Abstract :

In this talk we study focus on two aspects of disruption tolerant networks (DTNs). First we study epidemic routing and its variations through the use of fluid models. in many cases these models yield closed-form expressions for performance metrics such as average delivery delay and can be easily solved numerically for other cases. We also show how these models can be adapted to study DTNs with infrastructure.

Second, we focus on the problem of modeling node mobility in a DTN. Specifically, we study traces taken from UMass DieselNet, a bus-based DTN. The standard model assumes nodes are homogeneous and represents their mobility in the form of an aggregate inter-contact time distribution. We find that simulation of a DTN using such a model results in lower average delivery delays. We then present route-level contact models and show that their use leads to much better delay predictions.

Biography :

Don Towsley received a B.A. degree in physics and a Ph.D. degree in computer science, both from University of Texas University. He is currently a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, where he co-directs the Networking Research Laboratory. Professor Towsley has been a Visiting Scientist at AT&T Labs - Research, IBM Research, INRIA , Microsoft Research Cambridge, and the University of Paris 6.

Prof. Towsley's research interests include network measurement, modeling, and analysis. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and on the editorial boards of Journal of the ACM and IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications. He is also currently Chair of the IFIP Working Group 7.3 on computer performance measurement, modeling, and analysis. He has also served on numerous editorial boards including those of IEEE Transactions on Communications and Performance Evaluation. He has been active in the program committees for numerous conferences including IEEE Infocom, ACM SIGCOMM, ACM SIGMETRICS, and IFIP Performance conferences for many years, and has served as Technical Program Co-Chair for ACM SIGMETRICS and Performance conferences.

Prof. Towsley has received the 2007 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computer and Communications Award , the 2007 ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award, the 1999 IEEE Communications Society William Bennett Award, and several conference and workshop best paper awards. He is also the recipient of the University of Massachusetts Chancellor's Medal and the Outstanding Research Award from the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts. He is one of the founders of the Computer Performance Foundation. He has twice received IBM Faculty Fellowship Awards, and is a Fellow of the IEEE and the ACM.