Value flows: Inter-domain routing over contract links

Due to the Internet´s commercialized ISP structure, inter-domain routing is perceived as more of a commercial service (and market decision) instead of an optimization problem subject to purely technical criteria. In this perspective, routing could be defined as a service which matches perishable resources to requested level of service demands. This diversity in demanded services and proliferation of diverse set of existing and emerging applications cannot be responded by a single mindset of priorities, limited set of metrics or protocol characteristics. Instead, we propose a contract-based routing service architecture which allows manageable dynamism or routing protocol characteristics. By considering routing as a contracted service, network traffic can be treated as “value flows” rather than bare bits. Such value-based treatment of routing will significantly help improving inter-domain routing economics and dynamics, where policy can be expressed as contracting terms. In this paper, we present a Link-State Contract Routing (LSCR) protocol for long-term services and explore how inter-domain routing dynamics could be managed by adjusting “contract term” or routing service lifetime.