A Novel Active Network Architecture Based on Extensible Services Router

Active networks are a new kind of packet-switched networks in which packets have code fragments that are executed on the intermediary nodes (routers). The code can extend or modify the foundation architecture of a network. In this paper, the authors present a novel active network architecture combined with advantages of two major active networks technology based on extensible services router. The architecture consists of extensible service router, active extensible components server and key distribution center (KDC). Users can write extensible service components with programming interface. At the present time, we have finished the extensible services router prototype system based on Highly Efficient Router Operating System (HEROS), active extensible components server and KDC prototype system based on Linux.