´ (TXT, 50 KiB, ), RFC 5354, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-common-param-18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Lei, Peter; Ong, Lyndon; Tüxen, Michael; Dreibholz, Thomas: ``An Overview of Reliable Server Pooling Protocols´´ (TXT, 33 KiB, ), Informational RFC 5351, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-overview-06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Xie, Qiaobing; Stewart, Randall R.; Stillman, Maureen; Tüxen, Michael; Silverton, Aron J.: ``Endpoint Handlespace Redundancy Protocol (ENRP)´´ (TXT, 82 KiB, ), RFC 5353, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-enrp-21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-xie-rserpool-enrp-01, 00.
Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael: ``Reliable Server Pooling Policies´´ (TXT, 33 KiB, ), RFC 5356, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-policies-10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-tuexen-rserpool-policies-00.
Stillman, Maureen; Gopal, Ram; Guttman, Erik; Holdrege, Matt; Sengodan, Senthil: ``Threats Introduced by RSerPool and Requirements for Security´´ (TXT, 38 KiB, ), RFC 5355, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, September 30, 2008, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-threats-13, 12, 11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-stillman-rserpool-threats-02, 01, 00.
Tüxen, Michael; Xie, Qiaobing; Stewart, Randall R.; Shore, Melinda; Loughney, John; Silverton, Aron J.: ``Architecture for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 58 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 12, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-arch-12.txt, work in progress, November 14, 2006, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-arch-11, 10, 09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Silverton, Aron J.; Dreibholz, Thomas; Tüxen, Michael; Xie, Qiaobing: ``Reliable Server Pooling Sockets API Extensions´´ (TXT, 19 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 00, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-api-00.txt, work in progress, October 17, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Historic versions: draft-silverton-rserpool-api-01, 00.
Conrad, Phillip T.; Lei, Peter: ``Services Provided By Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 39 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 02, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-service-02.txt, work in progress, October 6, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-service-01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-conrad-rserpool-service-03, 02, 01, 00.
Conrad, Phillip T.; Lei, Peter: ``TCP Mapping for Reliable Server Pooling Enhanced Mode´´ (TXT, 39 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 03, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-tcpmapping-03.txt, work in progress, October 6, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-tcpmapping-02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-conrad-rserpool-tcpmapping-01, 00.
Loughney, John; Stillman, Maureen; Xie, Qiaobing; Stewart, Randall R.; Silverton, Aron J.: ``Comparison of Protocols for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 55 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 10, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-comp-10.txt, work in progress, July 6, 2005, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-comp-09, 08, 07, 06, 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00.
Coene, Lode; Conrad, Phillip T.; Lei, Peter: ``Reliable Server Pool Applicability Statement´´ (TXT, 28 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 02, IETF, RSerPool Working Group, draft-ietf-rserpool-applic-02.txt, July 18, 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-applic-01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-coene-rserpool-applic-01, 00.
Xie, Qiaobing; Yarroll, La Monte H. P.: ``RSerPool Redundancy-model Policy´´ (TXT, 18 KiB, ), Internet Draft Version 02, IETF, Individual Submission, draft-xie-rserpool-redundancy-model-02.txt, April 2004, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-xie-rserpool-redundancy-model-01, 00.
Tüxen, Michael; Xie, Qiaobing; Stewart, Randall R.; Shore, Melinda; Ong, Lyndon; Loughney, John; Stillman, Maureen: ``Requirements for Reliable Server Pooling´´ (TXT, 17 KiB, ), Informational RFC 3227, IETF, ISSN 2070-1721, January 2002, [BibTeX, XML].
Previous versions: draft-ietf-rserpool-reqts-02, 01, 00.
Historic versions: draft-tuexen-rserpool-reqts-01, 00.
If something is missing, see the Internet Draft archive at Watersprings.org. Please also contact me in case of missing or dead links.
LaTeX source versions of the following teaching material are available on request. Write e-mail to Thomas Dreibholz.
Thomas Dreibholz
SCTP and RSerPool – A Practical Exercise
July 2009
Student version as PDF file
Instructor version as PDF file
RSPLIB, socketapi and sctplib are released under the GNU Public Licence (GPL).
Please have a look at the Handbook and the ReadMe files before installation!
If you do not want to use kernel SCTP, you also need our userland SCTP implementation sctplib/socketapi. In this case, you also need the following two files. However, in most cases, you want kernel SCTP and simply use --enable-kernel-sctp at configure. If you are unsure, use kernel SCTP. See the handbook for details!
The development version is intended for testing. For production use, install the stable release!
Please have a look at the ReadMe file before trying this version!
The files have been signed using my GnuPG key. You can find my public key here. You will also find a mirror for the stable version files here: http://www.sctp.de/rserpool.html.
I have created Ubuntu binary packages in a Launchpad PPA repository. To use the repository, add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (Important: you may have to replace "precise" by the name of your actual Ubuntu distribution, e.g. saucy, raring, quantal, oneiric, natty, maverick, lucid, karmic, jaunty, hardy):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/dreibh/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/dreibh/ubuntu precise main
Furthermore, also add my GnuPG key to ensure that the packages are valid:
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CCEB82DF916C56E0 && gpg --export -a CCEB82DF916C56E0 | sudo apt-key add -
After sources configuration, you can install the RSPLIB packages. The following packages are available:
To install RSPLIB under FreeBSD from the ports collection, just go to "/usr/ports/net/rsplib" and run "make && make install" (as root!).
RSPSIM is released under the GNU Public Licence (GPL).
Downloads:
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06.05.2013 Thomas Dreibholz, University of Duisburg-Essen / Institute for Experimental Mathematics / Computer Networking Technology Group
