Network functional composition: State of the art

Network Functional Composition is an approach for a flexible Internet architecture which decomposes the layered network stack in functional building blocks which can be loosely coupled. Functional Composition therefore enables a customized composition of functionality at the edges and in the network in respect to application specific requirements. Functional Composition is an architecture for a Future Internet which provides solutions for many of the challenges that have been identified in the Future Internet debate. Several early and current projects have addressed Functional Composition with different aspects, which have been reviewed here as part of a state-of-the-art analysis. This review shall give an overview about the different projects and categorizes the different approaches.