A Policy-Based Resource Reservation Service for Maritime Tactical Networks

Naval at sea (maritime tactical) networks are characterised by a dynamic, heterogeneous, and low-bandwidth environment. There is a critical need for Traffic Engineering (TE) mechanisms to support traffic prioritisation and resource optimisation in this environment. A desirable management service in this environment is end-to-end guaranteed bandwidth for critical application flows. Solutions such as RSVP are not appropriate for the maritime environment where links are error prone and easily overloaded. This paper describes the Resource Reservation Service (RRS), a policy-enabled flow-based TE management service developed specifically for the low-bandwidth, high-error rate, and mobility of the maritime environment. This service includes several novel features including multi-path probing, bi-directional reservations, and full policy control. The value of multi-path probing is demonstrated by simulation.