A network processor‐based architecture for multi‐gigabit traffic analysis

The wide availability of cheap and effective commodity PC hardware has driven the development of versatile traffic monitoring software such as protocol analyzers, traffic characterizers and intrusion detection systems. Most of them are designed to run on general purpose architectures and are based on the well‐known libpcap API, which has rapidly become a de facto standard. Although many improvements have been applied to packet capturing software, it still suffers from several performance flaws, mainly due to the underlying hardware bottlenecks. To overcome these issues, this paper proposes a system architecture, which combines the high performance of a Network Processor card with the flexibility of software‐based solutions. It allows for removing most part of the hardware limitations exhibited by a purely PC‐based architecture, while preserving the full compliance to any software applications based on libpcap. In addition, the proposed system enables the use of monitoring applications at the wire speed, with the possibility of on‐the‐fly data processing. The system performance has been thoroughly assessed: the results show that it clearly outperforms the previous PC‐based solutions in terms of packet capturing power, while the timestamping accuracy is as good as that achieved by DAG cards. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cache‐at‐relay: energy‐efficient content placement for next‐generation wireless relays

Uploading and downloading content have recently become one of the major reasons for the growth of Internet traffic volume. With the increasing popularity of social networking tools and their video upload/download applications, as well as the connectivity enhancements in wireless networks, it has become a second nature for mobile users to access on‐demand content on‐the‐go. Urban hot spots, usually implemented via wireless relays, answer the bandwidth need of those users. On the other hand, the same popular contents are usually acquired by a large number of users at different times, and fetching those from the initial content source each and every time makes inefficient use of network resources. In‐network caching provides a solution to this problem by bringing contents closer to the users. Although in‐network caching has been previously studied from latency and transport energy minimization perspectives, energy‐efficient schemes to prolong user equipment lifetime have not been considered. To address this problem, we propose the cache‐at‐relay (CAR) scheme, which utilizes wireless relays for in‐network caching of popular contents with content access and caching energy minimization objectives. CAR consists of three integer linear programming models, namely, select relay, place content, and place relay, which respectively solve content access energy minimization, joint minimization of content access and caching energy, and joint minimization of content access energy and relay deployment cost problems. We have shown that place relay significantly minimizes the content access energy consumption of user equipments, while place content provides a compromise between the content access and the caching energy budgets of the network. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A reconstructing approach to end‐to‐end network traffic based on multifractal wavelet model

This paper studies the reconstructing method of end‐to‐end network traffic. Due to the development of current communication networks, our networks become more complex and heterogeneous. Meanwhile, because of time‐varying nature and spatio‐temporal correlations of the end‐to‐end network traffic, to obtain it accurately is a great challenge. We propose to exploit discrete wavelet transforms and multifractal analysis to reconstruct the end‐to‐end network traffic from time–frequency domain. First, its time–frequency properties can be characterized in detail by discrete wavelet transforms. And then, we combine discrete wavelet transforms and multifractal analysis to reconstruct end‐to‐end network traffic from link loads. Furthermore, our method needs to measure end‐to‐end network traffic to build the statistical model named multifractal wavelet model. Finally, simulation results from the real backbone networks suggest that our method can reconstruct the end‐to‐end network traffic more accurately than previous methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Packet‐Reduced Ranging Method with Superresolution TOA Estimation Algorithm for Chirp‐Based RTLS

In this paper, a packet‐reduced ranging method using a superresolution time of arrival estimation algorithm for a chirp‐based real‐time locating system is presented. A variety of ranging methods, such as symmetric double‐sided two‐way ranging (SDS‐TWR), have been proposed to remove the time drift due to the frequency offset using extra ranging packets. Our proposed method can perform robust ranging against the frequency offset using only two ranging packets while maintaining almost the same ranging accuracy as them. To verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, the error performance of our proposed ranging method is analyzed and compared with others. The total ranging performance of TWR, SDS‐TWR, and our proposed TWR are analyzed and verified through simulations in additive white Gaussian noise and multipath channels in the presence of the frequency offset.     

Popularity–Based Adaptive Content Delivery Scheme with In‐Network Caching

To solve the increasing popularity of video streaming services over the Internet, recent research activities have addressed the locality of content delivery from a network edge by introducing a storage module into a router. To employ in‐network caching and persistent request routing, this paper introduces a hybrid content delivery network (CDN) system combining novel content routers in an underlay together with a traditional CDN server in an overlay. This system first selects the most suitable delivery scheme (that is, multicast or broadcast) for the content in question and then allocates an appropriate number of channels based on a consideration of the content's popularity. The proposed scheme aims to minimize traffic volume and achieve optimal delivery cost, since the most popular content is delivered through broadcast channels and the least popular through multicast channels. The performance of the adaptive scheme is clearly evaluated and compared against both the multicast and broadcast schemes in terms of the optimal in‐network caching size and number of unicast channels in a content router to observe the significant impact of our proposed scheme.     

以提升流量价值为导向的互联网内容运营模式探析

本文以运营商与互联网ICP的合作共赢为基本出发点,提出了内容运营的概念,内容定向运营的模式,并建立了相应的模型,为运营商与互联网ICP之间和合作提供了可量化的合作模式及相应的建议。     

Analytical characterization of cache replacement policy impact on content delivery time in information‐centric networks

Information‐centric networking (ICN) has emerged as a promising candidate for designing content‐based future Internet paradigms. ICN increases the utilization of a network through location‐independent content naming and in‐network content caching. In routers, cache replacement policy determines which content to be replaced in the case of cache free space shortage. Thus, it has a direct influence on user experience, especially content delivery time. Meanwhile, content can be provided from different locations simultaneously because of the multi‐source property of the content in ICN. To the best of our knowledge, no work has yet studied the impact of cache replacement policy on the content delivery time considering multi‐source content delivery in ICN, an issue addressed in this paper. As our contribution, we analytically quantify the average content delivery time when different cache replacement policies, namely, least recently used (LRU) and random replacement (RR) policy, are employed. As an impressive result, we report the superiority of these policies in term of the popularity distribution of contents. The expected content delivery time in a supposed network topology was studied by both theoretical and experimental method. On the basis of the obtained results, some interesting findings of the performance of used cache replacement policies are provided.     

Proactive caching with content‐based pricing for cooperative femtocells in two‐tier heterogeneous networks

With increase in the number of smart wireless devices, the demand for higher data rates also grows which puts immense pressure to the network. A vast majority of this demand comes from video files, and it is observed that only a few popular video files are requested more frequently during any specified time interval. Recent studies have shown that caching provides a better performance as it minimizes the network load by avoiding the fetching of same files multiple times from the server. In this paper, we propose to combine two ideas; proactive caching of files and content‐based pricing in macro‐femto heterogeneous networks. The femtocell access point (FAP) is allowed to manipulate its users' demand through content‐based pricing and serve the users' requests by proactively downloading suitable content into its cache memory which reduces the load of the femtocell. In addition, an incentive mechanism is also proposed which encourages the FAP to help macrocell users under its coverage zone by allowing access to its cached content and thereby reduces the macrocell load. The proposed content‐based pricing and proactive caching scheme for femtocells is modeled as a Stackelberg game among the macrocell base station and the FAP to jointly maximize both of their utilities. Performance analysis of the scheme is presented for a single femtocell scenario and compared with the conventional flat pricing‐based scheme via numerical examples. The results demonstrate significant reduction in network load using our proposed scheme.     

A compressive sensing‐based network tomography approach to estimating origin–destination flow traffic in large‐scale backbone networks

A traffic matrix can exhibit the volume of network traffic from origin nodes to destination nodes. It is a critical input parameter to network management and traffic engineering, and thus it is necessary to obtain accurate traffic matrix estimates. Network tomography method is widely used to reconstruct end‐to‐end network traffic from link loads and routing matrix in a large‐scale Internet protocol backbone networks. However, it is a significant challenge because solving network tomography model is an ill‐posed and under‐constrained inverse problem. Compressive sensing reconstruction algorithms have been well known as efficient and precise approaches to deal with the under‐constrained inference problem. Hence, in this paper, we propose a compressive sensing‐based network traffic reconstruction algorithm. Taking into account the constraints in compressive sensing theory, we propose an approach for constructing a novel network tomography model that obeys the constraints of compressive sensing. In the proposed network tomography model, a framework of measurement matrix according to routing matrix is proposed. To obtain optimal traffic matrix estimates, we propose an iteration algorithm to solve the proposed model. Numerical results demonstrate that our method is able to pursuit the trace of each origin–destination flow faithfully. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation‐based real‐time routing protocol with load distribution in wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), sensors gather information about the physical world and the base station makes decision and then performs appropriate actions upon the environment. This technology enables a user to effectively sense and monitor from a distance in real‐time. WSNs demand real‐time forwarding which means messages in the network are delivered according to their end‐to‐end deadlines (packet lifetime). This paper proposes a novel real‐time routing protocol with load distribution (RTLD) that ensures high packet throughput with minimized packet overhead and prolongs the lifetime of WSN. The routing depends on optimal forwarding (OF) decision that takes into account of the link quality (LQ), packet delay time and the remaining power of next hop sensor nodes. The proposed mechanism has been successfully studied through simulation work. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secure content delivery over device‐to‐device communications underlaying cellular networks

Content delivery via device‐to‐device (D2D) communications is a promising technology for offloading the heavy traffic for future mobile communication networks. As security is a critical concern for the users, we focus on improving the secrecy capacity for content dissemination in D2D communications. In this work, we explore the inherent characteristics of wireless channels to prevent eavesdropping. Firstly, we propose a power control scheme to obtain the optimal transmission powers for the D2D links without violating secrecy requirement of cellular users. Then, we formulate the problem as a stochastic optimization problem, aiming at maximizing the secrecy capacity gain of D2D communications. By solving the expected value model for the stochastic optimization problem, the optimal D2D links are selected to realize maximal ergodic secrecy capacity gain. Specifically, a weighted conflict graph is formulated according to the protocol model. Thus, the optimization problem has been transformed to the maximum weighted independent set problem, which is solved by a greedy weighted minimum degree algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the content dissemination scheme with power control can bring high secrecy capacity gain to the network. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multi‐topology routing based egress selection approach to achieve hybrid intra‐AS and inter‐AS traffic engineering

Hot‐potato routing is a border gateway protocol policy that selects the ‘closest’ egress router in terms of interior gateway protocol cost. This policy imposes inherent interactions between intra‐AS (Autonomous System) and inter‐AS traffic engineering. In light of this observation, we present a hybrid intra‐AS and inter‐AS traffic engineering scheme named egress selection based upon hot potato routing. This scheme involves link weight optimization, which can not only minimize the time that IP (Internet Protocol) packets travel across the network by assigning specified egress router but also balance the load among the internal links of the transit network. Egress selection based upon hot potato routing also incorporates multi‐topology routing technique to address the problem that one set of link weights might not guarantee specified egress routers. Accordingly, we formulate the link weights optimization problem using multi‐topology routing as a mixed integer linear programming model. And we present a new heuristic algorithm to make the problem tractable. Numerical results show that only a few topologies are needed to guarantee specified egress router, and maximum link utilization is also reduced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An energy‐aware transmission mechanism for WiFi‐based mobile devices handling upload TCP traffic

This paper presents an energy‐aware transmission mechanism that improves the throughput and reduces the energy consumption of mobile devices in wired‐cum‐wireless TCP networks. The proposed mechanism places an agent at the base station, which identifies the cause of packet losses in the underlying network. When the mobile device acts as a TCP source, it adjusts the size of the congestion window adaptively according to the cause of packet losses with the aids of the agent in order to improve the transmission performance. In addition, the proposed mechanism lets the communication device to stay in sleep mode after completing the transmission in order to reduce the energy consumption. As a result, the cooperation between the mobile device and the agent improves the transmission performance as well as the energy efficiency greatly. To evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism, we analyzed the effect of TCP on the communication device for mobile devices and present a power model. With extensive simulations based on the power model, we demonstrate that the proposed mechanism significantly improves the transmission performance, and reduces the energy consumption over a wide range of both wired and wireless packet losses. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS‐based radio network dimensioning for LTE networks with heavy real‐time traffic

Applications of video streaming and real‐time gaming, which generate large amounts of real‐time traffic in the network, are expected to gain considerable popularity in Long Term Evolution networks. Maintaining the QoS such as packet delay, packet loss ratio, median, and cell border throughput requirements in networks dominated by real time traffic, is critical. The existing dimensioning methodology does not consider QoS parameters of real‐time traffic in network dimensioning. Moreover, exhaustive and time‐consuming simulations are normally required to evaluate the performance and QoS of real‐time services. To overcome this problem, we propose an improved radio network dimensioning framework that considers the QoS of real‐time traffic in network dimensioning. In this framework, an analytical model is proposed to evaluate the capacity and performance of real‐time traffic dominant Long Term Evolution networks. The proposed framework provides a fast and accurate means of finding the trade‐off between system load, packet delay, packet loss ratio, required median, and cell border throughput. It also provides network operators with an analytical means for obtaining the minimum number of sites required by jointly considering coverage, capacity and QoS requirements. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated through simulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application‐Level Traffic Monitoring and an Analysis on IP Networks

Traditional traffic identification methods based on well‐known port numbers are not appropriate for the identification of new types of Internet applications. This paper proposes a new method to identify current Internet traffic, which is a preliminary but essential step toward traffic characterization. We categorized most current network‐based applications into several classes according to their traffic patterns. Then, using this categorization, we developed a flow grouping method that determines the application name of traffic flows. We have incorporated our method into NG‐MON, a traffic analysis system, to analyze Internet traffic between our enterprise network and the Internet, and characterized all the traffic according to their application types.     

Satisfactory content delivery scheme for QoS provisioning in delay tolerant networks

We deal in this article with the content forwarding problem in delay tolerant networks (DTNs). We first formulate the content delivery interaction as a noncooperative satisfaction game. On one hand, the source node seeks to ensure a delivery probability above some given threshold. On the other hand, the relay nodes seek to maximize their own payoffs. The source node offers a reward (virtual coins) to the relay, which caches and forwards the file to the final destination. Each relay has to solve the dilemma of accepting/rejecting to cache the source's file. Cooperation incurs energy cost due to caching, carrying, and forwarding the source's file. Yet when a relay accepts to cooperate, it may receive some reward if it succeeds to be the first relay to forward the content to the destination. Otherwise, the relay may receive some penalty in the form of a constant regret; the latter parameter is introduced to make incentive for cooperation. Next, we introduce the concept of satisfaction equilibrium (SE) as a solution concept to the induced game. Now, the source node is solely interested in reaching a file delivery probability greater than some given threshold, while the relays behave rationally to maximize their respective payoffs. Full characterizations of the SEs for both pure and mixed strategies are derived. Furthermore, we propose two learning algorithms allowing the players (source/relays) to reach the SE strategies. Finally, extensive numerical investigations and some learning simulations are carried out to illustrate the behavior of the interacting nodes and to give some insightful thoughts on how to fine‐tune the network setting.     

Homing‐pigeon‐based messaging: multiple pigeon‐assisted delivery in delay‐tolerant networks

In this paper, we consider the applications of delay‐tolerant networks (DTNs), where the nodes in a network are located in separated areas, and in each separated area, there exists (at least) an anchor node that provides regional network coverage for the nearby nodes. The anchor nodes are responsible for collecting and distributing messages for the nodes in the vicinity. This work proposes to use a set of messengers (named pigeons) that move around the network to deliver messages among multiple anchor nodes. Each source node (anchor node or Internet access point) owns multiple dedicated pigeons, and each pigeon takes a round trip starting from its home (i.e., the source) through the destination anchor nodes and then returns home, disseminating the messages on its way. We named this as a homing‐pigeon‐based messaging (HoPM) scheme. The HoPM scheme is different from the prior schemes in that each messenger is completely dedicated to its home node for providing messaging service. We obtained the average message delay of HoPM scheme in DTN through theoretical analysis with three different pigeon scheduling schemes. The analytical model was validated by simulations. We also studied the effects of several key parameters on the system performance and compared the results with previous solutions. The results allowed us to better understand the impacts of different scheduling schemes on the system performance of HoPM and demonstrated that our proposed scheme outperforms the previous ones. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic region‐based mobile multicast

Traditional mobile multicast schemes have higher multicast tree reconfiguration cost or multicast packet delivery cost. Two costs are very critical because the former affects the service disruption time during handoff while the latter affects the packet delivery delay. Although the range‐based mobile multicast (RBMoM) scheme and its similar schemes offer the trade‐off between two costs to some extent, most of them do not determine the size of service region, which is critical to the network performance. Hence, we propose a dynamic region‐based mobile multicast (DRBMoM) to dynamically determine the optimal service region for reducing the multicast tree reconfiguration and multicast packet delivery costs. DRBMoM provides two versions: (i) the per‐user version, named DRBMoM‐U, and (ii) the aggregate‐users version, named DRBMoM‐A. Two versions have different applicability, which are the complementary technologies for pursuing efficient mobile multicast. Though having different data information and operations, two versions have the same method for finding the optimal service region. To that aim, DRBMoM models the users' mobility with arbitrary movement directional probabilities in 2‐D mesh network using Markov Chain, and predicts the behaviors of foreign agents' (FAs') joining in a multicast group. DRBMoM derives a cost function to formulate the average multicast tree reconfiguration cost and the average multicast packet delivery cost, which is a function of service region. DRBMoM finds the optimal service region that can minimize the cost function. The simulation tests some key parameters of DRBMoM. In addition, the simulation and numerical analyses show the cost in DRBMoM is about 22∼50% of that in RBMoM. At last, the applicability and computational complexity of DRBMoM and its similar scheme are analyzed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of a new explicit‐rate ABR traffic controller

In broadband integrated communication systems, the classical method of max–min fair‐rate allocation for traffic control does not support the weighted‐rate guarantee. The weighted‐rate guarantee is necessary for available‐bit rate (ABR) service models. This fact motivates that the weighted max–min (WMM) fair‐rate allocation for the ABR traffic is widely studied. However, the combination of close‐loop feedback control with WMM algorithm has not appeared in the previous research. In this paper, a practical WMM fair‐rate allocation model is proposed. This scheduling scheme combines and integrates the congestion avoidance using proportional control (CAPC) and the weighted max–min fair‐rate allocation. This model is designed to achieve higher utilization and also bounded delay for ABR traffic flow control. In the system under analysis, the performance of this new weighted traffic scheduler is evaluated. The system presented in this paper is also compared with WMM and CAPC methods. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Genetic algorithm‐based content distribution strategy for F‐RAN architectures

Fog radio access network (F‐RAN) architectures provide markedly improved performance compared to conventional approaches. In this paper, an efficient genetic algorithm‐based content distribution scheme is proposed that improves the throughput and reduces the transmission delay of a F‐RAN. First, an F‐RAN system model is presented that includes a certain number of randomly distributed fog access points (F‐APs) that cache popular content from cloud and other sources. Second, the problem of efficient content distribution in F‐RANs is described. Third, the details of the proposed optimal genetic algorithm‐based content distribution scheme are presented. Finally, simulation results are presented that show the performance of the proposed algorithm rapidly approaches the optimal throughput. When compared with the performance of existing random and exhaustive algorithms, that of the proposed method is demonstrably superior.