Network Assets Research Articles

Security of Energy Supply With Change in Weather Conditions and Dynamic Thermal Limits

Aging network assets, significant variations in weather conditions, increased accommodation of intermittent distributed generation, and the network operating patterns deviate actual thermal limits of assets from deterministic thermal limits. In that context, the paper proposes a model integrated innovative approach to assess the security of energy supply in an active distribution network. The approach integrates models of dynamic thermal limits, stochastic variations in weather conditions, random outages, intermittent generation outputs, and random load fluctuations into Monte Carlo simulation and quantifies the level of insecurity. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by a case study. The results suggest that costs of outages can be significantly affected by combinatorial effects of weather patterns and dynamic thermal limits. Changes in weather patterns contribute more to the costs of the outages than dynamic variations in thermal limits. Latent capacities of assets do not necessarily reduce insecurity of energy supply. The paper also argues that assets in stressed distribution networks should be modeled with dynamic thermal limits for the quantification of true impacts.

Virtualisation of network functions and the SDN: Improving the economics of the network

A 'telco' or telecommunications service provider?s network is both the source of its high cost base and source of differentiation. Telcos incur the high capital and operational costs of customised, vendor-proprietary hardware as they seek differentiation through network capacity addition, service quality and coverage improvement. These decisions to invest in the network are motivated by supply-side competition and demand ? particularly cross-segment demand for data services, much of which is for ?over-the-top? social networking and video streaming services that the telco can only partially monetise. This has created a dichotomy of margin erosion ? a high cost to serve with diminishing returns on additional capacity investments. However, an approach that blends IT, networking and data centre technologies promises to improve this equation, as evidenced by primary research, surveys and proof-of-concepts by Hewlett Packard. Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) offers to immediately lower the capital and operational cost base by implementing a growing set of previously closed network platforms and functions on standard IT hardware. This will set the scene in the next few years for faster ?software-defined network? (SDN) additions which will improve utilisation of network assets and allow lower-cost experiments to flex and scale capacity to improve network services and introduce new innovations. This article provides an introductory view of these emergent developments.

An Improved Network Risk Evaluation Method Based on Markov Game

Network security risk assessment is an important means of acquiring and mastering the current and future state of network, which is of great significance to maintain the safe operation of the network. This paper presents an improved risk assessment method based on Markov game that has simply changed the past, in which the risk status of the network assets were classified into fixed categories. Depending on the game relationship between fixing vulnerabilities and threat attacking, this method has more detailed characterization of the network risk. Network attacks and vulnerabilities are sorted, which reduces the state space, making the scale of model input greatly reduced, improving the assessment of large-scale network efficiency. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this method.

Steady-state security in distribution networks with large wind farms

Aging network assets, forced and unforced outages, and the way the networks are operated in a deregulated market are of significant concerns to integrate large wind farms in a distribution network. In many cases, the constrained network capacity is a potential barrier to the large-scale integration of wind power. This paper probabilistically assesses the steady-state security in a distribution network in the presence of large wind farms. The approach incorporates active distribution network operating conditions, including intermittent power outputs, random outages, demand fluctuations, and dynamic interactions and exchanges, and then assesses the steady state security using Monte Carlo simulation. A case study is performed by integrating large wind farms into a distribution network. The results suggest that intermittent outputs of large wind farms in a distribution network can impact the steady-state security considerably. However, the level of impact of wind farms does not necessarily correlate with the installed capacity of them.

Comparative Analyisis on Some Possible Partnership Schemes of Global Ip Exchange Providers

IPX (IP eXchange) is GSMA’s proposal for IP interconnection model which supports multi services to offer end-to-end QoS, security, interoperability, SLAs through a dedicated connection. It provides a commercial and technical solution to manage IP traffic and follows the GSMA’s 4 key IP interworking principle such as openness, quality, cascading payments, and efficient connectivity. In order to get global IPX reachability, it is possible for an IPX provider to build partnership with other global IPX providers in business and network configuration. There are some possible partnership schemes between IPX providers such as peering mode, semi-hosted mode, full-hosted mode, or combination between these modes. The implementation of the schemes will be case-by-case basis with some considerations based on (but not limited to) IPX Provider’s network asset & coverage, services & features offer, commercial offer, and customers. For an IPX provider to become competitive in IPX business and become a global IPX hub, some value added should be considered such as cost efficiency and great network performance. To achieve it, an IPX provider could implement some strategies such as build network sinergy between them and partners to develop IPX Service as single offering, offer their customers with bundled access network and services. An IPX provider should also consider their existing customer-based that can be a benefit to their bargaining position to other potential IPX provider partners to determine price and business scheme for partnership.

Transnational Networks and Paths to EU Environmental Compliance: Evidence from New Member States

AbstractThis article examines transnational environmental networks as an important and thus far under‐studied mechanism that can influence the pathways toward compliance with European Union (EU) legislation in new Member States. The argument stipulates that transnational networks, on balance, increase the capacity and political leverage of Central and Eastern European states and societal actors to activate management and enforcement paths to compliance with EU environmental norms. The theoretical framework specifies the network assets and the mechanisms through which they can support the two paths to compliance. In the empirical section, this framework is used to examine the impact of transnational environmental networks on the compliance with EU biodiversity directives in two of the most recent Member States: Bulgaria and Romania.

K-Zero Day Safety: A Network Security Metric for Measuring the Risk of Unknown Vulnerabilities

By enabling a direct comparison of different security solutions with respect to their relative effectiveness, a network security metric may provide quantifiable evidences to assist security practitioners in securing computer networks. However, research on security metrics has been hindered by difficulties in handling zero-day attacks exploiting unknown vulnerabilities. In fact, the security risk of unknown vulnerabilities has been considered as something unmeasurable due to the less predictable nature of software flaws. This causes a major difficulty to security metrics, because a more secure configuration would be of little value if it were equally susceptible to zero-day attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel security metric, k-zero day safety, to address this issue. Instead of attempting to rank unknown vulnerabilities, our metric counts how many such vulnerabilities would be required for compromising network assets; a larger count implies more security because the likelihood of having more unknown vulnerabilities available, applicable, and exploitable all at the same time will be significantly lower. We formally define the metric, analyze the complexity of computing the metric, devise heuristic algorithms for intractable cases, and finally demonstrate through case studies that applying the metric to existing network security practices may generate actionable knowledge.

System Frame Erasure Rate and its Relationship to Perceived Call Quality in a Wireless Network

This study demonstrates the relationship between customer perceptions of call quality and actual, objective call quality. This is important because the wireless industry invests substantially in network assets in the hopes of adding new wireless subscribers and retaining existing wireless subscribers. This research has contributed to a deeper understanding of the call quality / customer perception relationship demonstrating the need for wireless service providers to continually improve the network quality to increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Modeling Attacker-Defender Interaction as a Zero-Sum Stochastic Game

Game-theoretic modeling of computer security views security attack scenarios as an optimization game comprising of multiple players notably the attackers and the defenders (system administrators). This paper first presents theoretically, a two-player zero-sum stochastic game model of the interaction between malicious users and network administrators and secondly introduces a hypothetical network of a typical scenario to show the applicability of our model within that scenario. State games are encoded using a binary scheme in order to properly capture components of the underlying network environment. Our solution involves reducing each state game into a min and max linear programming problems for both the defender and attacker respectively. Game costs, rewards and outcomes are modeled to closely match real world measurements. We propose the use of a combination of the pivotal algorithm and a custom stochastic algorithm to compute the optimal (best-response) strategies for the players at each state. We also describe how the results can be analyzed to show how the optimal strategies can be used by the network administrators to predict adversary's actions, determine vulnerable network assets and suggest optimal defense strategies.

Exploiting resource heterogeneity in delay‐tolerant networks

ABSTRACTRouting in delay and disruption‐tolerant networks (DTNs) relies on intermediary nodes, called custodians, to deliver messages to destination. However, nodes usually differ significantly in terms of available resources: energy, buffer space and bandwidth. Routing algorithms need to make the most efficient use of custodian resources while also making sure those in limited supply are not exhausted. This paper proposes a distributed scheme for calculating resources available in node vicinity as a tool to support meaningful routing decisions. A generic model is developed first and is then applied to individual network assets. The model is based on a sparse network, where resources are potentially not uniformly distributed. It uses recent encounters to estimate resource availability in node vicinity. It is shown that a store‐carry‐forward scheme may benefit from accessing vicinity resource estimates. This knowledge allows nodes to implement meaningful custodian election and queue management strategies, approached here from a holistic perspective. It is demonstrated that routing protocols not only use up fewer resources overall but also consume resources preferentially from nodes with higher resource levels, sparing nodes with limited supplies. As a result, disparities in available resources across the node population are significantly reduced, and nodes are less likely to leave the network as a consequence of resource depletion. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stochastic Monitoring of Distribution Networks Including Correlated Input Variables

The evolving complexity of distribution networks with higher levels of uncertainties is a new challenge faced by system operators. This paper introduces the use of Gaussian mixtures models as input variables in stochastic power flow studies and state estimation of distribution networks. These studies are relevant for the efficient exploitation of renewable energy sources and the secure operation of network assets.

A Risk Assessment Framework For Interconnected And Interdependent Surface Transport Networks

The functioning and viability of modern societies is heavily depended upon the continuous and uninterruptible operation of critical infrastructures. Surface transportation systems are in the heart of the daily lives of millions of citizens globally. As such, they are open and freely accessible by design and in the past have been exploited for terrorism attacks. Like many critical infrastructures, different multimodal and heterogeneous transportation networks are interconnected as integral part of larger synergistic systems forming a “network of networks”. These underlying and often concealed interconnections between network assets enable adverse effects to manifest at assets that are initially unaffected by a security incident. The present paper introduces a holistic Risk Assessment Framework for heterogeneous, transportation networks that is applicable at a strategic level, where risk is propagated between interconnected networks through an “Incident Propagation Matrix” taking into account the nature of the interconnection and the type of threat. The proposed methodology views and models the risk analysis process from the perspective of the network operator and emergency responders and emphasizes the reduction of the impacts on business continuity. DOI 10.5592/otmcj.2013.2.6 Research paper

Refinancing under Yardstick Regulation with Investment Cycles The Case of Long-Lived Electricity Network Assets

In the context of yardstick regulation with long-lived assets, the influence of investment cycles and thereof resulting heterogeneous capital structures on the ability to recover capital is quite important. Investment decisions are based on whole investment cycles of the infrastructure. It is shown in this article that variable lifetimes of assets may cause substantial problems of capital-recovery under an efficient firm standard yardstick regulation based on historic (straight-line) depreciation. Resulting heterogeneous investment and cost cycles may cause instantaneous yardstick levels below the long-run refinancing level. Recovery is neither possible in later periods because of the efficient firm standard. An illustrating empirical example is used to demonstrate the relevance of the problem. Finally, two alternatives, branch average cost yardstick determination and correction factors based on the share of capital under depreciation, are discussed.

Enhancing competitive advantage with radio-frequency identification (RFID) enabled returnable transport equipment (RTE)

Fierce competition within the third party logistics 3PL market has developed as providers compete to win customers and enhance their competitive advantage through cost reduction plans and creating service differentiation. 3PL providers are expected to develop advanced technological and logistical service applications that can support cost reduction while increasing service innovation. To enhance competitiveness, this paper proposes the implementation of radio-frequency identification RFID enabled returnable transport equipment RTE in combination with the consolidation of network assets and cross-docking. RFID enabled RTE can significantly improve network visibility of all assets with continuous real-time data updates. A four-level cyclic model aiding 3PL providers to achieve competitive advantage has been developed. The focus is to reduce assets, increase asset utilisation, reduce RTE cycle time and introduce real-time data in the 3PL network. Furthermore, this paper highlights the need for further research from the 3PL perspective.

Exploring attack graph for cost-benefit security hardening: A probabilistic approach

The increasing complexity of today's computer systems, together with the rapid emergence of novel vulnerabilities, make security hardening a formidable challenge for security administrators. Although a large variety of tools and techniques are available for vulnerability analysis, the majority work at system or network level without explicit association with human and organizational factors. This article presents a middleware approach to bridge the gap between system-level vulnerabilities and organization-level security metrics, ultimately contributing to cost-benefit security hardening. In particular, our approach systematically integrates attack graph, a commonly used effective approach to representing and analyzing network vulnerabilities, and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) together, for exploring the probabilistic relation between system observations and states. More specifically, we modify and apply dependency attack graph to represent network assets and vulnerabilities (observations), which are then fed to HMM for estimating attack states, whereas their transitions are driven by a set of predefined cost factors associated with potential attacks and countermeasures. A heuristic searching algorithm is employed to automatically infer the optimal security hardening through cost-benefit analysis. We use a synthetic network scenario to illustrate our approach and evaluate its performance through a set of simulations.

A selection framework for infrastructure condition monitoring technologies in water and wastewater networks

The global water sector faces significant challenges to maintain secure and reliable service provision in the context of ageing infrastructure, urban growth, and with investment capacity constrained by user affordability. As part of an on-going effort to meet these challenges, research has been undertaken to facilitate the diffusion of technological innovations within the concept of “Intelligent Networks”. This diffusion has been facilitated by the formation of a consortium of water utilities in Victoria, Australia. The consortium has engaged with Intelligent Network concepts due to a need to prolong network asset life where possible; defer or remove the need for asset augmentation, reduce the operational expenditure (by reducing asset failures and incident response times), and minimise the impact of asset failures on communities and the environment. The literature on innovation diffusion indicates that the uptake of new technologies is influenced by subjective perceptions. As such, key research challenges were to understand where technologies could be used to improve asset management, identify potential condition monitoring techniques, elicit best available knowledge with respect these technologies and provide advice on where their application was likely to reflect a rational economic decision. To ensure a targeted review, “failure pathway” diagrams were first constructed to identify and relate influences controlling asset deterioration and failure. Elements of failure pathways were used to identify parameters that, by effective monitoring, could provide an early indication of asset distress and the opportunity to intervene and avoid reactive maintenance costs. Alternatively, parameters were also identified that could inform the deferral of capital expenditure on asset replacement and augmentation. The failure pathway provided the basis for the identification of 19 candidate monitoring technologies which were subsequently reviewed. Each technology identified was assessed against capital and on-going maintenance costs and the perceived benefit of implementation. Benefits were expressed in terms of how the new information acquired would enhance the asset owner’s ability to defer asset augmentation/renewals and avoid reactive maintenance costs/externalities. The project provided a prioritised set of monitoring technologies that are currently progressing towards pilot trials in the field.

Smart control for minimizing distribution network reinforcement cost due to electrification

Electrification of transport fleets and heating sectors is seen as one of the key strategies to further reduce the use of fossil fuels and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions. However, it will potentially cause a significant increase of electricity peak demand and have adverse consequences on the electricity system, in particular on distribution networks. This paper will address the benefits of various applications of smart network control and demand response technologies for enhancing the integration of these future load categories, and for improvements in operation management and efficient use of distribution network assets. A range of numerical simulations have been carried out on different distribution network topologies (rural and urban networks) to identify the need and the cost of network reinforcement required to accommodate future load under various operating strategies such as Business as Usual (passive demand and passive network) against the smart grid approach. Applications of smart Plug-in vehicle (PiV) charging, smart heat pumps, and optimised control of network voltage regulators to reduce network investment have been studied, and selected key results of our studies on evaluating the benefits of implementing these technologies for Great Britain's distribution networks are presented and discussed in this paper.

Employing Cost Effective Internet-Based Networking Technologies to Manage B2B Relationship

Using Internet-based technologies to establish network connectivity between firms can create conduit for propagation of threat vectors. Sharing data and information assets with other firms may give rise to external seats of loss exposure. Together, these practices complicate the IT security risk in business relationship: misaligned incentive for IT security investment and free rider behavior arise. Naïve pursuit to enter into business relationships using Internet-based technologies can prove myopic because the IT security risk profile of the resultant B2B network may be untenable. This research exhibits the impact of sharing and linking of information and network assets on IT security risk in modern business relationship with the help of a 2-firm symmetric B2B. This work demonstrates why managers should consider expanding their business relationship to include IT security initiatives as well, especially when they employ Internet-based technologies to interlink their networks.

A Survey on Dynamic Honeypots

Today’s it is obvious that the number of vulnerable threat of network assets increase significantly. The major examples of such threats are worms which can be found in the Internet. In spite of decades of research and experience, still incapable to make secure computer systems and also they immobilized manufacture ways to measure a computer systems and networks level of security. This is certainly true that intrusion to a network or system can never be eliminated but security helps reduce risk to an organization and its information-related resources. However, three particular concepts surrounded the IT security includes Detection, Prevention and Reaction. In one hand, you can’t find end-to-end equipments solution to cover all or even two of concepts. In the other hand, secure digital resources in an organization by ruling detect and prevent vulnerabilities before exploited. Looking at network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) before starting with honeypots, could be useful to motivate the use of honeypots. NIDS by providing the amount of functional information causes an increasing number of protocols that employ encryption to protect network traffic from eavesdroppers and decreasing in the face of ever more complicated evasion techniques. Effectiveness of NIDSs is weak because of high false positive rates. Using honeypots assists to decrease the number of the false positives. In network security an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is the method of that monitors network and/or system activities for malicious or unwilling behavior. Moreover, IPS is accountable attempting to stop discovered possible occurrences in realtime. In the other hand intrusion prevention systems are the

Behaviour Based Worm Detection and Signature Automation

Problem statement: A worm is a malicious piece of code that self-prop agates, often via network connections, to exploit security flaws in c omputers connected through the network. In general, worms do not need any human intervention to propagate and are considered a real threat to network assets and the properties of organizations. An Intr usion Detection Systems (IDSs) are employed to detect the presence of the worms in the network. Approach: This study proposed a new behaviour- based worm detection and signature automation approach that consists of scanning characteristics to find vulnerable hosts and indicate the correlation between an infected host and potential destination hosts. Results: This approach can be distinguish between network s canning (random and sequential TCP and UDP worm scanning) triggered by infected and non-infected hosts. In addition, the ability to detect the worms based on its behaviours. Conclusion: Identifying network worms at an early stage can increase the protection of network services and vulnerable hosts.