5.5 Routing Module and Classifier Organization

As we have seen, a ns node is essentially a collection of classifiers. The simplest node (unicast) contains only one address classifier and one port classifier, as shown in Figure 5.1. When one extends the functionality of the node, more classifiers are added into the base node, for instance, the multicast node shown in Figure 5.2. As more function blocks is added, and each of these blocks requires its own classifier(s), it becomes important for the node to provide a uniform interface to organize these classifiers and to bridge these classifiers to the route computation blocks.

The classical method to handle this case is through class inheritance. For instance, if one wants a node that supports hierarchical routing, one simply derive a Node/Hier from the base node and override the classifier setup methods to insert hierarchical classifiers. This method works well when the new function blocks are independent and cannot be ``arbitrarily'' mixed. For instance, both hierarchical routing and ad hoc routing use their own set of classifiers. Inheritance would require that we have Node/Hier that supports the former, and Node/Mobile for the latter. This becomes slightly problematic when one wants an ad hoc routing node that supports hierarchical routing. In this simple case one may use multiple inheritance to solve the problem, but this quickly becomes infeasible as the number of such function blocks increases.

The only method to solve this problem is object composition. The base node needs to define a set of interfaces for classifier access and organization. These interfaces should

• allow individual routing modules that implement their own classifiers to insert their classifiers into the node;
• allow route computation blocks to populate routes to classifiers in all routing modules that need this information,
• provide a single point of management for existing routing modules.

In addition, we should also define a uniform interface for routing modules to connect to the node interfaces, so as to provide a systematic approach to extending node functionality. In this section we will describe the design of routing modules as well as that of the corresponding node interfaces.