Virtual Network Infrastructure Research Articles

HADES: An NFV solution for energy-efficient placement and resource allocation in heterogeneous infrastructures

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) aims to replace traditional network functions running in proprietary hardware with software instances (i.e., Virtual Network Functions, VNFs) embedded in general-purpose virtualization solutions. Aware that the transition to a fully virtualized network infrastructure will pay a high energy cost, especially in IoT systems composed of a myriad of devices, energy efficiency is one of the key innovative targets of future networks. Edge computing should be considered in IoT environments to save time and energy by processing data near the producer devices. However, applying NFV in the context of IoT/Edge/Cloud environments complicates the placement of VNFs, due to the inherent heterogeneous nature of such environments and the variety of resource demands. This paper proposes an energy-aware placement of service function chains of VNFs and a resource-allocation solution for heterogeneous edge infrastructures that considers the computation and communication delays according to the VNFs’ location in the infrastructure. The solution has been integrated with the ETSI-sponsored project Open Source Management and Orchestration (OSM) as an extension called HADES, which allows the configuration of VNFs and their subsequent resource allocation and deployment at the edge, minimizing energy consumption and ensuring a quality of service. We have applied the deployment of augmented reality services in real and simulated scenarios. The results show up to a 59% reduction in power consumption and QoS compliance in all scenarios considered compared to default OSM placement and four other allocation policies. We prove that our solution has negligible power overhead, and validate the scalability and applicability of HADES.

Traffic predictive-based flow splitting rerouting scheme for link failures in software-defined networks

This paper presents a traffic rerouting approach to keep a satisfactory QoS (Quality of Service) in virtualized network infrastructures (VPN, Cloud, etc.), supervised by an SDN (Software-Defined Networking) controller dealing with high traffic fluctuations. Traffic fluctuations are usually caused by link failures or link congestion and result in high packet loss, long delay times, and high jitter. These metrics are critical in computer network's QoS assessing. In our strategy, we combine traffic prediction in the SDN controller with flow splitting in the data plane. Simulations reveal that this strategy provides more satisfying values of the QoS assessment metrics compared to the literature.

Toward efficient vehicular-based virtual network infrastructure for smart cities

Future smart cities will undoubtedly generate and process an immense volume of data. Developing a smart network infrastructure is thus becoming a key component for the better development and efficient governance of smart cities. The main objective of this article is to examine the feasibility of utilizing moving vehicles to develop an efficient Vehicular-based Virtual Network Infrastructure (VVNI) for smart cities. The basic idea here is to divide the whole city into distinct cells, then predict and evaluate the vehicle eligibility to act efficiently as a centralized communication and information hub for each cell. Specifically, we present the basic framework of the proposed VVNI, and identify the corresponding efficiency requirements in terms of service availability, cost, and quality; then we introduce novel metrics to characterize the vehicle's ability to cope with these requirements. Several simulation scenarios were conducted to assess the efficiency of the proposed VVNI. The simulation results demonstrate how the proposed model outperforms existing models and improves system performance in three benchmark areas: throughput, packet delivery ratio, and latency, especially in medium- and high-density network scenarios with slower vehicle velocities. The simulation results are promising to further enhance the development of the proposed network infrastructure.

Opportunistic airborne virtual network infrastructure for urban wireless networks

We study the suitability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as purely opportunistic airborne virtual network infrastructure to support urban wireless networks, specifically in two Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) use cases: First, UAVs being used as relays for cooperative awareness applications; second, UAVs being used to coordinate channel access for platooning in urban areas. We do not require that these UAVs alter trajectory nor speed from those of their random, unrelated primary missions, so that these additional tasks can be executed with close-to-zero impact on the execution of their primary missions. Based on extensive computer simulations we show that, within a wide band of acceptable speeds, flight routes (up to a standard deviation of 300m from the optimum) as well as altitudes, opportunistic relaying of transmissions via UAVs can yield a benefit to system performance that is on the same order of magnitude as that of optimally deployed UAVs. We further show that an opportunistic channel access control can reduce the total number of packet collisions by approx. 86% compared to a scenario without any UAVs. Moreover, much of the reduction in impact due to suboptimal missions can be recovered simply by moderately increasing the number of UAVs.

Choose, Not Hoard: Information-to-Model Matching for Artificial Intelligence in O-RAN

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is an emerging paradigm, whereby virtualized network infrastructure elements from different vendors communicate via open, standardized interfaces. A key element therein is the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based controller. Traditionally, all data available in the network has been used to train a single AI model to be used at the RIC. This article introduces, discusses, and evaluates the creation of multiple AI model instances at different RICs, leveraging information from some (or all) locations for their training. This brings about a flexible relationship between gNBs, the AI models used to control them, and the data such models are trained with. Experiments with real-world traces show how using multiple AI model instances that choose training data from specific locations improve the performance of traditional approaches following the hoarding strategy.

Protection of Energy Network Infrastructures Applying a Dynamic Topology Virtualization

Rapid progress of computing and info-communication technologies (ICT) has changed the ecosystem of power production and delivery. Today, an energy network is a complex set of interrelated devices and information systems covering all areas of electric power operations and applying ICT based on open standards, such as IEC 60870, IEC 61850, and IEC 61970. According to IEC 62351, the energy networks are faced with high cybersecurity risks caused by open communications, security requirements rarely considered in the energy facilities, partial and difficult upgrades, and incompatibility of secure tools with industrial solutions. This situation results in new security challenges, e.g., denial of service attacks on the connected controllers, dispatching centers, process control systems, and terminals. IEC 62351 describes possible ways to comprehensive security in the energy networks. Most of them used in traditional networks (e.g., firewalls, intrusion detection systems) can be adapted to the energy networks. Honeypot systems as a protection measure help us to mitigate the attacks and maintain necessary security in the networks. Due to the large scale of an energy network and heterogeneity of its components, a new design, deployment, and management strategy for the honeypot systems are required. The paper suggests a new method for organizing a virtual network infrastructure of a hybrid honeypot system and a dynamic management method that adapts the network topology to the attacker’s actions according to the development graph of potential attacks. This technique allows us to dynamically build virtual networks of arbitrary scale. Because of the similarity of the virtual network to the virtualized origin and providing the level of interactivity of its nodes corresponding to real devices, this technique deploys an energy network indistinguishable from the real one for the attackers. A prototype of our honeypot system has been implemented, and experiments on it have demonstrated the more efficient use of the computing resources, the faster reaction to the attacker’s actions, and the deployment of different sizes of virtual networks for the given limits of the computing resources.

SlicedRAN: Service-Aware Network Slicing Framework for 5G Radio Access Networks

5G mobile networks are envisioned to substantiate new vertical services with diverse performance requirements. Slicing in the radio access network (RAN) promises an efficient solution for these diversified needs of 5G networks, which foresees the separation of the base station functionality between the central unit (CU) and the distributed remote radio heads. In this article, we formulate a mixed integer programming (MIP) framework that maximizes the throughput by jointly selecting the optimal functional split and the routing path from a connected user equipment to the CU, while satisfying the agreed service level agreements (SLAs) of each service. Furthermore, we propose an effective heuristic, SlicedRAN, which creates isolated RAN slices premised on the service requirements connected through a fronthaul/backhaul (FH/BH) network and obtains near-optimal solutions in a short computing time compared to the MIP framework. Our results show that there is a tradeoff between the architecture of the FH/BH network and the minimum SLA of each slice, which provides a solution to efficiently design a virtualized network infrastructure. According to the results, the SlicedRAN outperforms existing state-of-the-art up to 112% gain in throughput. Results are shown close to the optimal results, with a loss below 5%.

Network Function Virtualization and Service Function Chaining Frameworks: A Comprehensive Review of Requirements, Objectives, Implementations, and Open Research Challenges

Network slicing has become a fundamental property for next-generation networks, especially because an inherent part of 5G standardisation is the ability for service providers to migrate some or all of their network services to a virtual network infrastructure, thereby reducing both capital and operational costs. With network function virtualisation (NFV), network functions (NFs) such as firewalls, traffic load balancers, content filters, and intrusion detection systems (IDS) are either instantiated on virtual machines (VMs) or lightweight containers, often chained together to create a service function chain (SFC). In this work, we review the state-of-the-art NFV and SFC implementation frameworks and present a taxonomy of the current proposals. Our taxonomy comprises three major categories based on the primary objectives of each of the surveyed frameworks: (1) resource allocation and service orchestration, (2) performance tuning, and (3) resilience and fault recovery. We also identify some key open research challenges that require further exploration by the research community to achieve scalable, resilient, and high-performance NFV/SFC deployments in next-generation networks.

Designing a secure fail-safe cloud repository of paperworks of students and employees of educational institutions

The article discusses the main approaches to the design and development of an automated information system for a secure cloud repository of paperworks of students and employees of educational and research organisations (abstracts, essays, term papers and theses, master’s theses, deposited articles), providing secure storage and secure mobile access to stored data. The research and development of architectural solutions to ensure reliable and secure data storage using cloud technologies are described. The main problems of designing a secure repository and ways to solve them are considered. The cloud repository of written works is built on the basis of the Ceph distributed file system, which uses the NextCloud system and the virtual computing resources of the virtual network infrastructure of the Belarusian State University as a platform for building a cloud interface.

The methods and approaches to computer networks simulation using virtual network infrastructure

The article is devoted to the problem of computer networks simulation in educational process. The article examines the current state of affairs in this area. The analysis of the existing software for computer networks simulation is performed. The practical example of Cisco Packet Tracer software using for computer network simulation as part of the Computer Networks training course is provided.

A Decentralized Framework for Serverless Edge Computing in the Internet of Things

Serverless computing is becoming widely adopted among cloud providers, thus making increasingly popular the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) programming model, where the developers realize services by packaging sequences of stateless function calls. The current technologies are very well suited to data centers, but cannot provide equally good performance in decentralized environments, such as edge computing systems, which are expected to be typical for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In this paper, we fill this gap by proposing a framework for efficient dispatching of stateless tasks to in-network executors so as to minimize the response times while exhibiting short- and long-term fairness, also leveraging information from a virtualized network infrastructure when available. Our solution is shown to be simple enough to be installed on devices with limited computational capabilities, such as IoT gateways, especially when using a hierarchical forwarding extension. We evaluate the proposed platform by means of extensive emulation experiments with a prototype implementation in realistic conditions. The results show that it is able to smoothly adapt to the mobility of clients and to the variations of their service request patterns, while coping promptly with network congestion.

VIRTUALIZATION OF THE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE OF BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The article discusses current issues of virtualization of the network infrastructure of educational institutions. A new approach to creating a cloud virtualization environment for the network infrastructure of educational institution has been proposed. It is based on the joint use of virtualization technologies and software-defined networks. Virtual network infrastructure is a combination of technologies and architectural solutions. It provides users with mobility during an ongoing educational process, secures access to cloud information resources of the wireless virtual network of an educational institution and centralized Internet access control. A prototype of the virtual network infrastructure of the Belarusian State University has been built. The prototype implements a model that includes virtual network segments (subnets), with which services are provided to end users, and virtual segments that provide presentation of service functions. Virtualization technologies and software-defined networks allow to unify the process of creating network infrastructure, to scale the resources provided on demand with minimal organizational and technical costs, and to adapt the virtual infrastructure to the requirements of a particular educational institution. The proposed model using virtual network segments has been implemented in the data processing center of the Belarusian State University. To create a cloud environment, the solution based on OpenStack was chosen. The basis of the virtualization environment is cloud services, which provide the implementation of the functionality of a virtual network infrastructure.

Libera for Programmable Network Virtualization

Current network virtualization allows tenants to have their own virtual networks. However, new demands to virtual networks at a finer granularity have arisen as tenants want the ability to provision and control switches and links in their virtual networks. This study proposes a new concept called the p-NIaaS model. The p-NIaaS model enables tenants to program their own packet processing logic and monitor network status from any virtual network infrastructure, which is not possible with current network virtualization. This article presents the Libera network hypervisor that implements the p-NIaaS model. Libera overcomes the shortcomings of existing network hypervisors such as scalability, VM migration support, and flexibility. The evaluation shows that the Libera hypervisor is highly scalable and effectively supports VM migration. We also present the overheads of Libera. Libera incurs up to 11 percent overhead in comparison with a non-virtualized network, which we believe is promising in the first prototype of the p-NIaaS model.

Distributed Green Offloading and Power Optimization in Virtualized Small Cell Networks With Mobile Edge Computing

Virtualized small cell networks (SCNs) integrated with mobile edge computing (MEC) is a promising paradigm to provide both wideband access and intensive computation economically for user equipments (UEs) in the scenario of multiple mobile virtual network operators and infrastructure providers. However, the model of offloading in this case is often of high complexity and lacks effective solution. In this paper, by jointly considering offloading, time slice and power allocation, we formulate the energy consumption reduction of the UEs in virtualized SCNs with MEC as a mixed integer nonlinear programming. Our aim is to minimize the total energy consumption of the UEs subject to minimum overall throughput of the network. To solve the problem efficiently, we convert it into a biconvex problem by adding auxiliary variable, which enables the derivation of an efficient iterative algorithm by two subproblems. Towards the first subproblem, we introduce local variables to handle the coupling constraint, and propose an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)-based distributed algorithm, where the closed-form expressions of the optimal solutions in variables updating are derived. For the second subproblem, the closed-form expressions of the optimal solution is also derived. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by extensive simulations with different system configurations.

An Approach to Secure Software Defined Network against Botnet Attack

The traditional hierarchical networking models, although still in use by many networks of today, are inflexible and unable to manage the huge networking infrastructure. This has led to shifting to a more flexible, dynamic and virtualized network infrastructure called Software Defined Network. SDN being a dynamic network manages the traffic flow efficiently due to its OpenFlow controllers. Although SDN is the most conventional model used today, some of its drawbacks have caused disruption on a large scale. Security is one such drawback, which is of major concern in recent times. There have been multiple researches and attempts to address this issue with an aim to permanently eliminate the threat, but with the rapid technological development, an equivalent powerful trust computing protocol is required to be implemented in order to overcome it. This paper focuses on a Botnet Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack that takes place in the control plane of the Software Defined Network. This malicious attack has proved to be the most dangerous threat of the web. From flooding a website to bringing down the entire server, this ‘zombie’ network has created haphazard among reputed businesses. An attempt is made to implement a powerful secured technology that can tackle the botnet attack, protect the networks and minimize their vulnerability to such threats that can eventually bring down the ratio of cybercrime in today’s world.

BlueArch–An Implementation of 5G Testbed

In this paper, we’ve proposed BlueArch, a testbed for 5G research and experimentations. It is a customized setup, that comprises of several opensource components. It provides a platform to create and customize virtual network infrastructures and benchmarks prototypes. BlueArch provides high flexibility in terms of customization, configuration, and programmability. It supports 5G features such as softwarisation, virtualization, and orchestration etc. Furthermore, it offers use cases like IoT, MEC, and SDN through various modes such as simulation, emulation, access to physical network and interfacing with other testbeds. The goal of this paper is to present the structural and functional building blocks of BlueArch, along with their organization and implementation. Finally, three uses cases are also given with results, to demonstrate the functionalities. This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in the journal of communication following peer review. The version of record will be available online at: https://academic.oup.com/joc/issue

Virtual Infrastructure at Traffic Lights: Vehicular Temporary Storage Assisted Data Transportation at Signalized Intersections

In this correspondence, we propose to exploit vehicles waiting at red lights as virtual network infrastructure, for communication, computing, and storage, based on the observation that there always exists a direction getting red lights at signalized intersections. To illustrate our idea, we study how those vehicles stopping at red lights can be utilized as vehicular temporary storage (VTS) to create more contact opportunities between vehicles at signalized intersections and facilitate timely data transportation. We design a VTS-assisted data transportation scheme through Markov decision processes and demonstrate its effectiveness via simulations.

PRSFC-IoT: A Performance and Resource Aware Orchestration System of Service Function Chaining for Internet of Things

Nowadays, service function chaining (SFC) becomes more and more widespread and profound to implement flexible and economical virtual network infrastructures for the Internet of Things (IoT). With the benefits of SFC, the IoT service providers can steer massive traffic through a sequence of heterogeneous virtual network function instances based on their business logic. SFC is viewed as an attractive solution for building virtualized IoT-dedicated network. However, the SFC orchestration in IoT is still a challenge problem. Existing work usually focuses on the performance guarantee while ignoring the issue of resource idleness. To meet the sharp increase in IoT traffic amounts and the diversification of IoT traffic requirements, it is necessary to implement the performance and resource aware SFC orchestration system. Motivated by this, we propose a novel linear programming model and an effective approximation optimization algorithm for SFC orchestration, in order to achieve performance guarantee while avoiding resource idleness. Based on the proposed model and algorithm, a new prototype system named performance and resource aware orchestration system of SFC for IoT (PRSFC-IoT) is built upon OpenStack for online SFC orchestration. A large number of simulation experiments show that the PRSFC-IoT outperforms existing solutions for SFC orchestration in IoT.

Stochastic and exact methods for service mapping in virtualized network infrastructures

SummaryThis paper presents a stochastic algorithm for virtual network service mapping in virtualized network infrastructures, based on reinforcement learning (RL). An exact mapping algorithm in line with the current state of the art and based on integer linear programming is proposed as well, and the performances of the two algorithms are compared. While most of the current works in literature report exact or heuristic mapping methods, the RL algorithm presented here is instead a stochastic one, based on Markov decision processes theory. The aim of the RL algorithm is to iteratively learn an efficient mapping policy, which could maximize the expected mapping reward in the long run. Based on the review of the state of the art, the paper presents a general model of the service mapping problem and the mathematical formulation of the 2 proposed strategies. The distinctive features of the 2 algorithms, their strengths, and possible drawbacks are discussed and validated by means of numeric simulations in a realistic emulated environment.

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.