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March 07, 2022: Demonstrator Smart Contract controlled networks at OFC2022, San Diego.

Motivation:

Multi-domain applications are characterized by applications such as workflows that cross domain boundaries. The motivation for such applications is in mutual benefit for all parties to collaborate. For example airline industries, healthcare, smart cities. The new set of challenges that this setup introduces revolve mainly around enforcement of agreed multilateral contracts and minimizing risks due to exposure. In this work we propose to encode the application agreement as a smart contract using Petrinet as a model to track state changes.

A multidomain application is a workflow whereby the (data|control)flow crosses domain boundaries. Domain boundaries are controlled through rules/agreements derived from policies.  A use case can be considered as having multiple facets.
  • The application functional components (functions)
  • The data assets
  • The coordination logic (controlflow)
Controlflow is a program in itself that is owned by multiple domains. The challenge is:
  • How to execute a control program owned by multiple domains?

Demo Setup:

Collaboration between Internet domains in a DOS attack. We emulate a simple Internet with 4 ASs and assign them to 3 domains. We create a Hyperledger across the 3 domains.
The application says that:
  • “If any domain detects a DOS it will inform the others.The others will inturn block the IP on their side.”
This is encoded as a Petrinet using smart contracts.
  • Related presentation: "On Multilateral Agreements And Multidomain Applications", Reggie Cushing (presented by Cees de Laat at OFC in OFCnet booth)
  • The related SCasia presentation: "Secure Data Sharing in the Responsible Internet", Cees de Laat and Paola Grosso.
  • The movie below.