Virtual Network Infrastructure Research Articles

Initial Analysis on the Development of Cloud Logistics Model in China

Cloud technology is actually a combination of network server virtual technology and network infrastructure. The core value is to provide users with resource sharing services through the one or several data center resources virtualization. The service can get benefit through the lease. Therefore, the cloud logistics is a new logistics concept based on cloud technology. The idea of cloud logistics is to provide the service of socialization, standardization and economy. In China, it based on the concept of big data which is still in its infancy. Thus, the paper will analyze the prospect and feasibility of cloud logistics in the Chinese logistic market.

Seamless Configuration of Virtual Network Functions in Data Center Provider Networks

Network function virtualization has enabled data center providers to offer new service provisioning models. Through the use of data center management software (cloud managers), providers allow their tenants to customize their virtual network infrastructure, enabling them to create a network topology that includes network functions (e.g., routers, firewalls), either chosen among the natively supported catalog or provided by third-parties. In order to deploy a ready-to-go service, providers have also to take care of pushing functional configurations into each network function (e.g., IP addresses for routers and policy rules in firewalls). This paper proposes an architecture that extends current cloud management software to enable the configuration of network functions. We propose a model-based approach that exploits the use of additional software components, i.e. translators and gateways, which are network function-agnostic, i.e. they are vendor-neutral and not specific for a particular type of network function, and do not require any change in the network functions. A prototype of this solution has been also implemented and tested, in order to validate our approach and evaluate its effectiveness in the configuration phase.

Enabling Highly Dynamic Mobile Scenarios with Software Defined Networking

Mobile devices have promoted users' mobility; therefore, there is a necessity to provide services that accomplish users' requirements at any place and time. With this, location becomes a key aspect of providing the dynamism required by solutions like the provisioning of reasonable mobile services by service provider networks. In that sense, the SDN paradigm arose to evolve from current static networks, which are manually configured by administrators, toward dynamic networks able to manage on their own at runtime and on demand. Solutions managing the SDN resources by using policies have been proposed, but they do not consider one of the main aspects to network dynamism: mobility. This article presents a mobility-aware and policy-based on-demand control network solution oriented to the SDN paradigm. This is in charge of managing, at runtime, the service and/or system state with high-level policies, which consider the mobility of users and services, the network statistics, and the infrastructure location. In this context, we define different use cases with the concerns of end users when they are in very crowded places, and the solutions provided by our solution through policies: balancing the network traffic between the infrastructure located close to the overloaded one; creating or dismantling geolocated virtual network infrastructure when the existing one is not enough, or is misused to meet end-user demands; and restricting specific network traffic in critical scenarios, like in sports events where crowds consume services with large bandwidth.

Multi-Provider Service Chain Embedding With Nestor

Network function (NF) virtualization decouples NFs from the underlying middlebox hardware and promotes their deployment on virtualized network infrastructures. This essentially paves the way for the migration of NFs into clouds (i.e., NF-as-a-Service), achieving a drastic reduction of middlebox investment and operational costs for enterprises. In this context, service chains (expressing middlebox policies in the enterprise network) should be mapped onto datacenter networks, ensuring correctness, resource efficiency, as well as compliance with the provider’s policy. The network service embedding (NSE) problem is further exacerbated by two challenging aspects: 1) traffic scaling caused by certain NFs (e.g., caches and WAN optimizers) and 2) NF location dependencies. Traffic scaling requires resource reservations different from the ones specified in the service chain, whereas NF location dependencies, in conjunction with the limited geographic footprint of NF providers (NFPs), raise the need for NSE across multiple NFPs. In this paper, we present a holistic solution to the multi-provider NSE problem. We decompose NSE into: 1) NF-graph partitioning performed by a centralized coordinator and 2) NF-subgraph mapping onto datacenter networks. We present linear programming formulations to derive near-optimal solutions for both problems. We address the challenging aspect of traffic scaling by introducing a new service model that supports demand transformations. We also define topology abstractions for NF-graph partitioning. Furthermore, we discuss the steps required to embed service chains across multiple NFPs, using our NSE orchestrator (Nestor). We perform an evaluation study of multi-provider NSE with emphasis on NF-graph partitioning optimizations tailored to the client and NFPs. Our evaluation results further uncover significant savings in terms of service cost and resource consumption due to the demand transformations.

Research and Design of Corporate Networks Infrastructure Using SDN Technologies with Emphasis to Virtual Switch

Software defined Networking has brought revolution to the world of Network technology which replaces most of the physical devices and control layer of the cloud computing reference model takes control of many Networking Devices. The purpose is to explain the role of vSwitch in building virtual network infrastructure. A Virtual Switch is software by the virtue of which communication between several virtual machines take place. In contrast to physical switch, it does not only forwards data packets but also checks the data for security before it is forwarded to other virtual machines. Interrelated components of software components work together to form a virtual network infrastructure. Out of the software components, the emphasis is targeted on Virtual switch functions and how it differs from the traditional switches.

Host-Based Virtual Networks Management in Cloud Datacenters

Infrastructure management is of key importance in a wide array of computer and network environments. The use of virtualization in cloud datacenters has driven the communications and computing convergence to a common operational entity. Failure to effectively manage the involved infrastructure results as impediments in provisioning a successful service. Information models facilitate the infrastructure management and current solutions can be effectively applied in most datacenter scenarios, apart from cases where the networking architecture relies heavily on systems virtualization. In this paper we propose an information model for managing virtual network architectures, where hypervisors and computing server resources are deployed as the basis of the networking layer. We provide a successful proof of concept by managing a virtual machine-based network infrastructure acting as an IP routing platform using statistical methods. Our proposal enables a dynamic reconfiguration of allocated infrastructure resources adapting, in real-time, to variations in the imposed workload.

"Anything as a Service" for 5G Mobile Systems

5G network architecture and its functions are yet to be defined. However, it is generally agreed that cloud computing, network function virtualization (NFV), and software defined networking (SDN) will be key enabling technologies for 5G. Indeed, putting all these technologies together ensures several advantages in terms of network configuration flexibility, scalability, and elasticity, which are highly needed to fulfill the numerous requirements of 5G. Furthermore, 5G network management procedures should be as simple as possible, allowing network operators to orchestrate and manage the lifecycle of their virtual network infrastructures (VNIs) and the corresponding virtual network functions (VNFs), in a cognitive and programmable fashion. To this end, we introduce the concept of “Anything as a Service” (ANYaaS), which allows a network operator to create and orchestrate 5G services on demand and in a dynamic way. ANYaaS relies on the reference ETSI NFV architecture to orchestrate and manage important services such as mobile Content Delivery Network as a Service (CDNaaS), Traffic Offload as a Service (TOFaaS), and Machine Type Communications as a Service (MTCaaS). Ultimately, ANYaaS aims for enabling dynamic creation and management of mobile services through agile approaches that handle 5G network resources and services.

Power-aware virtual optical network provisioning in flexible bandwidth optical networks [Invited

Considering the virtual network infrastructure as a service, optical network virtualization can facilitate the physical infrastructure sharing among different clients and applications that require optical network resources. Obviously, mapping multiple virtual network infrastructures onto the same physical network infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges related to optical network virtualization in flexible bandwidth optical networks. In order to efficiently address the virtual optical network (VON) provisioning problem, we can first obtain the virtual links' order and the virtual nodes' order based on their characteristics, such as the bandwidth requirement on virtual links and computing resources on virtual nodes. We then preconfigure the primary and backup paths for all node-pairs in the physical optical network, and the auxiliary graph is constructed by preconfiguring primary and backup paths. Two VON mapping approaches that include the power-aware virtual-links mapping (PVLM) approach and the power-aware virtual-nodes mapping (PVNM) approach are developed to reduce power consumption for a given set of VONs in flexible bandwidth optical networks with the distributed data centers. Simulation results show that our proposed PVLM approach can greatly reduce power consumption and save spectrum resources compared to the PVNM approach for the single-line rate and the mixed-line rate in flexible bandwidth optical networks with the distributed data centers.

Cost analysis of initial deployment strategies for virtualized mobile core network functions

A virtualized network infrastructure is composed of multiple virtualized network functions (VNF) interconnected by well defined interfaces, and thus forming a VNF-graph. The initial deployment of such a VNF-graph inside a data center (DC) is a complex task with multidimensional aspects compared to deploying a single VNF that may represent a single network function. The problem space becomes more complex when each VNF is further decomposed into multiple VNF components (VNFC), where each VNFC embodies a subset of network functions attributed to the respective VNF. The challenge is to ensure that the deployment strategy meets the intra-functional constraints between the multiple VNFCs constituting the VNF-graph while ensuring service, performance and operational integrity, and also ensures optimal utilization of the underlying resources of the DC infrastructure (DCI). In this article we analyze the cost incurred by two “constraint-based heuristically applied” initial VNF/VNFC deployment strategies with reference to a virtualized mobile network infrastructure providing EPCaaS (evolved packet core as a service) while taking into consideration functional and administrative constraints. The cost of deployment is measured in terms of the utilization of DC infrastructure resources such as compute and networking. We also present the discussion in view of the ETSI NFV MANO framework, undergoing standardization, that is responsible for management and orchestration of NFV systems including VNF deployment.

A non-cooperative game-theoretic framework for resource allocation in network virtualization

Network virtualization is a new technology that aims at allowing multiple virtual networks (VNs) to coexist in the same equipment and to hide the heterogeneity of network infrastructure. The critical issue for a given infrastructure provider (InP), is how to provide customized and on demand resources for multiple service providers (SPs) with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. The should also fairly distribute the network physical resources, such as bandwidth of each physical link, buffer spaces, and processing cycles at each node. In this paper, we propose a new framework based on game theory, for both link and node dynamic allocation between multiple infrastructure providers (InPs) and service providers (SPs). Our approach focuses on provisioning and managing the physical resources in a virtualized network infrastructure. We propose a two-stage approach based on non-cooperative games. The first one is the resource negotiation game where the SP requests link and node resources from multiple InPs. The InP may reject the SP's request when it can potentially cause network congestion. The second stage of the proposal concerns dynamic resource provisioning and consists of two non cooperative games; the node allocation game and the link allocation game. The objective of both games is to allocate physical resources for different isolated VNs that are sharing the same physical substrate network. In the node allocation game, the proportional share mechanism is used. Every SP assigns a weight and submits a bid to each physical node and thereafter it receives a share proportional to its bid. In the link allocation game we investigate the case when multiple SPs compete for a portion of the available physical network capacity. Simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves high resource utilization, improves the network performance, and fairly distributes the link and node resources between multiple SPs.

Virtual network security: threats, countermeasures, and challenges

Abstract Network virtualization has become increasingly prominent in recent years. It enables the creation of network infrastructures that are specifically tailored to the needs of distinct network applications and supports the instantiation of favorable environments for the development and evaluation of new architectures and protocols. Despite the wide applicability of network virtualization, the shared use of routing devices and communication channels leads to a series of security-related concerns. It is necessary to provide protection to virtual network infrastructures in order to enable their use in real, large scale environments. In this paper, we present an overview of the state of the art concerning virtual network security. We discuss the main challenges related to this kind of environment, some of the major threats, as well as solutions proposed in the literature that aim to deal with different security aspects.

Application of Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Competition Environment in Five Countries

This paper presents a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the telecom market in five countries namely USA, UK, Australia, Japan and Brazil. It highlights the diversity and similarity in competition environments across the countries. The paper brings out a set of common policy initiatives that these five countries have implemented called as the necessary conditions. It also provides a set of alternative combination of policy initiatives that some of the countries have implemented, this set is the sufficient conditions. Thus this paper shows that different causal paths – each path being relevant, in a distinct way – may lead to the same outcome in competition regulation. For the five countries studied, it is found that Opening up of Essential Facilities (OEF), Regulating Prices (RP), Unified and Multi-service Licensing (UML), Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Infrastructure Sharing (IS) and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) are the necessary pre-conditions for a country to have an Effective Environment for Competition.The combination of variables like Opening up of Essential Facilities (OEL), Regulating Prices (RP), Spectrum Trading and Leasing (STL), Unified and Multi-service Licensing(UML), Mobile Virtual Network Operator( MVNO),Infrastructure Sharing (IS) and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) are observed in four countries USA,UK, Brazil and Australia. Whereas, combination of variables like Opening up of Essential Facilities(OEL), Regulating Prices (RP), Unified and Multi-service Licensing (UML), Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO),Infrastructure Sharing (IS) and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is observed in Japan.

Modeling and simulation techniques for future Internet ubiquitous world

Many experts foresee that an ever-increasing ubiquitous Internet world is emerging in the near future. Future Internet research and development threads have recently been gaining momentum all over the world and as such the international race to create a new generation Internet is in full swing: initiatives such as the Global Environment for Network Innovations – GENI (http://www.geni.net/), Asia Future Internet (http://www.asiafi.net/), Future Internet Forum Korea (http://fif.kr/), European Union Future Internet Assembly – FIA (http://www.future-Internet.eu/ home/future-Internet-assembly/madrid-dec-2008.html) are prime examples. In the Future Internet Ubiquitous World (FIUW), people and consumers would make extensive use of ubiquitous computing and communication, which is a post-desktop model of human–computer interaction. This model makes it possible for the information process to be thoroughly integrated into everyday objects, things, activities and infrastructures. This special issue aims to foster the dissemination of high-quality research in any new FIUW approach, method, theory, technique, or architecture, and to showcase the most recent developments and research in the FIUW field, as well as to enhance its state of the art. This issue invites original, high-quality papers that focus on theory, architectures, simulation modeling and analysis challenges faced by researchers seeking to develop new principles or gain greater insight into the design tradeoffs and performance limitations inherent to emerging and existing Internet technologies. This issue also seeks papers that emphasize either simulation methodology or application in the areas of information and service technology, networking and communications systems and infrastructure, including mobile computing systems and virtual network and service infrastructures. This special issue is aimed at soliciting research results on the following topics of interest (but this list is not exhaustive):

Framework for Cloud Computing Platform with a Virtualized Network Infrastructure

the development of cloud computing technology and internet, manufacture of cloud computing, which is operated independently by the third party, with high scalability and low energy consumed, become a new network manufacturing mode, this paper starts with the cloud Service models overview, and then the paper discusses the usage of cloud computing technology for designing a platform virtually for a group of scientist to display their achievement on internet. The authors compare two kinds of models and introduced architecture for design platform, the platform allows scientists to share their achievement by using the unified portal.

Scalable service deployment on software-defined networks

It is widely accepted that the network of the future will require a greater degree of service awareness and optimal use of network resources. This article presents an architectural design for an open software-defined network infrastructure that enables the composition of fast and guaranteed services in an efficient manner and the execution of these services in an adaptive way, taking into account better shared network resources provided by network virtualization. Validation results are provided with special emphasis on service deployment scalability over virtualized network infrastructures.

Virtual networking

Over a decade ago, virtual networking started with a simple bridging of VM's virtual network adapter to host's physical network adapter in VMware's Workstation product. With VMware's vSphere 4 product, virtual networking has evolved to a distributed virtual networking infrastructure with pluggable packet switching and filtering modules, under the umbrella marketing name of vNetwork. It is clear that in a virtualized environment, traditional network access layer has migrated from physical switches to virtual switches in the hypervisor. We are beginning to see virtualized solutions in layer 3 to 7 network services and we expect this trend of service migration from physical to virtual to continue in the coming years

Monitoring a virtual network infrastructure

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers keep extending with new features the computing infrastructures they offer on a pay per use basis. In this paper we explore reasons and opportunities to include networking within such features, meeting the demand of users that need composite computing architectures similar to Grids. The introduction of networking capabilities within IaaSs would further increase the potential of this technology, and also foster an evolution of Grids towards a confluence, thus incorporating the experiences matured in this environment. Network monitoring emerges as a relevant feature of such virtual architectures, which must exhibit the distinguishing properties of the IaaS paradigm: scalability, dynamic configuration, accounting. Monitoring tools developed with the same purpose in Grids provide useful insights on problems and solutions.

Virtualization of Grid Networking Resources for Computation Mobility Support

The paper analyses Grid networking resource virtualization technologies and requirements in the context of computational mobility. The mechanisms of network virtualization supported by Xen and xVM/Crossbow are presented and compared. A network virtualization model, consisting of three layers, is presented. Changes in virtual network infrastructures resulting from VM or zone mobility are investigated in detail. Typical migration process scenarios are presented, in addition to system commands used prior to and following migration in order to restore network communication. The concept of automating this process is also described.

Scenario-based virtual network infrastructure management in research and educational testbeds with VNUML

Virtual machine technologies have evolved during the last 40 years from mainframe to commodity (x86) systems. Although these techniques are nowadays quite mature in data center environments (consolidation, service continuity, etc.), scenario-based virtual infrastructure management tools keep evolving in research and educational areas. In this work, one such tool is described, Virtual Network User Mode Linux (VNUML), which has been successfully used during the past few years to help researchers and educators to build testbeds in a wide range of innovative network environments (such as IPv6 IX design and third-generation networks). Such application cases are detailed in this paper, assessing the soundness and flexibility of the tool. However, in spite of these successful applications, several challenges remain to be solved in virtual scenario management (distributed management, decoupling from any particular virtualization technique, and alignment with industry standards), and the way they are being addressed as part of VNUML’s evolution is also discussed.

Network survivability modeling

Critical services in a telecommunication network should be continuously provided even when undesirable events like sabotage, natural disasters, or network failures happen. It is essential to provide virtual connections between peering nodes with certain performance guarantees such as minimum throughput, maximum delay or loss. The design, construction and management of virtual connections, network infrastructures and service platforms aim at meeting such requirements. In this paper we consider the network's ability to survive major and minor failures in network infrastructure and service platforms that are caused by undesired events that might be external or internal. Survive means that the services provided comply with the requirement also in presence of failures. The network survivability is quantified as defined by the ANSI T1A1.2 committee which is the transient performance from the instant an undesirable event occurs until steady state with an acceptable performance level is attained. The assessment of the survivability of a network with virtual connections exposed to link or node failures is addressed in this paper. We have developed both simulation and analytic models to cross-validate our assumptions. In order to avoid state space explosion while addressing large networks we decompose our models first in space by studying the nodes independently and then in time by decoupling our analytic performance and recovery models which gives us a closed form solution. The modeling approaches are applied to both small and real-sized network examples. Three different scenarios have been defined, including single link failure, hurricane disaster, and instabilities in a large block of the system (transient common failure). The results show very good correspondence between the transient loss and delay performance in our simulations and in the analytic approximations.