SNAPS: Seamless Network-Assisted Publish-Subscribe
13 June 2022
The Internet is poised to support new classes of industrial applications, which are driven by large numbers of sensors and actuators generating and consuming sensor data streams. A publish-subscribe paradigm is better suited to handle such large scale data dissemination than a client-server approach. However, existing over-the-top publish-subscribe systems are not only vulnerable to network-induced performance degradation, but also unable to orchestrate the underlying network for better usage. This paper proposes a network-assisted publish-subscribe architecture called SNAPS which enables seamless control of distributed publish-subscribe brokers at the edge as well as the networks that interconnect them. SNAPS leverages SRv6-based network programmability to build and maintain network-efficient, shareable data distribution trees for brokers. The architecture is independent of any particular broker implementation, making it suitable for "bringing your own brokers" at available edge locations. We describe how the network interconnecting the brokers at edge locations can be programmed for efficient data distribution. Through simulation and prototype evaluation, we show the efficacy of SNAPS in providing better service for publish-subscribe data delivery and better usage of the network resources
