Flexible service creation node architecture and its implementation

With the spread of always-on forms of broadband-access, such as ADSL and FTTH, new content-delivery services have appeared. However, conventional network nodes are not capable of providing rapid content provision, because they have poor scalability and a lack of reliability. We propose a flexible service-creation node architecture, based on the following concepts. Scalability is achieved by inserting multiple functionally identical service modules into extensible function blocks; new functions are easily added by inserting modules with the appropriate new functionality, and a failure occurring in one module does not affect the other modules because they all work independently. A prototype system shows that this modular node architecture is effective in terms of performance scalability, functional flexibility, and reliability.