Dynamic virtual private network provisioning from multiple cloud infrastructure service providers

The Cloud infrastructure service providers currently provision basic virtualized computing resources as on demand and dynamic services but there is no common framework in existence that allows the seamless provisioning of even these basic services across multiple cloud service providers, although this is not due to any inherent incompatibility or proprietary nature of the foundation technologies on which these cloud platforms are built. We present a solution idea which aims to provide a dynamic and service oriented provisioning of secure virtual private networks on top of multiple cloud infrastructure service providers. This solution leverages the benefits of peer to peer overlay networks, i.e., the flexibility and scalability to handle the churn of nodes joining and leaving the VPNs and can adapt the topology of the VPN as per the requirements of the applications utilizing its intercloud secure communication framework

Secure communication using dynamic VPN provisioning in an Inter-Cloud environment

Most of the current cloud computing platforms offer Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, which aims to provision basic virtualised computing resources as on-demand and dynamic services. Nevertheless, a single cloud does not have limitless resources to offer to its users, hence the notion of an Inter-Cloud enviroment where a cloud can use the infrastructure resources of other clouds. However, there is no common framework in existence that allows the srevice owners to seamlessly provision even some basic services across multiple cloud service providers, albeit not due to any inherent incompatibility or proprietary nature of the foundation technologies on which these cloud platforms are built. In this paper we present a novel solution which aims to cover a gap in a subsection of this problem domain. Our solution offer a security architecture that enables service owners to provision a dynamic and service-oriented secure virtual private network on top of multiple cloud IaaS providers. It does this by leveraging the scalability, robustness and flexibility of peer- to-peer overlay techniques to eliminate the manual configuration, key management and peer churn problems encountered in setting up the secure communication channels dynamically, between different components of a typical service that is deployed on multiple clouds. We present the implementation details of our solution as well as experimental results carried out on two commercial clouds

QUALITY OF SERVICE ARCHITECTURES APPLICABILITY IN AN INTRANET NETWORK

The quality of service (QoS) concept, which appeared initially as a necessity to improve Internet users perception, deals actually with new valences along with information society maturation. At the organisation’s level, the Intranet network shall assure in a similar manner as the Internet all kinds of services, which are useful to the organisation’s users. Starting from the traditional QoS architectural models, network administrators shall plan and design a QoS architecture, which will map on the organisation’s requirements, having at disposal not only own network elements but also communication services provided by other operators. The aim of this paper is to present, starting from the general QoS models, a comparative study of main advantages and drawbacks in implementing a specific Intranet QoS architecture taking into consideration all kind of aspects (material, financial, human resources), which impact on a good Intranet QoS management.QoS, IntServ, DiffServ, IntServ over DiffServ, VPN-MPLS, Intranet network

Deploying elastic routing capability in an SDN/NFV-enabled environment

SDN and NFV are two paradigms that introduce unseen flexibility in telecom networks. Where previously telecom services were provided by dedicated hardware and associated (vendor-specific) protocols, SDN enables to control telecom networks through specialized software running on controllers. NFV enables highly optimized packet-processing network functions to run on generic/multi-purpose hardware such as x86 servers. Although the possibilities of SDN and NFV are well-known, concrete control and orchestration architectures are still under design and few prototype validations are available. In this demo we demonstrate the dynamic up-and downscaling of an elastic router supporting NFV-based network management, for example needed in a VPN service. The framework which enables this elasticity is the UNIFY ESCAPE environment, which is a PoC following an ETSI NFV MANO-conform architecture. This demo is one of the first to demonstrate a fully closed control loop for scaling NFs in an SDN/NFV control and orchestration architecture

A Survey on Communication Networks for Electric System Automation

Published in Computer Networks 50 (2006) 877–897, an Elsevier journal. The definitive version of this publication is available from Science Direct. Digital Object Identifier:10.1016/j.comnet.2006.01.005In today’s competitive electric utility marketplace, reliable and real-time information become the key factor for reliable delivery of power to the end-users, profitability of the electric utility and customer satisfaction. The operational and commercial demands of electric utilities require a high-performance data communication network that supports both existing functionalities and future operational requirements. In this respect, since such a communication network constitutes the core of the electric system automation applications, the design of a cost-effective and reliable network architecture is crucial. In this paper, the opportunities and challenges of a hybrid network architecture are discussed for electric system automation. More specifically, Internet based Virtual Private Networks, power line communications, satellite communications and wireless communications (wireless sensor networks, WiMAX and wireless mesh networks) are described in detail. The motivation of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the hybrid network architecture that can provide heterogeneous electric system automation application requirements. In this regard, our aim is to present a structured framework for electric utilities who plan to utilize new communication technologies for automation and hence, to make the decision making process more effective and direct.This work was supported by NEETRAC under Project #04-157

Inter-Domain Integration of Services and Service Management

The evolution of the global telecommunications industry into an open services market presents developers of telecommunication service and management systems with many new challenges. Increased competition, complex service provision chains and integrated service offerings require effective techniques for the rapid integration of service and management systems over multiple organisational domains. These integration issues have been examined in the ACTS project Prospect by developing a working set of integrated, managed telecommunications services for a user trial. This paper presents the initial results of this work detailing the technologies and standards used, the architectural approach taken and the application of this approach to specific services