An Open-Source Platform for Distributed Linux Software Routers

In this paper, our main objective is to explore how Linux Software Routers (SRs) can deploy advanced and flexible paradigms for supporting novel control-plane functionalities and applications. To this end, we investigate and study a new open-source software (SW) framework: the Distributed SW ROuter Project (DROP), which aims to develop and enable a novel cooperative middleware for distributed IP-router control and management. DROP allows logical network nodes to be built through the aggregation of multiple SRs based on the Linux operating system and commodity hardware, which can be devoted to packet forwarding or control operations. In addition to the original ForCES design, DROP aims to extend router distribution and aggregation concepts by moving them to a network-wide scale to enable and support value-added services for next-generation networks.