In‐service QoS monitoring of real‐time applications using SM MIB

Current network management needs an end‐to‐end overview of various flows rather than the information that is purely local to the individual devices. The typical manager‐centric polling approach, however, is not suitable to understand network‐wide behavior of a large‐scale Internet. In this paper, we propose a new management information base (MIB) approach called Service Monitoring MIB (SM MIB). The MIB provides a network manager with dynamic end‐to‐end management information by utilizing special packets. The special packet is an Internet control message protocol (ICMP) application that is sent to a remote network element to monitor Internet services. The SM MIB makes an end‐to‐end management feasible while it reduces management‐related traffic and manager‐to‐manager interactions. Real examples show that the proposed SM MIB is useful for end‐to‐end QoS monitoring. We discuss the accuracy of the obtained data as well as the monitoring overhead. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Semantic context dissemination and service matchmaking in future network management

The ever‐increasing size, complexity and heterogeneity of telecommunications networks necessitate the introduction of autonomic elements that assist providers in managing and configuring the network's resources. To tackle this increased complexity, it is expected that many specialized autonomic elements will take part in the management process. It becomes necessary for them to collaborate and communicate in order to achieve high‐level, human‐specified, management goals. Therefore, the need for a scalable mechanism to facilitate the interactions between autonomic elements has arisen. This article presents a communications bus, augmented with semantics through the use of ontologies and semantic reasoning, which governs the communication and collaboration between autonomic elements. It supports filtering of context based on meaning. Additionally, it facilitates matchmaking of autonomic element goals with management services using semantic definitions of their inputs, outputs, preconditions and effects. Furthermore, the delay introduced by semantic reasoning was evaluated through an implemented prototype and was shown to be limited to only a few milliseconds. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

UniFAFF: a unified framework for implementing autonomic fault management and failure detection for self‐managing networks

Today's network management, as known within the Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, Security (FCAPS) management framework, is moving towards the definition and implementation of ‘self‐managing’ network functions, with the aim of eliminating or drastically reducing human intervention in some of the complex aspects or daunting tasks of network management. The fault management plane of the FCAPS framework deals with the following functions: fault detection, fault diagnosis, localization or isolation, and fault removal. Task automation is at the very heart of self‐managing (autonomic) nodes and networks, meaning that all functions and processes related to fault management must be automated as much as possible within the functionalities of self‐managing (autonomic) nodes and networks, in order for us to talk about autonomic fault management. At this point in time there are projects calling for implementing new network architectures that are flexible to support on‐demand functional composition for context‐ or situation‐aware networking. A number of such projects have started, under the umbrella of the so‐called clean‐slate network designs. Therefore, this calls for open frameworks for implementing self‐managing (autonomic) functions across each of the traditional FCAPS management planes. This paper presents a unified framework for implementing autonomic fault management and failure detection for self‐managing networks, a framework we are calling UniFAFF. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The autonomic network architecture (ANA)

The objective of autonomic networking is to enable the autonomous formation and parametrization of nodes and networks by letting protocols sense and adapt to the networking environment at run time. Besides its dynamic aspects, a core requirement of autonomic networking is to define a structured framework and execution environment that enables algorithms to operate in a continously changing environment. This paper presents the major design principles of the Autonomic Network Architecture (ANA) and reports on a first implementation. The guiding principle of ANA is to strive for flexibility and genericity at all levels of the architecture. In our approach we explicitly avoid to impose a "one-size-fits-all" architecture (where communication protocols and paradigms are fixed by the architecture). To this end, ANA introduces generic abstractions, for example "information dispatch points" instead of addressable endpoints, as well as communication primitives that support network heterogeneity, adaptability, and evolution. These core abstractions allow for the coexistance of multiple and diverse networking styles and protocols. With the public release of the ANA prototype, we aim at federating autonomics related networking projects, enabling different actors to share, compare, and build upon each other?s work. The ANA runtime can host clean slate network designs as well as legacy Internet technology and serves as a platform for demonstrating autonomic communication principles.     

BIONETS: Bio-Inspired Networking for Pervasive Communication Environments

This paper presents BIONETS, which is a novel bio-inspired approach to the design of localized services in pervasive communication/computing environments. Conventional networking approaches are not suitable for such scenarios, where they face three main issues, namely: 1) heterogeneity, 2) scalability, and 3) complexity. The proposed solution draws inspiration from the living world in terms of 1) evolutionary paradigms able to drive the adaptation process of autonomic services and 2) social paradigms for the provisioning of the necessary cooperation mechanisms. The net result is the introduction of autonomic self-evolving services that are able to adapt to localized needs and conditions while ensuring the maintenance of a purposeful system. Such a system requires scalable support from the communication standpoint. In networking terms, this results in the introduction of a two-tier architecture based on localized opportunistic exchanges of information. The presented approach is able to achieve better scalability properties when compared to more conventional communication approaches     

A new policy‐aware terminal for QoS,AAA and mobility management

Policy‐based management has been widely studied in recent years. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has recently introduced the policy‐based networking as a means of managing IP networks according to the new constraints defined in the network, such as the guarantee of the quality of service (QoS). Network management based on policies, is modelled as a state machine, which moves from one state to another according to the enforced policy. The IETF policy‐based networking is defined for application to network nodes. However, some recent work suggests extending the policy‐based networking to the end‐user terminals. In this paper, we present an analysis of such an extension and we propose some possible solutions to support new policy‐aware terminals. In addition, we present AAA, QoS and mobility management that user such a policy‐aware terminals. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intent‐based service management for heterogeneous software‐defined infrastructure domains

One of the main challenges in delivering end‐to‐end service chains across multiple software‐defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) domains is to achieve unified management and orchestration functions. A very critical aspect is the definition of an open, vendor‐agnostic, and interoperable northbound interface (NBI) that should be as abstract as possible and decoupled from domain‐specific data and control plane technologies. In this paper, we propose a reference architecture and an intent‐based NBI for end‐to‐end service management across multiple technological domains. The general approach is tested in a heterogeneous OpenFlow/Internet‐of‐Things (IoT) SDN test bed, where the proposed solution is applied to a rather complex service provisioning scenario spanning three different technological domains: an IoT infrastructure deployment, a cloud‐based data collection, processing, and publishing platform, and a transport domain over a geographic network interconnecting the IoT domain and the data center hosting the cloud services.     

An adaptive clustering approach for the management of dynamic systems

Adaptive clustering is one of the fundamental problems behind autonomic systems and, more generally, an open research issue in the area of networking and distributed systems. The problem of giving structure to large-scale, dynamic systems through clustering and of electing centrally located nodes (cluster heads) is nontrivial. This is in fact an NP-complete problem when striving for optimality. We propose an innovative strategy based on code mobility that dynamically computes near-optimal clusters in linear time. Our approach is autonomic, does not require any user intervention, is self-configuring, self-optimal, and self-healing. We demonstrate these features through an extensive set of simulations, discussing the viability of the algorithm based on state-of-the art technologies, and elaborating on its applicability to distributed monitoring, peer-to-peer systems, application-level multicast, and content adaptation networks.     

Power‐efficient routing for SDN with discrete link rates and size‐limited flow tables: A tree‐based particle swarm optimization approach

Software‐defined networking is a promising networking paradigm for achieving programmability and centralized control in communication networks. These features simplify network management and enable innovation in network applications and services such as routing, virtual machine migration, load balancing, security, access control, and traffic engineering. The routing application can be optimized for power efficiency by routing flows and coalescing them such that the least number of links is activated with the lowest link rates. However, in practice, flow coalescing can generally overflow the flow tables, which are implemented in a size‐limited and power‐hungry ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). In this paper, a set of practical constraints is imposed to the software‐defined networking routing problem, namely, size‐limited flow table and discrete link rate constraints, to ensure applicability in real networks. Because the problem is NP‐hard and difficult to approximate, a low‐complexity particle swarm optimization–based and power‐efficient routing (PSOPR) heuristic is proposed. Performance evaluation results revealed that PSOPR achieves more than 90% of the optimal network power consumption while requiring only 0.0045% to 0.9% of the optimal computation time in real‐network topologies. In addition, PSOPR generates shorter routes than the optimal routes generated by CPLEX.     

Security in vehicular ad hoc networks [security in mobile ad hoc]

Vehicular communication networking is a promising approach to facilitating road safety, traffic management, and infotainment dissemination for drivers and passengers. One of the ultimate goals in the design of such networking is to resist various malicious abuses and security attacks. In this article we first review the current standardization process, which covers the methods of providing security services and preserving driver privacy for wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE) applications. We then address two fundamental issues, certificate revocation and conditional privacy preservation, for making the standards practical. In addition, a suite of novel security mechanisms are introduced for achieving secure certificate revocation and conditional privacy preservation, which are considered among the most challenging design objectives in vehicular ad hoc networks.     

DDoS protection with stateful software‐defined networking

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks represent one of the most critical security challenges facing network operators. Software‐defined networking (SDN) permits fast reactions to such threats by dynamically enforcing simple forwarding/blocking rules as countermeasures. However, the centralization of the control plane requires that the SDN controller, besides network management operations, should also collect information to identify and mitigate the security menaces. A major drawback of this approach is that it may overload the controller and the control channel. On the other hand, stateful SDN represents a new concept, developed to improve reactivity and offload the controller by delegating local treatments to the switches. In this article, we embrace this paradigm to protect end‐hosts from DDoS attacks. We propose StateSec, a novel approach based on in‐switch processing capabilities to detect and mitigate flooding threats. StateSec monitors packets matching configurable traffic features without resorting to the controller. By feeding an entropy‐based detection algorithm with such monitoring features, it detects and mitigates several threats such as (D)DoS with high accuracy. We implemented StateSec in an SDN platform comparing it with state‐of‐the‐art approaches. We show that StateSec is far more efficient: It achieves very accurate detection levels, reducing at the same time the control plane overhead. We have also evaluated the memory footprint of StateSec for a possible use in production. Finally, we deployed StateSec over a real network to tune its parameters and assess its suitability to real‐world deployments.     

A semantic context exchange process for the federated management of the future internet

In the Future Internet, federations are set up to cope with the stringent quality requirements of services. While a federated solution offers advantages in terms of scalability, it complicates the exchange of context (e.g. Quality of Service information of services) between federated nodes, as each node requires context to perform management tasks. In this article, we propose a context exchange process that automates the context communication between nodes. A scalable approach is proposed that is able to quickly react to local context updates, while maintaining a high level of expressivity to define relationships between federation partners. We distinguish between the context exchange inside an administrative domain, which focuses on scalability, and the context exchange between federation partners, which emphasizes the trust relationships between partners. In both cases, the process allows defining which context needs to be exchanged when and from where. Inside an administrative domain, a combination of RDF and SPARQL rules are used. This allows modeling the contextual requirements of management algorithms and automatically requesting remote context, only when it is necessary for the management algorithms to proceed. Between domains, an OWL‐based approach is used, which allows describing the complex relationships between federation partners. Triggered by the intra‐domain context exchange process, the contextual capabilities are communicated and refined through policies. Both type of processes are evaluated. The results show that they can infer which context is needed in a timely and scalable manner. As such, it outperforms approaches where context is broadcast both in required bandwidth and end‐to‐end delay. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

End‐to‐end response time with fixed priority scheduling: trajectory approach versus holistic approach

In this paper, we are interested in providing deterministic end‐to‐end guarantees to real‐time flows in a distributed system. We focus on the end‐to‐end response time, quality of service (QoS) parameter of the utmost importance for such flows. We assume that each node uses a Fixed Priority scheduling. We determine a bound on the end‐to‐end response time of any real‐time flow with a worst case analysis using the trajectory approach. We establish new results that we compare with those provided by the classical holistic approach for flows visiting the same sequence of nodes. These results show that the trajectory approach is less pessimistic than the holistic one. Moreover, the bound provided by our worst‐case analysis is reached in various configurations, as shown in the examples presented. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolutionary gaming approach for decision making of Tier‐3 Internet service provider networks migration to SoDIP6 networks

With the increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, current networking world is suffering in terms of management and operations with lack of IPv4 addresses leading to issues like network address translation (NAT) proliferation, security and quality of services. Software‐defined networking (SDN) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) are the new networking paradigms evolved to address related issues of legacy IPv4 networking. To adapt with global competitive environment and avoid all existing issues in legacy networking system, network service providers have to migrate their networks into IPv6 and SDN‐enabled networks. But immediate transformations of existing network are not viable due to several factors like higher cost of migration, lack of technical human resources, lack of standards and protocols during transitions, and many more. In this paper, we present the migration analysis for proper decision making of network transition in terms of customer demand, traffic engineering, and organizational strength with operation expenditure for network migration using evolutionary gaming approach. Joint migration to SDN‐enabled IPv6 network from game theoretic perspective is modeled and is validated using numerical results obtained from simulations. Our empirical analysis shows the evolutionary process of network migration while different internal and external factors in the organization affect the overall migration. Evolutionary game in migration planning is supportive in decision making for service providers to develop suitable strategy for their network migration. The proposed approach for migration decision making is mostly applicable to fairly sustained service providers who lack economics, regulation/policy, and resources strengths.     

OpenRSM: a lightweight integrated open source remote management solution

The management of the corporate information technology (IT) environment is rapidly increasing in complexity as server logic architecture becomes more distributed and the number of entities deployed increases, forcing enterprises to resort to thick, complex and expensive high‐end integrated systems and network management solutions. Investing in such systems can be inefficient for small and medium corporations, since the vast majority of management tasks performed are routine tasks, while personnel specialization requirements and costs are high. At the same time, the open source community has not yet produced a reliable and complete system and network management solution. Even though there are open source initiatives specializing in specific fields of remote management, such as network management, there has been no integrated open source solution yet. This paper introduces the Open Source Remote Systems Management (OpenRSM) platform. OpenRSM is an integrated remote management system created by integrating individual specialized open source management initiatives and significantly augmenting them to support additional functionality, so that a complete lightweight system and network management solution is produced. The system implemented facilitates daily management by providing an efficient, simple and adaptable environment for the majority of management operations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Darwin: customizable resource management for value-added networkservices

The Internet is rapidly changing from a set of wires and switches that carry packets into a sophisticated infrastructure that delivers a set of complex value-added services to end users. Services can range from bit transport all the way up to distributed value-added services like video teleconferencing, virtual private networking, data mining, and distributed interactive simulations. Before such services can be supported in a general and dynamic manner, we have to develop appropriate resource management mechanisms. These resource management mechanisms must make it possible to identify and allocate resources that meet service or application requirements, support both isolation and controlled dynamic sharing of resources across services and applications sharing physical resources, and be customizable so services and applications can tailor resource usage to optimize their performance. The Darwin project has developed a set of customizable resource management mechanisms that support value-added services. We present and motivate these mechanisms, describe their implementation in a prototype system, and describe the results of a series of proof-of-concept experiments     

Software‐defined satellite cloud RAN

This paper provides an assessment study on the virtualization of a Digital Video Broadcasting ‐ Satellite ‐ Second Generation (DVB‐S2)/ Digital Video Broadcasting ‐ Return Channel Satellite ‐ Second Generation (DVB‐RCS2) satellite ground infrastructure and proposes a framework, named Satellite Cloud Radio Access Network (SatCloudRAN), that aims to ease the integration of satellite components in forthcoming 5G systems. Special attention is given to the design of SatCloudRAN by considering the split and placement of virtualized and nonvirtualized functions while taking into account the characteristics of the transport links connecting both type of functions. We assess how virtualization and softwarization technologies, namely, network function virtualization and software‐defined networking, can deliver part of the satellite gateway functionalities as virtual network functions and achieve a flexible and programmable control and management of satellite infrastructure. Under the network function virtualization paradigm, building virtual network function blocks that compose a satellite gateway have been identified, and their interaction exhibited. This paper also gives insights on how the SatCloudRAN approach can allow operators to provide software‐defined networking‐based (1) bandwidth on demand, (2) dynamic Quality of Service, and (3) satellite gateway diversity. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed mobility management in named data networking

The information‐centric networking concept was proposed to fulfill the scalability and efficiency requirements of the content‐centric Internet in the future. Among the multiple information‐centric networking proposals, Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the most important representatives. NDN uses a hierarchical name to identify the data after which the on‐path cache can be deployed to improve the efficiency of data retrieval. However, with the development of mobile Internet, how to extend NDN in the mobile environment to enable efficient and scalable mobility management remains a challenge. We propose a distributed mobility management scheme for both the mobile receiver and the mobile publisher in NDN. Our proposed approach is based on the basic NDN naming and routing principles to select the branching node of the previous and new access locations of the mobile terminal after which the on‐path routing states are dynamically adjusted accordingly. Then we propose a novel analytical model to analyze the performance of the proposed scheme. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme inherits the scalability and efficiency of NDN in the mobile Internet. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward Formalized Autonomic Networking

Autonomic systems were first described in 2001. Over the last couple of years, autonomics has gained a lot attention in both academia and industry. After the initial interest, the basic concepts of autonomics remain extremely promising in the area of networking, in particular when considering the flexibility provided by the emerging technologies in virtualization and software defined networking. The fundamental goal of autonomics is self-management, including self-configuration, self-optimization, self-healing and self-protection. An autonomic network is defined when nodes have minimal dependencies on human administrators or centralized management systems. This paper formalizes autonomic networking.     

Towards Autonomic Network Management: an Analysis of Current and Future Research Directions

Autonomic network management is an innovative vision promising new horizons of efficient networking systems free from human control. This promise has, thus far, ushered in enormous yet dispersed research contributions in both industry and academia. The work presented in this article aims at putting these efforts into perspective deriving a more holistic view of the literature in this area. We analyze the requirements and the main contributions for the building blocks of any autonomic network management system (ANMS). We then describe a coherent classification methodology to compare existing ANMS architectures. Based on this analysis, we suggest a reference framework and highlight some open challenges and describe new research opportunities.