Future Internet Infrastructure Research Articles

An intelligent native network slicing security architecture empowered by federated learning

Network Slicing (NS) has transformed the landscape of resource sharing in networks, offering flexibility to support services and applications with highly variable requirements in areas such as the next-generation 5G/6G mobile networks (NGMN), vehicular networks, industrial Internet of Things (IoT), and verticals. Although significant research and experimentation have driven the development of network slicing, existing architectures often fall short in intrinsic architectural intelligent security capabilities. This paper proposes an architecture-intelligent security mechanism to improve the NS solutions. We idealized a security-native architecture that deploys intelligent microservices as federated agents based on machine learning, providing intra-slice and architectural operation security for the Slicing Future Internet Infrastructures (SFI2) reference architecture. It is noteworthy that federated-learning approaches match the highly distributed modern microservice-based architectures, thus providing a unifying and scalable design choice for NS platforms addressing both service and security. Using ML-Agents and Security Agents, our approach identified Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) and intrusion attacks within the slice using generic and non-intrusive telemetry records, achieving an average accuracy of approximately 95.60% in the network slicing architecture and 99.99% for the deployed slice – intra-slice. This result demonstrates the potential for leveraging architectural operational security and introduces a promising new research direction for network slicing architectures.

An Efficient QoE-Aware HTTP Adaptive Streaming over Software Defined Networking

Due to the increase in video streaming traffic over the Internet, more innovative methods are in demand for improving both Quality of Experience (QoE) of users and Quality of Service (QoS) of providers. In recent years, HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) has received significant attention from both industry and academia based on its impacts on the enhancement of media streaming services. However, HAS-alone cannot guarantee a seamless viewing experience, since this highly relies on the Network Operators’ infrastructure and evolving network conditions. Along with the development of future Internet infrastructure, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has been researched and newly implemented as a promising solution in improving services of different Internet layers. In this paper, we present a novel architecture incorporating bitrate adaptation and dynamic route allocation. At the client side, adaptation logic of VBR videos streaming is built based on the MPEG-DASH standard. On the network side, an SDN controller is implemented with several routing strategies on top of the OpenFlow protocol. Our experimental results show that the proposed solution enhances at least 38% up to 185% in term of average bitrate in comparison with some existing solutions as well as achieves better viewing experience than the traditional Internet.

A Review of Advanced Algebraic Approaches Enabling Network Tomography for Future Network Infrastructures

Network tomography has emerged as one of the lean approaches for efficient network monitoring, especially aiming at addressing the ever-increasing requirements for scaling and efficiency in modern network architectures and infrastructures. In this paper, we explore network coding and compressed sensing as enabling technologies in the context of network tomography. Both approaches capitalize on algebraic tools for achieving accuracy while allowing scaling of operation as the size of the monitored network increases. Initially, a brief overview of the tomographic problems and the related classification of methods is provided to better comprehend the problems encountered and solutions provided to date. Subsequently, we present representative approaches that employ either one of the aforementioned technologies and we comparatively describe their fundamental operation. Eventually, we provide a qualitative comparison of features and approaches that can be used for further research and technology development for network monitoring in future Internet infrastructures.

Reconciliation of Privacy with Preventive Cybersecurity: The Bright Internet Approach

The emergence of a preventive cybersecurity paradigm that aims to eliminate the sources of cybercrime threats is becoming an increasingly necessary complement to the current self-defensive cybersecurity systems. One concern associated with adopting such preventive measures is the risk of privacy infringement. Therefore, it is necessary to design the future Internet infrastructure so that it can appropriately balance preventive cybersecurity measures with privacy protections. This research proposes to design the Internet infrastructure using the preventive cybersecurity measures of the Bright Internet, namely preventive cybersecurity protocol and identifiable anonymity protocol, and ten privacy rights derived from Europe’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). We then analyze the legitimacy of the five steps of the preventive cybersecurity protocol and the four features of the identifiable anonymity protocol from the perspectives of ten privacy rights. We address the legitimacy from the perspective of potential victims’ self-defense rights. Finally, we discuss four potential risks that may occur to the innocent senders and proposed resilient recovery procedures.

Performance Evaluation of Best Route and Broadcast Strategy for NDN Producer’s Mobility

Named Data Networking is a novel concept mainly for the future Internet infrastructure that is centered on routable named data. The NDN infrastructure comprises of a new constituent known as the strategy layer. The layer give access for automatic selection of network routes by considering network pre-conditions such as delay in Interest messages forwarding via a producer. However, expressing appropriate pre-condition in selecting the best possible routes to forward Interest messages remains a challenging factor in NDN, because various parameters and conditions opposes one another when selecting best routes. Besides, it is possible for data in NDN to be retrieved from several sources. Yet, so far preceding research on forwarding strategy techniques that can calculate, from which route accurate NDN data contents content are realized does not regard a network attacker trying to transmit invalid data contents containing same name as accurate data. Therefore, this paper evaluate performance of forwarding strategy using analytical and simulation, and that can be compatible to related network applications such as voice. In analytical, we exploit the use of distribution function for consistency. These are the Probability Density Function (PDF) and Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF). In simulation, each application require its own form of forwarding policy using best route and broadcast. These were exploited to evaluate the total delay in a given interval from 10 through 50 seconds for five times. Similarly in our evaluation, a largescale ring topology was use in the simulation consisting of 30 nodes and 48 links. Link bandwidth is configured as 1Mbps. Numbers of content consumer/producer starts from 1 to 18 so as to achieve our simulations. Both consumers and producers were randomly selected in term of unique content request on the access network. ndnSIM 2.1 is used in simulating the scenarios for several time intervals. Performance results presents best route policy carries significant delay when compared with broadcast policy. Also, in our result, Delay metric is half the value obtained during analytical and simulation processes for NDN producer’s best route and broadcast using CDF, as compared to the value realized in our benchmark paper for NDN consumer.

A reliable adaptive forwarding approach in named data networking

Named Data Networking (NDN) is a new paradigm for the future Internet infrastructure based on routable named data. The NDN infrastructure consists of a new component called strategy layer. The strategy layer allows for dynamically selecting network interfaces taking into account network conditions such as delay to forward Interest messages toward a provider. However, defining proper criteria for selecting the best possible paths to forward Interest messages is challenging in this network because different parameters and conditions conflict one another when choosing the best interfaces. Moreover, in NDN, data can be retrieved from different sources. However, to the best of our knowledge, the previous forwarding strategy methods that can estimate from which path the valid data can be fetched have not considered an attacker who tries to inject fake data with the same name as valid data. Therefore, in this paper, we take a holistic, adaptive forwarding approach that takes into account various metrics: bandwidth, load, delay, and reliability. Especially, we propose a reliability metric that defines which path is more stable and reliable to retrieve legitimate data. Our evaluation demonstrates that the proposed method enables reliable message delivery against potential attackers that inject invalid data, in addition, our method introduces marginal delay compared with the conventional forwarding methods in NDN.

MANETS and Internet of Things: The Development of a Data Routing Algorithm

Internet of things (IoT), is an innovative technology which allows the connection of physical things with the digital world through the use of heterogeneous networks and communication technologies. IoT in smart environments interacts with wireless sensor network (WSN) and mobile ad‐hoc network (MANET), becoming even more attractive and economically successful. Interaction between wireless sensor and mobile ad‐hoc networks with the internet of things allows the creation of a new MANET‐IoT systems and IT‐based networks. Such systems give the user greater mobility and reduce costs. At the same time new challenging issues are opened in networking aspects. In this work, author proposed a routing solution for the IoT system using a combination of MANET protocols and WSN routing principles. The presented results of solution's investigation provide an effective approach to efficient energy consumption in the global MANET‐IoT system. That is a step forward to a reliable provision of services over global future internet infrastructure.

Re-Designing Dynamic Content Delivery in the Light of a Virtualized Infrastructure

We explore the opportunities and design options enabled by novel SDN and NFV technologies, by re-designing a dynamic content delivery network (CDN) service. Our system, named MOSTO, provides performance levels comparable to that of a regular CDN, but does not require the deployment of a large distributed infrastructure. In the process of designing the system, we identify relevant functions that could be integrated in the future Internet infrastructure. Such functions greatly simplify the design and effectiveness of services, such as MOSTO. We demonstrate our system using a mixture of simulation, emulation, testbed experiments, and by realizing a proof-of-concept deployment in a planet-wide commercial cloud system.

5G networks: Will technology and policy collide?

Despite being still under development, it is envisaged that 5G networks will provide a ‘fibre-like’ experience to mobile users. As such, they are expected to accommodate services with very different requirements in terms of latency, bandwidth and reliability, among others, for the vertical sectors. However, the European Union has just approved the Telecommunications Single Market Regulation, which enshrines the network neutrality principle and guarantees that ‘all traffic through the Internet is treated equally’. This article explores the potential conflict between net neutrality regulation and future 5G services, particularly regarding network virtualisation. We present a discussion on the challenges of building net neutrality upon judgements on whether traffic optimisation is objectively necessary. This proves complex in a technological environment that envisions network ‘slices’ created and priced on-demand according to the Quality of Service (QoS) required by specific applications at any given time. In addition, we argue that the ‘anything-as-a-service’ paradigm might turn into an important source of innovation for the future Internet infrastructure layer, and thus for the ecosystem as a whole.

Towards a Future Internet infrastructure: Analyzing the multidimensional impacts of assured quality Internet interconnection

The path towards the development of a Future Internet infrastructure requires a significant redefinition and realignment of the basic concept of Internet interconnection (IC), which is the glue that holds the Internet together via bilateral network interconnection agreements of best effort (i.e. non-assured) quality. More specifically, the concept of Quality of Service is often overlooked in traditional relationships based on best effort. This study offers a qualitative analysis and assessment of the multidimensional impacts of the recent proposals of introducing Assured Service Quality (ASQ) in the Internet interconnection (IC) market. The analysis focuses on the impacts in four distinct, though strongly interrelated areas: Business, Socioeconomic, Regulatory and Net Neutrality. Methodologically, the impacts and their interplays are identified through a focus group, which involved key informants from 17 European Carriers and stakeholders. Exploring how these complementary impacts may affect the ASQ offer is fundamental for envisioning the Internet infrastructure’s business and technological evolution, as well as for setting appropriate governance policies. This study identifies and discusses the expected impacts, thus shedding light on the key implications of ASQ IC.

Accessible user interface support for multi-device ubiquitous applications: architectural modifiability considerations

The market for personal computing devices is rapidly expanding from PC, to mobile, home entertainment systems, and even the automotive industry. When developing software targeting such ubiquitous devices, the balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue. With the rise of Web technology and the Internet of things, ubiquitous applications have become a reality. Nonetheless, the diversity of presentation and interaction modalities still drastically limit the number of targetable devices and the accessibility toward end users. This paper presents webinos, a multi-device application middleware platform founded on the Future Internet infrastructure. Hereto, the platform's architectural modifiability considerations are described and evaluated as a generic enabler for supporting applications, which are executed in ubiquitous computing environments.

Guaranteeing end-to-end quality-of-service with a generic routing approach

Quality-of-Service (QoS) provisioning plays a pivotal role in widespread deployment of new emerging services over the current Internet and is expected to be an indispensable attribute of future Internet. Though relevant progress has been made towards ensuring QoS, modeling and developing efficient algorithms for end-to-end QoS provisioning remain challenging problems in the current and future Internet infrastructure. In this paper, we address these challenging problems from a generic routing perspective, emphasizing modeling and algorithms as well as evaluation on end-to-end QoS provisioning. Specifically, we first model the common features of major technologies for end-to-end QoS provisioning in a "bottom-up" manner. Through the model, a set of end-to-end performance bounds that indicate the serving capability of substrates are obtained. Then we propose two routing algorithms based upon the model and performance bounds. The analysis on computational property of proposed algorithms proves that they are light-weighted and cost-effective. We also conduct thorough performance comparison between the proposed algorithms and previous best-known results in both theoretical and experimental ways. Our results show that the model and the algorithms developed in this paper are efficient and superior to other competitors, thus are applicable to the various networking systems for end-to-end QoS provisioning in current and future Internet.

Mobility Tolerant Firework Routing for Improving Reachability in MANETs

In this paper, we investigate our mobility-assisted and adaptive broadcast routing mechanism, called Mobility Tolerant Firework Routing (MTFR), which utilizes the concept of potentials for routing and improves node reachability, especially in situations with high mobility, by including a broadcast mechanism. We perform detailed evaluations by simulations in a mobile environment and demonstrate the advantages of MTFR over conventional potential-based routing. In particular, we show that MTFR produces better reachability in many aspects at the expense of a small additional transmission delay and intermediate traffic overhead, making MTFR a promising routing protocol and feasible for future mobile Internet infrastructures.

Privacy in the Internet of Things: threats and challenges

ABSTRACTThe Internet of Things paradigm envisions the pervasive interconnection and cooperation of smart things over the current and future Internet infrastructure. The Internet of Things is, thus, the evolution of the Internet to cover the real world, enabling many new services that will improve people's everyday lives, spawn new businesses, and make buildings, cities, and transport smarter. Smart things allow indeed for ubiquitous data collection or tracking, but these useful features are also examples of privacy threats that are already now limiting the success of the Internet of Things vision when not implemented correctly. These threats involve new challenges such as the pervasive privacy‐aware management of personal data or methods to control or avoid ubiquitous tracking and profiling. This paper analyzes the privacy issues in the Internet of Things in detail. To this end, we first discuss the evolving features and trends in the Internet of Things with the goal of scrutinizing their privacy implications. Second, we classify and examine privacy threats in this new setting, pointing out the challenges that need to be overcome to ensure that the Internet of Things becomes a reality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Future Network and Mobile Summit 2012 [From the Editor

The Future Network and Mobile Summit 2012 (http://www.futurenetworksummit.eu/2012/) was organized in Berlin, Germany, 4-6 July. It was the 21st in a series of annual conferences supported by the European Commission, which regularly attracts over 500 delegates from the industry and research to share experiences and research results, identify future trends, discuss business opportunities, and identify opportunities for international research collaboration under the ICT Theme of Framework Program 7 (FP7). Thus, this Summit contributed to showcasing European research inthe field and positioned it within the multiplicity of related initiatives supported in other regions of the world. In the context of convergence and innovation, the 21st Future Network and Mobile Summit addressed the challenges of building the future Internet infrastructures based on mobile, wireless, and fixed-broadband communications technologies.

An open router virtualization framework using a programmable forwarding plane

Network virtualization promises to spur innovation and add flexibility to the Future Internet infrastructure. Routers supporting virtualization allow the deployment of concurrent virtual networks, and can be employed to consolidate resources and improve energy efficiency in data centers. The closed nature of commercial router systems poses a significant problem for research in the field of virtual network architectures. On the other hand, the performance of software-based, open routing solutions is typically limited. In this work we outline an open router virtualization framework utilizing OpenFlow enabled hardware as a fast, programmable forwarding plane.

A consideration on R&D direction for future Internet architecture

AbstractThe professional Internet system has been operated for more than 20 years, while preserving the continuous introduction of technical innovations. The Internet architecture, of course including the future Internet, must preserve the following five essential features of the Internet architecture. These are (1) autonomous, (2) distributed, (3) disconnected, (4) inter‐domain, and (5) global operation. The current Internet system is challenged by the following three aspects; global, ubiquitous and mobility.ISOC, Internet Society (www.isoc.org), has initiated the strategic initiative that is focusing on ‘Trust and Identifier’. We must re‐design the identifier, directory service, trust model, routing and communication model for the computer system and for the computer networks. For example, Delay Tolerant Networking or Peer‐to‐Peer system architecture would challenge the introduction of new technological frameworks to the existing Internet. Finally, this paper discusses how to build and how to deploy the future Internet infrastructure. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Future Internet Infrastructure Based on the Transparent Integration of Access and Core Optical Transport Networks

It is increasingly recognized that the Internet is transforming into a platform providing services beyond today’s expectations. To successfully realize this transformation, the structural limitations of current networking architectures must be raised so that information transport infrastructure gracefully evolves to address transparent core–access integration, optical flow/packet transport, and end-to-end service delivery capability, overcoming the limitations of segmentation between access, metro, and core networks and domains. We propose and evaluate an integrated control plane for optical access and core networks, which addresses the above consideration. The proposed control plane can lead to a unified transport infrastructure integrating state-of- the-art components and technologies including wavelength division multiplexing, passive optical networking, and optical packet routers with inherent traffic grooming capabilities. The performance of the proposed architecture is assessed by means of simulation in terms of cost, resource utilization, and delay.

Converged Optical Network Infrastructures in Support of Future Internet and Grid Services Using IaaS to Reduce GHG Emissions

With the rapid and growing volume of green house gas (GHG) we may soon cross a tipping point where there may be dramatic climatic catastrophes such that governments will be forced to order the shutdown of coal powered electrical production or mandate carbon neutrality across all sectors of society. On the other hand, in the event of such a development, the future Internet and Grid infrastructure may become absolutely essential for communications and a replacement for travel and for the delivery of critical services such as health, education, research, etc. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) produce 2%-3% of the world's GHG emissions through the consumption of electricity largely produced by coal plants. This rate of GHG is expected to double in the next few years and is clearly unsustainable. Therefore it is critical that any future Internet and Grid infrastructure be designed not only to survive, but also be sustained, through an age where no additional GHG emissions will be allowed. Converged optical networks, Grid and cloud services hosted at zero carbon renewable energy sites using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where each network and computer element is represented to a user as a configurable virtual service will allow for the deployment of what are often referred to as ldquofollow the sun or follow the windrdquo optical network and Grid architectures where the network and Grid topology and Grid resources availability and location are constantly changing depending on local availability states of the wind or sun.

Field-Trial Evaluation of Cross-Layer Effect Caused by All-Optical Wavelength Converters on IP Network Applications

Future Internet infrastructure will require the utilization of new all-optical devices able to enhance the use of fiber capacity. Nevertheless, before deploying such devices, it is necessary to test them under conditions similar to the ones of commercial networks and to evaluate their impact on real-world applications. In this work we investigate the performance of a tunable fiber four-wave mixing all-optical wavelength converter (AOWC) on a video-streaming carried through a field-trial network. This analysis is performed by measuring the packet-error rate (PER) degradation caused by the AOWC for different wavelength separations between the input and output optical carriers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such a cross-layer effect is systematically evaluated for an AOWC. A dynamic polarization controller was successfully used to prevent the FWM efficiency variations that were caused by the changes in the state-of-polarization of the video signal. Our results show that the AOWC introduced a maximum power penalty of 2.5 dB for wavelength separations of up to 12 nm. We also find that such a penalty is related to the optical signal-to-noise ratio degradation induced by the converter.