Transport Layer solution for bulk data transfers over Heterogeneous Long Fat Networks in Next Generation Networks

Aquesta tesi per compendi centra les seves contribucions en l'aprenentatge i innovació de les Xarxes de Nova Generació. És per això que es proposen diferents contribucions en diferents àmbits (Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Smart Campus, Smart Learning, Mitjana, eHealth, Indústria 4.0 entre d'altres) mitjançant l'aplicació i combinació de diferents disciplines (Internet of Things, Building Information Modeling, Cloud Storage, Ciberseguretat, Big Data, Internet de el Futur, Transformació Digital). Concretament, es detalla el monitoratge sostenible del confort a l'Smart Campus, la que potser es la meva aportació més representativa dins de la conceptualització de Xarxes de Nova Generació. Dins d'aquest innovador concepte de monitorització s'integren diferents disciplines, per poder oferir informació sobre el nivell de confort de les persones. Aquesta investigació demostra el llarg recorregut que hi ha en la transformació digital dels sectors tradicionals i les NGNs. Durant aquest llarg aprenentatge sobre les NGN a través de les diferents investigacions, es va poder observar una problemàtica que afectava de manera transversal als diferents camps d'aplicació de les NGNs i que aquesta podia tenir una afectació en aquests sectors. Aquesta problemàtica consisteix en el baix rendiment durant l'intercanvi de grans volums de dades sobre xarxes amb gran capacitat d'ample de banda i remotament separades geogràficament, conegudes com a xarxes elefant. Concretament, això afecta al cas d'ús d'intercanvi massiu de dades entre regions Cloud (Cloud Data Sharing use case). És per això que es va estudiar aquest cas d'ús i les diferents alternatives a nivell de protocols de transport,. S'estudien les diferents problemàtiques que pateixen els protocols i s'observa per què aquests no són capaços d'arribar a rendiments òptims. Deguda a aquesta situació, s'hipotetiza que la introducció de mecanismes que analitzen les mètriques de la xarxa i que exploten eficientment la capacitat de la mateixa milloren el rendiment dels protocols de transport sobre xarxes elefant heterogènies durant l'enviament massiu de dades. Primerament, es dissenya l’Adaptative and Aggressive Transport Protocol (AATP), un protocol de transport adaptatiu i eficient amb l'objectiu de millorar el rendiment sobre aquest tipus de xarxes elefant. El protocol AATP s'implementa i es prova en un simulador de xarxes i un testbed sota diferents situacions i condicions per la seva validació. Implementat i provat amb èxit el protocol AATP, es decideix millorar el propi protocol, Enhanced-AATP, sobre xarxes elefant heterogènies. Per això, es dissenya un mecanisme basat en el Jitter Ràtio que permet fer aquesta diferenciació. A més, per tal de millorar el comportament del protocol, s’adapta el seu sistema de fairness per al repartiment just dels recursos amb altres fluxos Enhanced-AATP. Aquesta evolució s'implementa en el simulador de xarxes i es realitzen una sèrie de proves. A l'acabar aquesta tesi, es conclou que les Xarxes de Nova Generació tenen molt recorregut i moltes coses a millorar causa de la transformació digital de la societat i de l'aparició de nova tecnologia disruptiva. A més, es confirma que la introducció de mecanismes específics en la concepció i operació dels protocols de transport millora el rendiment d'aquests sobre xarxes elefant heterogènies.Esta tesis por compendio centra sus contribuciones en el aprendizaje e innovación de las Redes de Nueva Generación. Es por ello que se proponen distintas contribuciones en diferentes ámbitos (Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Smart Campus, Smart Learning, Media, eHealth, Industria 4.0 entre otros) mediante la aplicación y combinación de diferentes disciplinas (Internet of Things, Building Information Modeling, Cloud Storage, Ciberseguridad, Big Data, Internet del Futuro, Transformación Digital). Concretamente, se detalla la monitorización sostenible del confort en el Smart Campus, la que se podría considerar mi aportación más representativa dentro de la conceptualización de Redes de Nueva Generación. Dentro de este innovador concepto de monitorización se integran diferentes disciplinas, para poder ofrecer información sobre el nivel de confort de las personas. Esta investigación demuestra el recorrido que existe en la transformación digital de los sectores tradicionales y las NGNs. Durante este largo aprendizaje sobre las NGN a través de las diferentes investigaciones, se pudo observar una problemática que afectaba de manera transversal a los diferentes campos de aplicación de las NGNs y que ésta podía tener una afectación en estos sectores. Esta problemática consiste en el bajo rendimiento durante el intercambio de grandes volúmenes de datos sobre redes con gran capacidad de ancho de banda y remotamente separadas geográficamente, conocidas como redes elefante, o Long Fat Networks (LFNs). Concretamente, esto afecta al caso de uso de intercambio de datos entre regiones Cloud (Cloud Data Data use case). Es por ello que se estudió este caso de uso y las diferentes alternativas a nivel de protocolos de transporte. Se estudian las diferentes problemáticas que sufren los protocolos y se observa por qué no son capaces de alcanzar rendimientos óptimos. Debida a esta situación, se hipotetiza que la introducción de mecanismos que analizan las métricas de la red y que explotan eficientemente la capacidad de la misma mejoran el rendimiento de los protocolos de transporte sobre redes elefante heterogéneas durante el envío masivo de datos. Primeramente, se diseña el Adaptative and Aggressive Transport Protocol (AATP), un protocolo de transporte adaptativo y eficiente con el objetivo maximizar el rendimiento sobre este tipo de redes elefante. El protocolo AATP se implementa y se prueba en un simulador de redes y un testbed bajo diferentes situaciones y condiciones para su validación. Implementado y probado con éxito el protocolo AATP, se decide mejorar el propio protocolo, Enhanced-AATP, sobre redes elefante heterogéneas. Además, con tal de mejorar el comportamiento del protocolo, se mejora su sistema de fairness para el reparto justo de los recursos con otros flujos Enhanced-AATP. Esta evolución se implementa en el simulador de redes y se realizan una serie de pruebas. Al finalizar esta tesis, se concluye que las Redes de Nueva Generación tienen mucho recorrido y muchas cosas a mejorar debido a la transformación digital de la sociedad y a la aparición de nueva tecnología disruptiva. Se confirma que la introducción de mecanismos específicos en la concepción y operación de los protocolos de transporte mejora el rendimiento de estos sobre redes elefante heterogéneas.This compendium thesis focuses its contributions on the learning and innovation of the New Generation Networks. That is why different contributions are proposed in different areas (Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Smart Campus, Smart Learning, Media, eHealth, Industry 4.0, among others) through the application and combination of different disciplines (Internet of Things, Building Information Modeling, Cloud Storage, Cybersecurity, Big Data, Future Internet, Digital Transformation). Specifically, the sustainable comfort monitoring in the Smart Campus is detailed, which can be considered my most representative contribution within the conceptualization of New Generation Networks. Within this innovative monitoring concept, different disciplines are integrated in order to offer information on people's comfort levels. . This research demonstrates the long journey that exists in the digital transformation of traditional sectors and New Generation Networks. During this long learning about the NGNs through the different investigations, it was possible to observe a problematic that affected the different application fields of the NGNs in a transversal way and that, depending on the service and its requirements, it could have a critical impact on any of these sectors. This issue consists of a low performance operation during the exchange of large volumes of data on networks with high bandwidth capacity and remotely geographically separated, also known as Elephant networks, or Long Fat Networks (LFNs). Specifically, this critically affects the Cloud Data Sharing use case. That is why this use case and the different alternatives at the transport protocol level were studied. For this reason, the performance and operation problems suffered by layer 4 protocols are studied and it is observed why these traditional protocols are not capable of achieving optimal performance. Due to this situation, it is hypothesized that the introduction of mechanisms that analyze network metrics and efficiently exploit network’s capacity meliorates the performance of Transport Layer protocols over Heterogeneous Long Fat Networks during bulk data transfers. First, the Adaptive and Aggressive Transport Protocol (AATP) is designed. An adaptive and efficient transport protocol with the aim of maximizing its performance over this type of elephant network.. The AATP protocol is implemented and tested in a network simulator and a testbed under different situations and conditions for its validation. Once the AATP protocol was designed, implemented and tested successfully, it was decided to improve the protocol itself, Enhanced-AATP, to improve its performance over heterogeneous elephant networks. In addition, in order to upgrade the behavior of the protocol, its fairness system is improved for the fair distribution of resources among other Enhanced-AATP flows. Finally, this evolution is implemented in the network simulator and a set of tests are carried out. At the end of this thesis, it is concluded that the New Generation Networks have a long way to go and many things to improve due to the digital transformation of society and the appearance of brand-new disruptive technology. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the introduction of specific mechanisms in the conception and operation of transport protocols improves their performance on Heterogeneous Long Fat Networks

SDN-BASED MECHANISMS FOR PROVISIONING QUALITY OF SERVICE TO SELECTED NETWORK FLOWS

Despite the huge success and adoption of computer networks in the recent decades, traditional network architecture falls short of some requirements by many applications. One particular shortcoming is the lack of convenient methods for providing quality of service (QoS) guarantee to various network applications. In this dissertation, we explore new Software-Defined Networking (SDN) mechanisms to provision QoS to targeted network flows. Our study contributes to providing QoS support to applications in three aspects. First, we explore using alternative routing paths for selected flows that have QoS requirements. Instead of using the default shortest path used by the current network routing protocols, we investigate using the SDN controller to install forwarding rules in switches that can achieve higher bandwidth. Second, we develop new mechanisms for guaranteeing the latency requirement by those applications depending on timely delivery of sensor data and control signals. The new mechanism pre-allocates higher priority queues in routers/switches and reserves these queues for control/sensor traffic. Third, we explore how to make the applications take advantage of the opportunity provided by SDN. In particular, we study new transmission mechanisms for big data transfer in the cloud computing environment. Instead of using a single TCP path to transfer data, we investigate how to let the application set up multiple TCP paths for the same application to achieve higher throughput. We evaluate these new mechanisms with experiments and compare them with existing approaches

Analysis domain model for shared virtual environments

The field of shared virtual environments, which also encompasses online games and social 3D environments, has a system landscape consisting of multiple solutions that share great functional overlap. However, there is little system interoperability between the different solutions. A shared virtual environment has an associated problem domain that is highly complex raising difficult challenges to the development process, starting with the architectural design of the underlying system. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a broad domain analysis of shared virtual environments, which enables developers to have a better understanding of the whole rather than the part(s). The second contribution is a reference domain model for discussing and describing solutions - the Analysis Domain Model

Service management for multi-domain Active Networks

The Internet is an example of a multi-agent system. In our context, an agent is synonymous with network operators, Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers. ISPs mutually interact for connectivity's sake, but the fact remains that two peering agents are inevitably self-interested. Egoistic behaviour manifests itself in two ways. Firstly, the ISPs are able to act in an environment where different ISPs would have different spheres of influence, in the sense that they will have control and management responsibilities over different parts of the environment. On the other hand, contention occurs when an ISP intends to sell resources to another, which gives rise to at least two of its customers sharing (hence contending for) a common transport medium. The multi-agent interaction was analysed by simulating a game theoretic approach and the alignment of dominant strategies adopted by agents with evolving traits were abstracted. In particular, the contention for network resources is arbitrated such that a self-policing environment may emerge from a congested bottleneck. Over the past 5 years, larger ISPs have simply peddled as fast as they could to meet the growing demand for bandwidth by throwing bandwidth at congestion problems. Today, the dire financial positions of Worldcom and Global Crossing illustrate, to a certain degree, the fallacies of over-provisioning network resources. The proposed framework in this thesis enables subscribers of an ISP to monitor and police each other's traffic in order to establish a well-behaved norm in utilising limited resources. This framework can be expanded to other inter-domain bottlenecks within the Internet. One of the main objectives of this thesis is also to investigate the impact on multi-domain service management in the future Internet, where active nodes could potentially be located amongst traditional passive routers. The advent of Active Networking technology necessitates node-level computational resource allocations, in addition to prevailing resource reservation approaches for communication bandwidth. Our motivation is to ensure that a service negotiation protocol takes account of these resources so that the response to a specific service deployment request from the end-user is consistent and predictable. To promote the acceleration of service deployment by means of Active Networking technology, a pricing model is also evaluated for computational resources (e.g., CPU time and memory). Previous work in these areas of research only concentrate on bandwidth (i.e., communication) - related resources. Our pricing approach takes account of both guaranteed and best-effort service by adapting the arbitrage theorem from financial theory. The central tenet for our approach is to synthesise insights from different disciplines to address problems in data networks. The greater parts of research experience have been obtained during direct and indirect participation in the 1ST-10561 project known as FAIN (Future Active IP Networks) and ACTS-AC338 project called MIAMI (Mobile Intelligent Agent for Managing the Information Infrastructure). The Inter-domain Manager (IDM) component was integrated as an integral part of the FAIN policy-based network management systems (PBNM). Its monitoring component (developed during the MIAMI project) learns about routing changes that occur within a domain so that the management system and the managed nodes have the same topological view of the network. This enabled our reservation mechanism to reserve resources along the existing route set up by whichever underlying routing protocol is in place

Mobile Commerce: Secure Multi-party Computation & Financial Cryptography

Abstract: The basic objective of this work is to construct an efficient and secure mechanism for mobile commerce applying the concept of financial cryptography and secure multi-party computation. The mechanism (MCM) is defined by various types of elements: a group of agents or players, actions, a finite set of inputs of each agent, a finite set of outcomes as defined by output function, a set of objective functions and constraints, payment function, a strategy profile, dominant strategy and revelation principle. The mechanism adopts a set of intelligent moves as dominant strategies: (a) flexible use of hybrid payment system which supports cash, e-payment and m-payment, (b) secure multi-party computation to ensure information security and privacy and (c) call intelligent analytics to assess and mitigate possible threats on m-commerce service. The mechanism supports three different types of transaction processing protocols (P1, P2 and P3) and calls a cryptographic protocol (Pc). The cryptographic protocol performs a set of functions sequentially such as authentication, authorization, correct identification, privacy verification and audit of correctness, fairness, rationality, accountability and transparency of secure multi-party computation on each m-transaction. The basic building blocks of the cryptographic protocol are signcryption, proofs of knowledge, commitments and secret sharing. This work also presents the complexity analysis of the mechanism in terms of computational cost, communication cost, security and business intelligence. Keywords: Secure multi-party computation, Financial cryptography, Mobile commerce mechanism, Threat analytics, Digital econom

Satellite Networks: Architectures, Applications, and Technologies

Since global satellite networks are moving to the forefront in enhancing the national and global information infrastructures due to communication satellites' unique networking characteristics, a workshop was organized to assess the progress made to date and chart the future. This workshop provided the forum to assess the current state-of-the-art, identify key issues, and highlight the emerging trends in the next-generation architectures, data protocol development, communication interoperability, and applications. Presentations on overview, state-of-the-art in research, development, deployment and applications and future trends on satellite networks are assembled

Beyond Innovation and Competition: The Need for Qualified Transparency in Internet Intermediaries

Internet service providers and search engines have mapped the web, accelerated e-commerce, and empowered new communities. They also pose new challenges for law. Individuals are rapidly losing the ability to affect their own image on the web - or even to know what data are presented about them. When web users attempt to find information or entertainment, they have little assurance that a carrier or search engine is not biasing the presentation of results in accordance with its own commercial interests. Technology’s impact on privacy and democratic culture needs to be at the center of internet policy-making. Yet before they promulgate substantive rules, key administrators must genuinely understand new developments. While the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. have articulated principles of editorial integrity for search engines and net neutrality for carriers, they have not engaged in the monitoring necessary to enforce these guidelines. This article proposes institutions for “qualified transparency” within each Commission to fill this regulatory gap. Qualified transparency respects legitimate needs for confidentiality while promoting individuals’ and companies\u27 capacity to understand how their reputations - and the online world generally - are shaped by dominant intermediaries