Cross-layer optimisations for autonomic networks

Autonomic communication aims to build more reflective systems with properties like self-healing, self-organisation, self-optimisation and so forth — the so-called “self-*” properties. To attain this within the existing strictly-layered approaches to network software may be possible to certain extent, but will not leverage all the possible optimisations, and we suggest that cross-layer architectures are better-suited to achieving the self-* properties. This paper explores the possibilities of cross-layering approaches in autonomic networks, reviews and compares the different cross-layer approaches to network architecture, observing that most current approaches depend purely on local information and provide only poor and inaccurate information gathering at the network level.