Active Networks
Reference: D. L. Tennenhouse, J. M. Smith, W. D. Sincoskie, D. J. Wetherall, G. J.Minden, "A Survey of Active Network Research, IEEE Communications Mag.,Vol. 35, No. 1, pp 80-86. January 1997
Active networks subject of large DARPA program, and quite a few european projects.
Interpose processing of user data in network path by dynamically moving code there….radical idea based in strong distributed computation
Originated in observation that it has become very hard in telephony and IP networks to deploy new services of any kind due to scale (and inflexibility) of the infrastructure.