Adaptive Network Service Research Articles

Tenant-defined service function chaining in a multi-site network slice

Service Function Chaining (SFC) enables dynamic and adaptive network service provisioning. However, virtual infrastructure providers are reluctant to disclose SFC APIs and infrastructure monitoring information to tenants, therefore undermining tenants’ capability in dynamically and flexibly managing application-tailored network services. In this work, we provide a two-fold contribution to the problem of tenant-defined service function chaining on a multi-site virtual infrastructure, which has not been widely investigated yet. First, we propose a VNF Selection algorithm that relies on an abstracted network model thus minimizing topological and monitoring information required by the infrastructure. Our algorithm selects a set of VNF instances that minimizes the end-to-end latency (accounting for network and processing delay) and also guarantees that already established chains do not violate their maximum latency constraint due to the additional load at VNFs brought by new chain requests. Second, we describe an SFC solution composed of an SFC application that uses our VNF Selection algorithm and a forwarding mechanism that manages chains and controls traffic steering within the tenant network without leveraging infrastructure control APIs. Validation and comparative evaluations are performed through simulations. Finally, the proposed approach is assessed through a set of experiments carried out on a multi-site testbed infrastructure.

A Dynamic Programmable Network for Large-Scale Scientific Data Transfer Using AmoebaNet

Large scientific experimental facilities currently are generating a tremendous amount of data. In recent years, the significant growth of scientific data analysis has been observed across scientific research centers. Scientific experimental facilities are producing an unprecedented amount of data and facing new challenges to transfer the large data sets across multi continents. In particular, these days the data transfer is playing an important role in new scientific discoveries. The performance of distributed scientific environment is highly dependent on high-performance, adaptive, and robust network service infrastructures. To support large scale data transfer for extreme-scale distributed science, there is the need of high performance, scalable, end-to-end, and programmable networks that enable scientific applications to use the networks efficiently. We worked on the AmoebaNet solution to address the problems of a dynamic programmable network for bulk data transfer in extreme-scale distributed science environments. A major goal of the AmoebaNet project is to apply software-defined networking (SDN) technology to provide “Application-aware” network to facilitate bulk data transfer. We have prototyped AmoebaNet’s SDN-enabled network service that allows application to dynamically program the networks at run-time for bulk data transfers. In this paper, we evaluated AmoebaNet solution with real world test cases and shown that how it efficiently and dynamically can use the networks for bulk data transfer in large-scale scientific environments.

An Adaptive and Lightweight Update Mechanism for SDN

To improve the network resources utilization and the quality of service, the provision of an adaptive and customizable network service is deemed a feasible approach. In this paper, based on the quality of service (QoS)-aware traffic classification and real-time network status, an adaptive update mechanism is presented to change the traditional rigid update techniques in software-defined networking. The developed update mechanism aims at abstracting the common update mechanism into update operations and calculates the update sequence on the operation granularity. The mechanism has three work modes, and each mode has a corresponding algorithm. It can adjust the work modes adaptively based on the network condition and the flow QoS requirements to improve the performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the three work modes can achieve optimal performance in ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) overhead reduction, delay, and bandwidth consumption, respectively. For example, when the tri-fusion work mode is leveraged, it provides at least an 85% reduction of the additional TCAM overhead and improves by at least 9%, 65%, and 82% compared to other work modes and the compared algorithms.

A Service-Oriented Approach for Dynamic Chaining of Virtual Network Functions over Multi-Provider Software-Defined Networks

Emerging technologies such as Software-Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) promise to address cost reduction and flexibility in network operation while enabling innovative network service delivery models. However, operational network service delivery solutions still need to be developed that actually exploit these technologies, especially at the multi-provider level. Indeed, the implementation of network functions as software running over a virtualized infrastructure and provisioned on a service basis let one envisage an ecosystem of network services that are dynamically and flexibly assembled by orchestrating Virtual Network Functions even across different provider domains, thereby coping with changeable user and service requirements and context conditions. In this paper we propose an approach that adopts Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) technology-agnostic architectural guidelines in the design of a solution for orchestrating and dynamically chaining Virtual Network Functions. We discuss how SOA, NFV, and SDN may complement each other in realizing dynamic network function chaining through service composition specification, service selection, service delivery, and placement tasks. Then, we describe the architecture of a SOA-inspired NFV orchestrator, which leverages SDN-based network control capabilities to address an effective delivery of elastic chains of Virtual Network Functions. Preliminary results of prototype implementation and testing activities are also presented. The benefits for Network Service Providers are also described that derive from the adaptive network service provisioning in a multi-provider environment through the orchestration of computing and networking services to provide end users with an enhanced service experience.

A Design and Prototyping of In-Network Processing Platform to Enable Adaptive Network Services

The explosive growth of the usage along with a greater diversification of communication technologies and applications imposes the Internet to manage further scalability and diversity, requiring more adaptive and flexible sharing schemes of network resources. Especially when a number of large-scale distributed applications concurrently share the resource, efficacy of comprehensive usage of network, computation, and storage resources is needed from the viewpoint of information processing performance. Therefore, a reconsideration of the coordination and partitioning of functions between networks (providers) and applications (users) has become a recent research topic. In this paper, we first address the need and discuss the feasibility of adaptive network services by introducing special processing nodes inside the network. Then, a design and an implementation of an advanced relay node platform are presented, by which we can easily prototype and test a variety of advanced in-network processing on Linux and off-the-shelf PCs. A key feature of the proposed platform is that integration between kernel and userland spaces enables to easily and quickly develop various advanced relay processing. Finally, on the top of the advanced relay node platform, we implement and test an adaptive packet compression scheme that we previously proposed. The experimental results show the feasibility of both the developed platform and the proposed adaptive packet compression.

Self-Organizing Network Services With Evolutionary Adaptation

This paper proposes a novel framework for developing adaptive and scalable network services. In the proposed framework, a network service is implemented as a group of autonomous agents that interact in the network environment. Agents in the proposed framework are autonomous and capable of simple behaviors (e.g., replication, migration, and death). In this paper, an evolutionary adaptation mechanism is designed using genetic algorithms (GAs) for agents to evolve their behaviors and improve their fitness values (e.g., response time to a service request) to the environment. The proposed framework is evaluated through simulations, and the simulation results demonstrate the ability of autonomous agents to adapt to the network environment. The proposed framework may be suitable for disseminating network services in dynamic and large-scale networks where a large number of data and services need to be replicated, moved, and deleted in a decentralized manner.

유비쿼터스 컴퓨팅 환경에서 PARLAY X를 이용하는 MDA기반의 적응성 있는 문맥인식 서비스

본 논문은 유비쿼터스 컴퓨팅 환경에서 PARLAY X기반 서비스 전송 플랫폼상의 MDA(Model Driven Architecture)기반 SCE(Service Creation Environment)를 이용하는 ACS(Adaptive Conte저-aware Service)에 관하여 서술하였다. 유비쿼터스 컴퓨팅 환경에서는 망 수준에서 문맥인식성과 더불어 적응성이 요구된다. 그러나 기존의 문맥인식성 미들웨어는 적응성에 대한 고려가 부족하다. 그러므로 본 논문의 목적은 유비쿼터스 컴퓨팅 환경에서 문맥인식성과 적응성이 동시에 지원 가능한 PARLAY X기반의 신규 망 서비스 구조 및 PARLAY X API를 개발하고자 하는 것이다. 본 논문에서 제안한 ACS(Adaptive Context-aware Service)는 사용자 주변에 변화하는 문맥 제약조건을 감지하고, 변화하는 문맥 제약 조건에 따라서 적응성 있는 망 서비스를 제공하는 것을 의미하며, ACS를 이용하는 예로 위치와 속도 등의 문맥정보를 인식한 후, 사용자에게 망에서 문맥정보에 따라서 적합한 차별화된 QoS를 지원하는 경우를 보였다. An의 구조는 SCE, Adaptive Context Broker, 그리고 PARLAY G/W로 구성되어 있다. SCE는 기존 지능망의 망 서비스와 같은 망 서비스로서 문맥인식성과 적응성을 표현하고 지원하기 위한 망 서비스 개발 환경으로 본 논문에서는 CCL(Context-based Constraint Language)을 이용하였다. Adaptive Context Broker는 SCE의 문맥인식성 및 적응성 표현과 기존 PARLAY G/W사이의 브로커 역할을 한다. PARLAY G/W는 PARLAY X기반의 서비스 전송 플랫폼을 위한 API(Application Programming Interface)를 제공한다. This paper describes an Adaptive Context-aware Service (ACS) using Model Driven Architecture (MDA)-based Service Creation Environment (SCE) on PARLAY X based service delivery platform in ubiquitous computing environments. It can be expected that both the context-awareness and adaptation in ubiquitous computing environments will be deployed. But the existing context-aware middleware lacks in considering adaptation. Therefore, the object of this paper is to support the architecture and the Application Programming Interface (API) of the network service for both the context-awareness and adaptation in ubiquitous computing environment. ACS is to provide users with the adaptive network service to the changing context constraints as well as detecting the changing context. For instance, ACS can provide users with QoS in network according to the detected context, after detecting the context such as location and speed. The architecture of ACS is comprised of a Service Creation Environment (SCE), Adaptive Context Broker and PARLAY gateway. SCE is to use Context-based Constraint Language (CCL) for an expression of context-awareness and adaptation. Adaptive Context Broker is to make a role of the broker between SCE and PARLAY G/W. PARLAY G/W is to support API for PARLAY X-based service delivery platform.

Automatic creation and reconfiguration of network-aware service access paths

This paper describes an adaptive network infrastructure, Composable Adaptive Network Services (CANS), for bridging the bandwidth and resource gap between network services and mobile clients. CANS enables construction of service access paths augmented with ‘impedance matching’ components that handle operations such as caching, protocol conversion, and content transcoding. The CANS infrastructure focuses on the automatic creation and efficient dynamic reconfiguration of such network-aware access paths, relying upon three key mechanisms: (a) a high-level integrated type-based specification of components and network resources; (b) an automatic path creation strategy; and (c) system support for low-overhead path reconfiguration. We evaluate the CANS infrastructure over a range of network and end-device characteristics using two application scenario: web access and image streaming. Our results validate the effectiveness of the CANS approach for enabling network-aware service access to mobile clients, verifying that (1) communication paths automatically generated by CANS bring considerable performance advantages to applications; (2) desirable adaptation can be achieved using our flexible path creation mechanisms, which consider both underlying network conditions and different performance preferences of applications; and (3) despite their flexibility, both run-time overheads of CANS communication paths and reconfiguration time are negligible for most applications, providing applications with agile adaptation to dynamic changes in networks.

Transporting QoS adaptive flows

Distributed audio and video applications need to adapt to fluctuations in delivered quality of service (QoS). By trading off temporal and spatial quality to available bandwidth, or manipulating the playout time of continuous media in response to variation in delay, audio and video flows can be made to adapt to fluctuating QoS with minimal perceptual distortion. In this paper, we extend our previous work on a QoS Architecture (QoS-A) by populating the QoS management planes of our architecture with a framework for the control and management of multilayer coded flows operating in heterogeneous multimedia networking environments. Two key techniques are proposed: i) an end-to-end rate-shaping scheme which adapts the rate of MPEG-coded flows to the available network resources while minimizing the distortion observed at the receiver; and ii) an adaptive network service, which offers “hard” guarantees to the base layer of multilayer coded flows and “fairness” guarantees to the enhancement layers based on a bandwidth allocation technique called Weighted Fair Sharing.