Rule-Based Models for Emergent Phenomena in Networks : The Whys and Hows


There are many interesting networking phenomena which
cannot be modeled using conventional modeling techniques
like Queueing abstractions, Differential equations etc. Even if one can
develop models, they often are inadequate or do not scale well.
In this talk I will highlight how we can use rule-based models, more
specifically Cellular Automata(CA) based techniques
to model certain "emergent phenomena" in the Internet.
In particular I will look into two problems, Network Outages
and Routing Instabilities and how one can model them using CAs.
I will also go over the advantages such models have over models developed
using conventional techniques.