Automatic transport selection and resource allocation for resilient communication in decentralised networks

Making communication more resilient is a main focus for modern decentralised networks. A current development to increase connectivity between participants and to be resilient against service degradation attempts is to support different communication protocols, and to switch between these protocols in case degradation or censorship are detected. Supporting multiple protocols with different properties and having to share resources for communication with multiple partners creates new challenges with respect to protocol selection and resource allocation to optimally satisfy the applications' requirements for communication. This paper presents a novel approach for automatic transport selection and resource allocation with a focus on decentralised networks. Our goal is to evaluate the communication mechanisms available for each communication partner and then allocate resources in line with the requirements of the applications. We begin by detailing the overall requirements for an algorithm for transport selection and resource allocation, and then compare three different solutions using (1) a heuristic, (2) linear optimisation, and (3) machine learning. To show the suitability and the specific benefits of each approach, we evaluate their performance with respect to usability, scalability and quality of the solution found in relation to application requirements.