The Universal Mux: An Exploration into the Standardization of Application-Layer-Facing Multiplexing Interfaces

Abstract

The multi-channel abstraction is an incredibly useful and prevalent instrument employed by application-layer protocols for managing data transmission between two end hosts. Despite how ubiquitous this practice has become, implementations of this system vary wildly. This has led to a plethora of disjoint and ad hoc design strategies resulting in reduced modularity, the avoidance of pre-existing implementations, and a tendency to repeat known errors. This thesis presents the Standard Multiplexing Interface (SMI), a modular, generalizable, and robust interface that sits between the application and transport layers for multiplexing data channels. Such an interface lowers the intellectual labor costs for designing new application layer protocols and reduces obstacles to future design revisions. Additionally, this thesis argues for the standardized development process of such multi-channel abstractions, offering the SMI Table, a tool for the systematic review of design requirements and existing errors. Finally, we explore what an SMI implementation would look like in practice by unveiling a novel multiplexing interface, called RDMI, and explore the performance benefits of SMI through an evaluation in the popular network simulator, ns-3.