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Frisbees

Frisbees are internal control mechanisms used by DaaS-IoT to monitor network connectivity, timing behavior, and overall system health.

They play a key role in maintaining awareness of the overlay network state and supporting stability in dynamic or unreliable environments.

Purpose of Frisbees

Frisbees are used to:

  • Verify reachability between nodes
  • Estimate communication latency
  • Monitor clock drift and timing consistency
  • Detect link degradation or failures
  • Support diagnostics and network awareness

Frisbees operate continuously and transparently, without application-level interaction.

Connectivity and Latency Monitoring

Through periodic exchanges, frisbees allow the system to:

  • Measure round-trip times (RTT) between nodes
  • Detect increases in latency that may indicate congestion
  • Identify unreachable or disconnected peers

This information is used internally to assess network quality and responsiveness.

Timing Observation

Frisbees contribute to timing-related monitoring by:

  • Observing variations in message timing
  • Detecting clock drift trends
  • Providing feedback useful for synchronization stability

Timing observations complement the synchronization mechanisms and help identify conditions that may require corrective action.

ACK-Based Statistics

Starting from version 0.21.03, frisbee-related mechanisms may leverage acknowledgment-based statistics:

  • Internal acknowledgment messages are used to collect timing and delivery metrics
  • These metrics help evaluate the performance of available communication paths
  • Statistics are maintained internally and are not exposed directly to applications

This information contributes to informed network management decisions.

Path Evaluation and Selection

Collected frisbee and acknowledgment data may be used by the system to:

  • Rank available drivers or communication paths
  • Prefer lower-latency or more reliable routes
  • React to changing network conditions

Path evaluation is performed automatically and adapts over time.

Failure Detection and Recovery

Frisbees support failure detection by identifying:

  • Missing or delayed responses
  • Sudden changes in latency or timing behavior

When failures or degradations are detected:

  • The system may attempt alternative communication paths
  • Recovery procedures are triggered automatically
  • Ongoing operations may be rolled back to a last known stable state if required

These mechanisms increase robustness in the presence of transient or persistent failures.

Role in Network Stability

By continuously monitoring connectivity and timing conditions, frisbees contribute to:

  • Early detection of network issues
  • Improved resilience against instability
  • Long-term consistency of the overlay network

Their operation is an integral part of the autonomous behavior of DaaS-IoT systems.

Note

Frisbees operate entirely at the system level. Applications do not need to interact with or manage frisbee mechanisms directly.