Provisioning Of Network Resources Research Articles

Physical-layer impairment estimation for random bandwidth traffic

Traffic demands in future elastic optical networks are expected to be heterogeneous with time-varying bandwidth. Estimating the physical-layer impairments (PLIs) for random bandwidth demands is important for cross-layer network resource provisioning. State-of-the-art PLI estimation techniques yield conservative PLI estimates using the maximum bandwidth, which leads to significant over-provisioning. This paper uses probabilistic information on random bandwidth demands to provide a computationally efficient, accurate, and flexible PLI estimate. The proposed model is consistent with the needs of future self-configuring fiber-optic networks and maximally avoids up to a 25% overestimation of PLIs compared to the benchmark for the cases studied, thus reducing the network design margin at a negligible extra computational cost.

Trust-as-a-Service: A reputation-enabled trust framework for 5G network resource provisioning

Trust, security, and privacy are three of the major pillars to assemble the fifth-generation network and beyond. Despite such pillars are principally interconnected, a multitude of challenges arise that need to be addressed separately. 5G networks ought to offer flexible and pervasive computing capabilities across multiple domains according to user demands and assure trustworthy network providers. To this end, distributed marketplaces expect to boost the trading of heterogeneous resources so as to enable the establishment of pervasive service chains between cross-domains. Yet, the need for selecting reliable parties as “marketplace operators” plays a pivotal role in achieving a trustworthy ecosystem. Two of the principal blockages in managing foreseeable networks are the need to consider trust as a property in the resource provisioning process and adapt previous trust models to accomplish the new network and business requirements. In this regard, this article is centered on the trust management of 5G multi-party network resource provisioning. As a result, a reputation-based trust framework is proposed as a Trust-as-a-Service (TaaS) solution for a distributed multi-stakeholder environment where requirements such as zero trust and zero-touch principles should be met. Besides, a literature review is also conducted to recognize the network and business requirements currently envisaged. Finally, the validation of the proposed trust framework was performed in a real research environment, the 5GBarcelona testbed, leveraging 12% of a 2.1 GHz CPU with 20 cores and 2% of the 30 GiB memory. These outcomes reveal the TaaS solution’s feasibility and conservative approach in the context of determining reliable network operators.

Toward Resilient Network Slicing for Satellite–Terrestrial Edge Computing IoT

Satellite-Terrestrial Edge Computing Networks (STECNs) emerged as a global solution to support multiple Internet of Things (IoT) applications in 6G networks. The enabling technologies to slice STECNs such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN), satellite edge computing, and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are key to realizing this vision. In this paper, we survey and analyze network slicing solutions for STECNs. We discuss slice management and orchestration for different STECNs integration architectures, satellite edge computing, mmWave/THz, and AI solutions to make network slicing adaptive. In addition, we identify challenges and open issues to slice STECNs. In particular, resilient network slicing is crucial for essential and critical services. Network failures are unavoidable in large networks and can cause significant disruptions in network slicing, compromising many services. To this end, we present a resilient network slicing design to cope with failures and guarantee service continuity which is agnostic to the integration architecture and inherently multi-domain. Further, we present strategies to achieve resilient networking and slicing in STECNs including planning and provisioning of redundant network resources, design rules for service level agreement decomposition, and cross-domain solutions to detect and mitigate failures. Finally, promising future research directions are highlighted. This paper provides valuable guidelines for slicing STECNs and will benefit key sectors, such as smart healthcare, e-commerce, industrial IoT, and education, among others.

Elastic Provisioning of Network and Computing Resources at the Edge for IoT Services

The fast growth of Internet-connected embedded devices demands new system capabilities at the network edge, such as provisioning local data services on both limited network and computational resources. The current contribution addresses the previous problem by enhancing the usage of scarce edge resources. It designs, deploys, and tests a new solution that incorporates the positive functional advantages offered by software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), and fog computing (FC). Our proposal autonomously activates or deactivates embedded virtualized resources, in response to clients' requests for edge services. Complementing existing literature, the obtained results from extensive tests on our programmable proposal show the superior performance of the proposed elastic edge resource provisioning algorithm, which also assumes an SDN controller with proactive OpenFlow behavior. According to our results, the maximum flow rate for the proactive controller is 15% higher; the maximum delay is 83% smaller; and the loss is 20% smaller compared to when the non-proactive controller is in operation. This improvement in flow quality is complemented by a reduction in control channel workload. The controller also records the time duration of each edge service session, which can enable the accounting of used resources per session.

Demand–Supply-Based Economic Model for Resource Provisioning in Industrial IoT Traffic

Software-defined networks (SDNs) can help facilitate dynamic network resource provisioning in demanding applications, such as those involving Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and systems. For example, SDN-based systems can support increasing demands of multitenancy at the network layer, complex demands of microservices, etc. A typical (large) manufacturing setting generally comprises a broad and diverse range of IoT devices and applications to support different services (e.g., transactions on enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, maintenance prediction, asset management, and outage prediction). Hence, this work introduces a demand–supply-based economic model to enhance the efficiency of different multitenancy attributes at the network layer, which captures the computational complexity of industrial ERP-IoT transactions and performs network resource provisioning, based on the demand–supply principle. The proposed model is accompanied by a flow scheduler, which dynamically assigns ERP-IoT traffic flow entries on network devices to specific preconfigured queues. This scheduler is used to increase service providers’ utility. The evaluation of the proposed model suggests the utility of our proposed approach.

Offline Joint Network and Computational Resource Allocation for Energy-Efficient 5G and beyond Networks

In order to cope with the ever-increasing traffic demands and stringent latency constraints, next generation, i.e., sixth generation (6G) networks, are expected to leverage Network Function Virtualization (NFV) as an enabler for enhanced network flexibility. In such a setup, in addition to the traditional problems of user association and traffic routing, Virtual Network Function (VNF) placement needs to be jointly considered. To that end, in this paper, we focus on the joint network and computational resource allocation, targeting low network power consumption while satisfying the Service Function Chain (SFC), throughput, and delay requirements. Unlike the State-of-the-Art (SoA), we also take into account the Access Network (AN), while formulating the problem as a general Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP). Due to the high complexity of the proposed optimal solution, we also propose a low-complexity energy-efficient resource allocation algorithm, which was shown to significantly outperform the SoA, by achieving up to 78% of the optimal energy efficiency with up to 742 times lower complexity. Finally, we describe an Orchestration Framework for the automated orchestration of vertical-driven services in Network Slices and describe how it encompasses the proposed algorithm towards optimized provisioning of heterogeneous computation and network resources across multiple network segments.

Software Engineering Methodology for Development of APIs for Network Management using the MEF LSO Framework

Standardized open APIs are a cornerstone of successful automation of intra- and inter-carrier telecommunication networks. MEF 55 defines an agile methodology that, with support of proper tool chaining, can deliver open APIs from an information model in an automated fashion. This methodology is an example of a spiral approach with feedback loops that enable quick rework cycles at each step of the process and help to maintain integrity between all artifacts that are produced. By using the MEF life cycle service orchestration (LSO) PRESTO reference point and MEF PRESTO network resource provisioning (NRP) API as a running example, we discuss the steps of the LSO engineering methodology and propose a tool chain that enables process automation.

Control Orchestration Protocol: Unified Transport API for Distributed Cloud and Network Orchestration

In the context of the fifth generation of mobile technology (5G), multiple technologies will converge into a unified end-to-end system. For this purpose, software defined networking (SDN) is proposed, as the control paradigm will integrate all network segments and heterogeneous optical and wireless network technologies together with massive storage and computing infrastructures. The control orchestration protocol is presented as a unified transport application programming interface solution for joint cloud/network orchestration, allowing interworking of heterogeneous control planes to provide provisioning and recovery of quality of service (QoS)-aware end-to-end services. End-to-end QoS is guaranteed by provisioning and restoration schemes, which are proposed for optical circuit/packet switching restoration by means of signal monitoring and adaptive modulation and adaptive route control, respectively. The proposed solution is experimentally demonstrated in an international multi-partner test bed, which consists of a multi-domain transport network comprising optical circuit switching and optical packet switching domains controlled by SDN/OpenFlow and Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) control planes and a distributed cloud infrastructure. The results show the dynamic provisioning of IT and network resources and recovery capabilities of the architecture.

Multi-tenant attribute-based access control for cloud infrastructure services

Cloud Computing is developed as a new wave of ICT technologies, offering a common approach to on-demand provisioning of computation, storage and network resources that are generally referred to as infrastructure services. Most of currently available commercial cloud services are built and organized reflecting simple relations between single provider and customers with the simple security and trust model. New architectural models should deliver multi-provider heterogeneous cloud services environments to organizational customers representing multiple user groups. These models need to be enforced by consistent security services operating in virtualized multi-provider cloud environment. They should incorporate complex access control mechanisms and trust relations among cloud actors. In this paper, we analyze cloud services provisioning use-cases and propose an access control model for multi-tenant cloud services using attribute-based access control model. We also extend the model for Intercloud scenarios with the exchanging tokens approach. To facilitate attribute-based policy evaluation and implementing the proposed model, we apply an efficient mechanism to transform complex logical expressions in policies to compact decision diagrams. Our prototype of the multi-tenant attribute-based access control system for Intercloud is developed, tested and integrated into the GEYSERS project. Evaluations prove that our approach has a good performance in terms of numbers of cloud resources and numbers of clients.

Smart City Architecture: Vision and Challenges

The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea is to integrate information system services of each domain, such as health, education, transportation, power grid etc., of the city to provide public services to citizens efficiently and ubiquitously. These expectations induce massive challenges and requirements. This research is aimed to highlight key ICT (Information and Communication Technology) challenges related to adaptation of smart city. Realizing the significance of effective data collection, storage, retrieval, and efficient network resource provisioning, the research proposes a high level architecture for smart city. The proposed framework is based on a hierarchical model of data storage and defines how different stakeholders will be communicating and offering services to citizens. The architecture facilitates step by step implementation towards a smart city, integrating services, as they are developed in a timely manner.

The GEYSERS optical testbed: A platform for the integration, validation and demonstration of cloud-based infrastructure services

The recent evolution of cloud services is leading to a new service transformation paradigm to accommodate network infrastructures in a cost-scalable way. In this transformation, the network constitutes the key to efficiently connect users to services and applications. In this paper we describe the deployment, validation and demonstration of the optical integrated testbed for the “GEneralized architecture for dYnamic infrastructure SERviceS” (GEYSERS) project to accommodate such cloud based Infrastructure Services. The GEYSERS testbed is composed of a set of local physical testbeds allocated in the facilities of the GEYSERS partners. It is built up based on the requirements specification, architecture definition and per-layer development that constitutes the whole GEYSERS ecosystem, and validates the procedures on the GEYSERS prototypes. The testbed includes optical devices (layer 1), switches (layer 2), and IT resources deployed in different local testbeds provided by the project partners and interconnected among them to compose the whole testbed layout. The main goal of the GEYSERS testbed is twofold. On one hand, it aims at providing a validation ground for the architecture, concepts and business models proposed by GEYSERS, sustained by two main paradigms: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and the coupled provisioning of optical network and IT resources. On the other hand, it is used as a demonstration platform for testing the software prototypes within the project and to demonstrate to the research and business community the project approach and solutions. In this work, we discuss our experience in the deployment of the testbed and share the results and insights learned from our trials in the process. Additionally, the paper highlights the most relevant experiments carried out in the testbed, aimed at the validation of the overall GEYSERS architecture.

Dynamic Resource Provisioning for Energy Efficiency in Wireless Access Networks: A Survey and an Outlook

Traditionally, energy efficiency aspects have been included in the wireless access network design space only in the context of power control aimed at interference mitigation and for the increase of the terminal battery lifetime. Energy consumption of network components has also, for a long time, not been considered an issue, neither in equipment design nor in network planning and management. However, in recent years, with the user demand increasing at nearly exponential pace and margins rapidly shrinking, concerns about energy efficiency have been raised, with the objective of reducing network operational costs (not to mention the environmental issues). Installing more energy-efficient hardware does not seem to fully solve the problem, since wireless access networks are almost invariably (over)provisioned with respect to the peak user demand. This means that efficient resource management schemes, which are capable of controlling how much of the network infrastructure is actually needed and which parts can be temporarily powered off to save energy, can be extremely effective and provide quite large cost reductions. Considering that most of the energy in wireless access networks is consumed in the radio part, dynamic provisioning of wireless access network resources is crucial to achieving energy-efficient operation. The consensus on this approach in the research community has been wide in the last few years, and a large number of solutions have been proposed. In this paper, we survey the most important proposals, considering the two most common wireless access technologies, namely, cellular and WLAN. The main features of the proposed solutions are analyzed and compared, with an outlook on their applicability in typical network scenarios that also include cooperation between both access technologies. Moreover, we provide an overview of the practical implementation aspects that must be addressed to achieve truly energy-efficient wireless access networks, including current standardization work, and trends in the development of energy-efficient hardware.

Service Differentiated Provisioning in Dynamic WDM Networks Based on Set-Up Delay Tolerance

Optical networks are expected to provide a unified platform for a diverse set of emerging applications (three-dimensional TV, digital cinema, e-health, grid computing, etc). The service differentiation will be an essential feature of these networks. Considering the fact that users have different levels of patience for different network applications, referred to as set-up delay tolerance, it will be one of the key parameters for service differentiation. Service differentiation based on set-up delay tolerance will not only enable network users to select an appropriate service class (SC) in compliance with their requirements, but will also provide an opportunity to optimize the network resource provisioning by exploiting this information, resulting in an improvement in the overall performance. Improvement in network performance can be further enhanced by exploiting the connection holding-time awareness. However, when multiple classes of service with different set-up delay tolerances are competing for network resources, the connection requests belonging to SCs with higher set-up delay tolerance have better chances to grab the resources and leave less room for the others, resulting in degradation in the blocking performance of less patient customers. This study proposes different scheduling strategies for promoting the requests belonging to smaller set-up delay tolerance SCs, such as giving priority, reserving some fraction of available resources, and augmenting the research space by providing some extra paths. Extensive simulation results show that 1) priority in the rescheduling queue is not always sufficient for eradicating the degradation effect of high delay tolerant SCs on the provisioning rate of the most stringent SC, and 2) by utilizing the proposed strategies, resource efficiency and overall network blocking performance improve significantly in all SCs.

StorNet: Integrated Dynamic Storage and Network Resource Provisioning and Management for Automated Data Transfers

StorNet is a joint project of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to research, design, and develop an integrated end-to-end resource provisioning and management framework for high-performance data transfers. The StorNet framework leverages heterogeneous network protocols and storage types in a federated computing environment to provide the capability of predictable, efficient delivery of high-bandwidth data transfers for data intensive applications. The framework incorporates functional modules to perform such data transfers through storage and network bandwidth co-scheduling, storage and network resource provisioning, and performance monitoring, and is based on LBNL's BeStMan/SRM, BNL's TeraPaths, and ESNet's OSCARS systems.

Multilayer networks: an architecture framework

We present an architecture framework for the control and management of multilayer networks and associated advanced network services. This material is identified as an "architecture framework" to emphasize its role in providing guidance and structure to our subsequent detailed architecture, design, and implementation activities. Our work is motivated by requirements from the Department of Energy science application community for real-time on-demand science-domain-specific network services and resource provisioning. We also summarize the current state of deployments and use of network services based on this multilayer network architecture framework.

Joint Elastic Cloud and Virtual Network Framework for Application Performance-cost Optimization

Cloud computing infrastructures are providing resources on demand for tackling the needs of large-scale distributed applications. To adapt to the diversity of cloud infrastructures and usage, new operation tools and models are needed. Estimating the amount of resources consumed by each application in particular is a difficult problem, both for end users who aim at minimizing their costs and infrastructure providers who aim at controlling their resources allocation. Furthermore, network provision is generally not controlled on clouds. This paper describes a framework automating cloud resources allocation, deployment and application execution control. It is based on a cost estimation model taking into account both virtual network and nodes managed by the cloud. The flexible provisioning of network resources permits the optimization of applications performance and infrastructure cost reduction. Four resource allocation strategies relying on the expertise that can be captured in workflow-based applications are considered. Results of these strategies are confined virtual infrastructure descriptions that are interpreted by the HIPerNet engine responsible for allocating, reserving and configuring physical resources. The evaluation of this framework was carried out on the Aladdin/Grid’5000 testbed using a real application from the area of medical image analysis.

Service-Oriented Multigranular Optical Network Architecture for Clouds

This paper presents a novel service-oriented network architecture to bridge the informational gap between user applications and optical networks providing technology-agnostic multigranular optical network services for clouds. A mediation layer (service plane) between user applications and network control is proposed to facilitate a mapping process between user application requests and the network services. At the network level, a multigranular optical network (MGON) is proposed and implemented to support dynamic wavelength and subwavelength granularities with different transport formats [optical burst switched (OBS), optical burst transport (OBT)], reservation protocols (one-way, two-way), and different quality-of-service (QoS) levels per service type. The service-oriented multigranular optical network has been designed, implemented, and demonstrated on an experimental testbed. The testbed consists of service and network resource provisioning, service abstraction, and network resource virtualization. The service-to-network interoperation is provided by means of a gateway that maps service requests to technology-specific parameters and a common signaling channel for both service and network resource provisioning.

A new structure-preserving method of sampling for predicting self-similar traffic

The paper presents a structure-preserving method of sampling self-similar traffic with an application to network monitoring and resource provisioning. Based on the observation of the self-similarity of Internet traffic, we propose a new sampling technique (so-called the maximum-based sampling). We show that the resulting data suits perfectly for predicting the bandwidth required by upcoming traffic so that the resource provisioning can be done efficiently and intelligently especially for the context of IP over WDM networks. Hence, we prove mathematically that the proposed technique preserves the self-similarity of the traffic. Besides, experimental results using real Internet traffic show that unlike other sampling techniques (systematic sampling and stratified random sampling), the maximum-based sampling capture faithfully the traffic self-similarity. In order to assess the effect of the sampling technique impact on the performance of the traffic prediction,we undertake a series of prediction experiments using sampled traffic with the proposed technique and the other sampling techniques. A neurofuzzy model (? _SNF), the AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average model (ARIMA) and the Linear Minimum Mean Square Error (LMMSE) are considered in this study for bandwidth prediction. Our experiments results show that the maximum-based sampled traffic--used for the identification of the prediction model--is the most suitable for predicting the traffic for different time scales.

Between grids and networks: grid‐enabled network control planes

PurposeThis article seeks to introduce the concept of the Grid‐GMPLS control plane architecture with focus on new services, models, and interoperability issues of Grid‐GMPLS (G2MPLS) and GMPLS control planes. The purpose of this activity is to design, implement and test extensions of the GMPLS Control Plane that can enable the paradigm of a G2MPLS network.Design/methodology/approachThe approach deploys extended GMPLS implementations aiming to facilitate bandwidth provisioning to Grid users.FindingsG2MPLS is a Network Control Plane architecture that implements the concept of Grid Network Services. GNS is a service that allows the provisioning of network and Grid resources in a single‐step through a set of integrated procedures. By providing a unified network/Grid infrastructure the control plane can adapt to the demands of applications having intensive requirements on both computational and network resources.Research limitations/implicationsThe project delivers the prototype implementation of G2MPLS. Consideration should be given to involving the vendors of the optical equipment in the development process to incorporate the project findings into their operating systems.Practical implicationsThe G2MPLS protocol stack has been designed to be compatible with the ASON/GMPLS architecture. This could lead to possible integration of Grids in the existing operational networks, by overcoming the current limitations of Grids running over dedicated networks with their own administrative procedures.Originality/valueThe paper provides the description of Grid Network Infrastructures with a common and transversal Control Plane approach based on G2MPLS, in which Grid resources and optical network resources are both controlled by the same Control Plane, seamlessly spanning the different Control and Management domains of the network.

Phosphorus grid-enabled GMPLS control plane (G</sup /2>MPLS): architectures, services, and interfaces

G2MPLS is a network control plane architecture that implements the concept of grid network services. In the framework of the 1ST Phosphorus project, GNS allows the provisioning of network and grid resources in a single step through a set of seamlessly integrated procedures. The implementation of GNS imposes a number of requirements in the control planes of the underlying network infrastructure. This article describes services such as GNS set up and restoration, GNS resource and service discovery, and advance reservation services, which are the main trigger factors of the G2MPLS control plane architectures. The article provides an overview of overlay architecture prior to turning to the main focus of the article, which is the integrated architecture through service procedures and the grid-enabled network interfaces provided by the Phosphorus project.