Label Space Reduction in MPLS Networks: How Much Can A Single Stacked Label Do?

Most network operators have considered reducing LSR label spaces (number of labels used) as a way of simplifying management of underlaying virtual private networks (VPNs) and therefore reducing operational expenditure (OPEX). The IETF outlined the label merging feature in MPLS-allowing the configuration of multipoint-to-point connections (MP2P)-as a means of reducing label space in LSRs. We found two main drawbacks in this label space reduction a)it should be separately applied to a set of LSPs with the same egress LSR-which decreases the options for better reductions, and b)LSRs close to the edge of the network experience a greater label space reduction than those close to the core. The later implies that MP2P connections reduce the number of labels asymmetricall

CloudHealth: A Model-Driven Approach to Watch the Health of Cloud Services

Cloud systems are complex and large systems where services provided by different operators must coexist and eventually cooperate. In such a complex environment, controlling the health of both the whole environment and the individual services is extremely important to timely and effectively react to misbehaviours, unexpected events, and failures. Although there are solutions to monitor cloud systems at different granularity levels, how to relate the many KPIs that can be collected about the health of the system and how health information can be properly reported to operators are open questions. This paper reports the early results we achieved in the challenge of monitoring the health of cloud systems. In particular we present CloudHealth, a model-based health monitoring approach that can be used by operators to watch specific quality attributes. The CloudHealth Monitoring Model describes how to operationalize high level monitoring goals by dividing them into subgoals, deriving metrics for the subgoals, and using probes to collect the metrics. We use the CloudHealth Monitoring Model to control the probes that must be deployed on the target system, the KPIs that are dynamically collected, and the visualization of the data in dashboards.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

IP and ATM integration: A New paradigm in multi-service internetworking

ATM is a widespread technology adopted by many to support advanced data communication, in particular efficient Internet services provision. The expected challenges of multimedia communication together with the increasing massive utilization of IP-based applications urgently require redesign of networking solutions in terms of both new functionalities and enhanced performance. However, the networking context is affected by so many changes, and to some extent chaotic growth, that any approach based on a structured and complex top-down architecture is unlikely to be applicable. Instead, an approach based on finding out the best match between realistic service requirements and the pragmatic, intelligent use of technical opportunities made available by the product market seems more appropriate. By following this approach, innovations and improvements can be introduced at different times, not necessarily complying with each other according to a coherent overall design. With the aim of pursuing feasible innovations in the different networking aspects, we look at both IP and ATM internetworking in order to investigating a few of the most crucial topics/ issues related to the IP and ATM integration perspective. This research would also address various means of internetworking the Internet Protocol (IP) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) with an objective of identifying the best possible means of delivering Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for multi-service applications, exploiting the meritorious features that IP and ATM have to offer. Although IP and ATM often have been viewed as competitors, their complementary strengths and limitations from a natural alliance that combines the best aspects of both the technologies. For instance, one limitation of ATM networks has been the relatively large gap between the speed of the network paths and the control operations needed to configure those data paths to meet changing user needs. IP\u27s greatest strength, on the other hand, is the inherent flexibility and its capacity to adapt rapidly to changing conditions. These complementary strengths and limitations make it natural to combine IP with ATM to obtain the best that each has to offer. Over time many models and architectures have evolved for IP/ATM internetworking and they have impacted the fundamental thinking in internetworking IP and ATM. These technologies, architectures, models and implementations will be reviewed in greater detail in addressing possible issues in integrating these architectures s in a multi-service, enterprise network. The objective being to make recommendations as to the best means of interworking the two in exploiting the salient features of one another to provide a faster, reliable, scalable, robust, QoS aware network in the most economical manner. How IP will be carried over ATM when a commercial worldwide ATM network is deployed is not addressed and the details of such a network still remain in a state of flux to specify anything concrete. Our research findings culminated with a strong recommendation that the best model to adopt, in light of the impending integrated service requirements of future multi-service environments, is an ATM core with IP at the edges to realize the best of both technologies in delivering QoS guarantees in a seamless manner to any node in the enterprise

Mobile network design : Orange UK 2G to 3G mobile backhaul evolution

The research presented in this thesis is focused on the evolution of a GSM/GPRS (2G) cellular mobile network to UMTS (3G) and then subsequently, HSDPA. The particular technical area of research relates to the mobile backhaul network which provides the connectivity between radio cell sites which support the wide area radio coverage, and the mobile network operator’s core network. Due to the evolution of UMTS with HSDPA, the research covers the initial UMTS network rollout and then addresses the evolution of this infrastructure to support mobile broadband communications, through the introduction of HSDPA as a network upgrade. The two research questions being addressed are therefore: •How is it possible to evolve a GSM/GPRS mobile backhaul network to support a converged GSM/GPRS and UMTS cellular mobile service? •How is it possible to ensure scalability of the converged backhaul network given the introduction of HSDPA and associated mobile broadband data growth? The starting point of the research is an established GSM and GPRS commercial network in the UK and the study is based on the design of the Orange network and focused on the period 2000 to 2010. During this period the author was working as Principal Network Designer within Orange and had overall responsibility for the strategy, architecture and design of the UK mobile backhaul network. The thesis provides a detailed explanation of the novel network design that was adopted and how it was evolved throughout the ten year period covered by the research. The research proves that the original static TDM approach was not suitable for UMTS and therefore the outcome was the introduction of an ATM network with optimisation based on traffic class rt-VBR over protected STM-1 transmission links. HSDPA drove further traffic growth and resulted in an evolution of the solution to ensure massive scalability was supported through the migration to Carrier Ethernet and implementation of pseudo-wires. In addition, to providing a technical description of the network design, the thesis also aims to provide a historical record of the technologies and equipment used during this period of rapid change within the UKs mobile networks

Architectures des réseaux pour le contrôle de la QoS

La qualité de service dans les réseaux téléphoniques a toujours tenu une place importante, voire prépondérante, dans la conception des architectures de télécommunication. Si elle est implicitement supportée dans le réseau téléphonique commuté (RTC) classique, il n'en est pas de même dans les réseaux en mode paquet que sont l'ATM et l'IP. Ce mémoire d'habilitation à diriger des recherches synthétise le travail de recherche effectué sur un ensemble d'architectures pour contrôler la QoS dans les réseaux en mode paquets. De l'espacement dans le plan de transfert, jusqu'à la négociation des contrats avec l'utilisateur en passant par le plan de contrôle, les contributions forment à la fois une continuité et une complémentarité permettant de dégager des règles d'urbanisme à suivre pour la gestion de la QoS. A partir de ces règles, une solution globale de gestion de la QoS depuis le réseau local jusqu'à l'inter-domaine est proposée. Elle suit également une découpe temporelle séparant ce qui procède de l'approvisionnement du réseau et de l'invocation permettant à la solution d'être extensible et applicable à grande échelle et dont les fondements principaux sont : ° Une gestion des files d'attentes et du multiplexage par espacement comme discipline de service universel garantissant un délai, une gigue et un taux de perte faible tout en respectant la caractéristique temporelle intrinsèque de chaque application, ° Une gestion par classes de services approvisionnées par MPLS-DiffServ-TE à l'intra et à l'inter domaine durant le processus de commande / livraison, ° Une admission d'appel pour protéger les ressources affectées aux classes de services durant le processus d'invocation, ° Et une intégration de la gestion de la QoS multiservices dans une architecture multi technologies

Telecommunications business venturing in China : identification of investment orientations using deal reporting

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-102).China's recent entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001 has lent speed to an ongoing series of market reforms that has opened up the massive Chinese domestic market to the world. The thought of China selling its products and services freely in global markets in exchange for opening up its own growing domestic market of 1.2 billion people is staggering and demands for business and policy decision makers to have an understanding of China's unique investment landscape. Centering on technology venturing in the telecommunications sector in mainland China, this research identifies and analyzes patterns of deal-making and strategies that motivate business investments in the technology space in mainland China. Three investment orientations - cost- minimization, domestic market-driven and joint development - are proposed and verified using the research data. Data was collected on all publicly-reported deals in China, published in business reporting services in the English language including the China Business Review, Reuters, Investext, Dow Jones, and The Economist Intelligence Unit. Objective data on deal attributes was matched with subjective and evaluative data on strategies and expected deal significance. By performing content analysis and statistical analysis on the data collected, results were obtained regarding the investment orientations in mainland China of two companies, UTStarcom Inc. and Nortel Networks Corp. It was found that significant differences existed in the objective and subjective attributes of telecommunications business ventures in China.(cont.) The two companies that were studied exhibited all proposed investment orientations, including the third joint development orientation that is emerging and directing investments into Sino-foreign partnership opportunities that jointly developed 3G products for the international market. There is a decreasing trend in number of Sino-foreign import contracts and an increasing trend in Sino-foreign exports in telecoms. These results point to the emergence of Chinese telecom companies that compete strongly in the Chinese marketplace and in international markets. Three deal drivers are identified from the deals that were studied, along with several possible risk-bearing changes that might result from policy influences in China. Difficulties in tracking deals are described and the implications of the research findings from a business and policy perspective are discussed.by Tony Whey Yit Lim.S.M

Towards A knowledge-Based Economy - Europe and Central Asia - Internet Development and Governance

The diversity and socio-economic differentiation of the real world prevents the full-scale cultivation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the benefit of all. Furthermore, the lack of determination and political will in some countries and slowness of responses to new technological opportunities in some others are responsible for the creation of another social divide – a digital one. The above problems were fully acknowledged by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit called for a joint international effort to overcome the digital divide between and within the United Nations Member States under the Digital Solidarity umbrella. This report was prepared as a follow-up to the Summit and represents a brief review of the status and trends in the area of ICT and Internet development in the UNECE region and provides background information on the state of the art in some relevant ICT subsectors in the Member States. The report focuses on the state of the Internet critical resources and, consequently, on the ICT and Internet penetration across countries and social groups. It also looks into existing Internet governance arrangements and makes some recommendations. The report contains three parts and conclusions. The first part, “Towards a Knowledge-based Economy: Progress Assessment”, highlights the situation in the region with regards to the digital divide, both between and within countries, and national strategies and actions aiming at overcoming barriers to accessing the Internet. The second part, “Internet Development: Current State of Critical Internet Resources in the UNECE Region”, concentrates on reviewing the physical Internet backbone, interconnection and connectivity within the Internet in the UNECE Member States. The third part, “Governing the Evolving Internet in the UNECE Region”, focuses on the issues of Internet Governance in the countries of the region, challenges faced by the countries and participation of key stakeholders in ICT and Internet policy formulation and implementation. The final part contains conclusions and recommendations.Internet, governance, knowledge-based economy, Europe, Central Asia, transition economies