A Markovian Approach to Multipath Data Transfer in Overlay Networks

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Management of Temporally and Spatially Correlated Failures in Federated Message Oriented Middleware for Resilient and QoS-Aware Messaging Services.

PhDMessage Oriented Middleware (MOM) is widely recognized as a promising solution for the communications between heterogeneous distributed systems. Because the resilience and quality-of-service of the messaging substrate plays a critical role in the overall system performance, the evolution of these distributed systems has introduced new requirements for MOM, such as inter domain federation, resilience and QoS support. This thesis focuses on a management frame work that enhances the Resilience and QoS-awareness of MOM, called RQMOM, for federated enterprise systems. A common hierarchical MOM architecture for the federated messaging service is assumed. Each bottom level local domain comprises a cluster of neighbouring brokers that carry a local messaging service, and inter domain messaging are routed through the gateway brokers of the different local domains over the top level federated overlay. Some challenges and solutions for the intra and inter domain messaging are researched. In local domain messaging the common cause of performance degradation is often the fluctuation of workloads which might result in surge of total workload on a broker and overload its processing capacity, since a local domain is often within a well connected network. Against performance degradation, a combination of novel proactive risk-aware workload allocation, which exploits the co-variation between workloads, in addition to existing reactive load balancing is designed and evaluated. In federated inter domain messaging an overlay network of federated gateway brokers distributed in separated geographical locations, on top of the heterogeneous physical network is considered. Geographical correlated failures are threats to cause major interruptions and damages to such systems. To mitigate this rarely addressed challenge, a novel geographical location aware route selection algorithm to support uninterrupted messaging is introduced. It is used with existing overlay routing mechanisms, to maintain routes and hence provide more resilient messaging against geographical correlated failures

Cognitive Radio Systems

Cognitive radio is a hot research area for future wireless communications in the recent years. In order to increase the spectrum utilization, cognitive radio makes it possible for unlicensed users to access the spectrum unoccupied by licensed users. Cognitive radio let the equipments more intelligent to communicate with each other in a spectrum-aware manner and provide a new approach for the co-existence of multiple wireless systems. The goal of this book is to provide highlights of the current research topics in the field of cognitive radio systems. The book consists of 17 chapters, addressing various problems in cognitive radio systems

MultiPaths Revisited - A novel approach using OpenFlow-enabled devices

This thesis presents novel approaches enhancing the performance of computer networks using multipaths. Our enhancements take the form of congestion- aware routing protocols. We present three protocols called MultiRoute, Step- Route, and finally PathRoute. Each of these protocols leverage both local and remote congestion statistics and build different representations (or views) of the network congestion by using an innovative representation of congestion for router-router links. These congestion statistics are then distributed via an aggregation protocol to other routers in the network. For many years, multipath routing protocols have only been used in simple situations, such as Link Aggregation and/or networks where paths of equal cost (and therefore equal delay) exist. But, paths of unequal costs are often discarded to the benefit of shortest path only routing because it is known that paths of unequal length present different delays and therefore cause out of order packets which cause catastrophic network performances. Further, multipaths become highly beneficial when alternative paths are selected based on the network congestion. But, no realistic solution has been proposed for congestion-aware multipath networks. We present in this thesis a method which selects alternative paths based on network congestion and completely avoids the issue of out of order packets by grouping packets into flows and binding them to a single path for a limited duration. The implementation of these protocols relies heavily on OpenFlow and NOX. OpenFlow enables network researchers to control the behavior of their network equipment by specifying rules in the routers flow table. NOX provides a simple Application Programming Interface (API) to program a routers flow table. Therefore by using OpenFlow and NOX, we are able to define new routing protocols like the ones which we will present in this thesis. We show in this thesis that grouping packets together, while not optimal, still provides a significant increase in network performance. More precisely we show that our protocols can, in some cases, achieve up to N times the throughput of Shortest Path (SP), where N is the number of distinct paths of identical throughput from source to destination. We also show that our protocols provide more predictable throughput than simple hash-based routing algorithms. Todays networks provide more and more connections between any source- destination pair. Most of these connections remain idle until some failure occurs. Using the protocols proposed in this thesis, networks could leverage the added bandwidth provided by these currently idle connections. Therefore, we could increase the overall performance of current networks without replacing the existing hardware

Concurrent Multipath Transfer: Scheduling, Modelling, and Congestion Window Management

Known as smartphones, multihomed devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry can simultaneously connect to Wi-Fi and 4G LTE networks. Unfortunately, due to the architectural constraints of standard transport layer protocols like the transmission control protocol (TCP), an Internet application (e.g., a file transfer) can use only one access network at a time. Due to recent developments, however, concurrent multipath transfer (CMT) using the stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) can enable multihomed devices to exploit additional network resources for transport layer communications. In this thesis we explore a variety of techniques aimed at CMT and multihomed devices, such as: packet scheduling, transport layer modelling, and resource management. Some of our accomplishments include, but are not limited to: enhanced performance of CMT under delay-based disparity, a tractable framework for modelling the throughput of CMT, a comparison of modelling techniques for SCTP, a new congestion window update policy for CMT, and efficient use of system resources through optimization. Since the demand for a better communications system is always on the horizon, it is our goal to further the research and inspire others to embrace CMT as a viable network architecture; in hopes that someday CMT will become a standard part of smartphone technology

Distributed control architecture for multiservice networks

The research focuses in devising decentralised and distributed control system architecture for the management of internetworking systems to provide improved service delivery and network control. The theoretical basis, results of simulation and implementation in a real-network are presented. It is demonstrated that better performance, utilisation and fairness can be achieved for network customers as well as network/service operators with a value based control system. A decentralised control system framework for analysing networked and shared resources is developed and demonstrated. This fits in with the fundamental principles of the Internet. It is demonstrated that distributed, multiple control loops can be run on shared resources and achieve proportional fairness in their allocation, without a central control. Some of the specific characteristic behaviours of the service and network layers are identified. The network and service layers are isolated such that each layer can evolve independently to fulfil their functions better. A common architecture pattern is devised to serve the different layers independently. The decision processes require no co-ordination between peers and hence improves scalability of the solution. The proposed architecture can readily fit into a clearinghouse mechanism for integration with business logic. This architecture can provide improved QoS and better revenue from both reservation-less and reservation-based networks. The limits on resource usage for different types of flows are analysed. A method that can sense and modify user utilities and support dynamic price offers is devised. An optimal control system (within the given conditions), automated provisioning, a packet scheduler to enforce the control and a measurement system etc are developed. The model can be extended to enhance the autonomicity of the computer communication networks in both client-server and P2P networks and can be introduced on the Internet in an incremental fashion. The ideas presented in the model built with the model-view-controller and electronic enterprise architecture frameworks are now independently developed elsewhere into common service delivery platforms for converged networks. Four US/EU patents were granted based on the work carried out for this thesis, for the cross-layer architecture, multi-layer scheme, measurement system and scheduler. Four conference papers were published and presented