Zero servers with zero broadcasts

TL;DR: It is shown that it is important to remove broadcasts at all levels of the networking stack and how to use the Virtual Ring Routing protocol to achieve the vision of networks that work without any supporting infrastructure is described.

Abstract: To achieve the vision of networks that work without any supporting infrastructure, we need wireless ad hoc technology to replace the cabling infrastructure, but we also need self-configuring network and application services to replace the server infrastructure. Current solutions perform poorly because they either pick a single host to act as the server or they use network wide broadcasts to implement services. We need wireless ad hoc networks with zero servers and zero broadcasts!Can we use DHTs to build both network- and application-level services with zero servers and zero broadcasts? This paper starts to answer this question. It shows that it is important to remove broadcasts at all levels of the networking stack and describes how to use the Virtual Ring Routing protocol to achieve our vision.