Combined ARPPath&RSTP Bridges for Smooth Migration to Robust Shortest Path Bridging Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) is a layer 2 protocol that blocks redundant links to avoid loops. Due to its wellknown limitations, diverse solutions have been proposed to replace it, but scarcely adopted, such as Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) and Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). To overcome the constraints of RSTP, while keeping its advantages, we propose to combine the fast and proven reconfiguration mechanisms of RSTP with the shortest path capabilities and load balancing of ARPPath bridging in the same device. The combined bridges are selfconfiguring and allow full miscibility of combined bridges in legacy RSTP networks. This enables a smooth migration path from standard 802.1D bridges to ARPPath shortest path bridges. This paper presents a preliminary proposal: full validation, simulation, implementation and evaluation are ongoing.

Towards Efficient Parallel Multipathing: A ReceiverCentric CrossLayer Solution to Aid Multipath TCP Applying Multipath TCP (MPTCP) towards transportlayer parallel multipath transmission to increase the throughput performance of mobile devices has attracted considerable attention. Significant results in this area have resulted in many highly promising solutions; however most of the existing solutions follow the conventional sendercentric design and the strict layering principle, without considering the fact that the receiveru0027s intelligence and crosslayer activities can result in distinct performance advantages. In this paper, we propose MPTCPRC, a receivercentric crosslayer solution to aid MPTCP towards efficient parallel multipath data transmission in a wireless environment. In MPTCPRC, the receiver performs path usage decision and crosslayer activity, by making use of its acquired firsthand knowledge of both transport layer and MAC layer, rather than only giving feedback to the sender then waiting for the decision. We evaluate and demonstrate the benefits of our proposal by simulations.