On application of least-delay variation problem in ethernet networks using SDN concept

The goal of this paper is to present an application idea of SDN in Smart Grids, particularly, in the area of L2 multicast as defined by IEC 61850-9-2. Authors propose an Integer Linear Formulation (ILP) dealing with a Least-Delay-Variation multicast forwarding problem that has a potential to utilize Ethernet networks in a new way. The proposed ILP formulation is numerically evaluated on random graph topologies and results are compared to a shortest path tree approach that is traditionally a product of Spanning Tree Protocols. Results confirm the correctness of the ILP formulation and illustrate dependency of a solution quality on the selected graph models, especially, in a case of scale-free topologies

A heuristic multicast algorithm to support QoS group communications in heterogeneous network

2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

A heuristic multicast algorithm to support QoS group communications in heterogeneous network

2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe

Protocols for collaborative applications on overlay networks.

Third, we address the limitations of traditional multicasting models. Towards this, we propose a model where a source node has different switching time for each child node and the message arrival time at each child depends on the order in which the source chooses to send the messages. This model captures the heterogeneous nature of communication links and node hardware on the overlay network. Given a multicast tree with link delays and generalized switching delay vectors at each non-leaf node, we provide an algorithm which schedules the message delivery at each non-leaf node in order to minimize the delay of the multicast tree.First, we consider the floor control problem wherein the participating users coordinate among themselves to gain exclusive access to the communication channel. To solve the floor control problem, we present an implementation and evaluation of distributed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols on overlay networks. As an initial step in the implementation of these MAC protocols, we propose an algorithm to construct an efficient communication channel among the participating users in the overlay network. We also show that our implementation scheme (one of the first among decentralized floor control protocols) preserves the causal ordering of messages.Our research is focused on the development of algorithms for the construction of overlay networks that meet the demands of the distributed applications. In addition, we have provided network protocols that can be executed on these overlay networks for a chosen set of collaborative applications: floor control and multicasting. Our contribution in this research is four fold.Fourth, we address the problem of finding an arbitrary application designer specific overlay network on the Internet. This problem is equivalent to the problem of subgraph homeomorphism and it is NP-Complete. We have designed a polynomial-time algorithm to determine if a delay constrained multicasting tree (call it a guest) can be homeomorphically embedded in a general network (call it a host). A delay constrained multicasting tree is a tree wherein the link weights correspond to the maximum allowable delay between the end nodes of the link and in addition, the link of the guest should be mapped to a shortest path in the host. Such embeddings will allow distributed application to be executed in such a way that application specific quality-of-service demands can be met. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Second, we address the problem of designing multicasting sub-network for collaborative applications using which messages are required to arrive at the destinations within a specified delay bound and all the destinations must receive the message from a source at 'approximately' the same time. The problem of finding a multicasting sub-network with delay and delay-variation bound has been proved to be NP-Complete in the literature and several heuristics have been proposed

QoS-VNS-CS: QoS constraints Core Selection Algorithm based on Variable Neighborhood Search Algorithm

Within the development of network multimedia technology, more and more real-time multimedia applications arrive with the need to transmit information using multicast communication. Multicast IP routing is an important topic, covering both theoretical and practical interest in different networks layers. In network layer, there are several multicast routing protocols using multicast routing trees different in the literature. However PIM-SM and CBT protocols remains the most used multicast routing protocols; they propose using a shared Core-based Tree CBT. This kind of tree provides efficient management of multicast path in changing group memberships, scalability and performance. The prime problem concerning construction of a shared tree is to determine the best position of the core. QoS-CS’s problem (QoS constraints core Selection) consists in choosing an optimal multicast router in the network as core of the Shared multicast Tree (CBT) within specified QoS constraints associated. The choice of this specific router, called RP in PIM-SM protocol and core in CBT protocol, affects the structure of multicast routing tree, and therefore influences performances of both multicast session and routing scheme. QoS-CS is an NP complete problem need to be solved through a heuristic algorithm, in this paper, we propose a new core Selection algorithm based on Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm and new CMP fitness function. Simulation results show that good performance is achieved in multicast cost, end-to-end delay, tree construction delay and others metrics

Algorithmic Aspects of Energy-Delay Tradeoff in Multihop Cooperative Wireless Networks

We consider the problem of energy-efficient transmission in delay constrained cooperative multihop wireless networks. The combinatorial nature of cooperative multihop schemes makes it difficult to design efficient polynomial-time algorithms for deciding which nodes should take part in cooperation, and when and with what power they should transmit. In this work, we tackle this problem in memoryless networks with or without delay constraints, i.e., quality of service guarantee. We analyze a wide class of setups, including unicast, multicast, and broadcast, and two main cooperative approaches, namely: energy accumulation (EA) and mutual information accumulation (MIA). We provide a generalized algorithmic formulation of the problem that encompasses all those cases. We investigate the similarities and differences of EA and MIA in our generalized formulation. We prove that the broadcast and multicast problems are, in general, not only NP hard but also o(log(n)) inapproximable. We break these problems into three parts: ordering, scheduling and power control, and propose a novel algorithm that, given an ordering, can optimally solve the joint power allocation and scheduling problems simultaneously in polynomial time. We further show empirically that this algorithm used in conjunction with an ordering derived heuristically using the Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm yields near-optimal performance in typical settings. For the unicast case, we prove that although the problem remains NP hard with MIA, it can be solved optimally and in polynomial time when EA is used. We further use our algorithm to study numerically the trade-off between delay and power-efficiency in cooperative broadcast and compare the performance of EA vs MIA as well as the performance of our cooperative algorithm with a smart noncooperative algorithm in a broadcast setting.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

A simulated annealing based genetic local search algorithm for multi-objective multicast routing problems

This paper presents a new hybrid evolutionary algorithm to solve multi-objective multicast routing problems in telecommunication networks. The algorithm combines simulated annealing based strategies and a genetic local search, aiming at a more flexible and effective exploration and exploitation in the search space of the complex problem to find more non-dominated solutions in the Pareto Front. Due to the complex structure of the multicast tree, crossover and mutation operators have been specifically devised concerning the features and constraints in the problem. A new adaptive mutation probability based on simulated annealing is proposed in the hybrid algorithm to adaptively adjust the mutation rate according to the fitness of the new solution against the average quality of the current population during the evolution procedure. Two simulated annealing based search direction tuning strategies are applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the hybrid evolutionary algorithm. Simulations have been carried out on some benchmark multi-objective multicast routing instances and a large amount of random networks with five real world objectives including cost, delay, link utilisations, average delay and delay variation in telecommunication networks. Experimental results demonstrate that both the simulated annealing based strategies and the genetic local search within the proposed multi-objective algorithm, compared with other multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, can efficiently identify high quality non-dominated solution set for multi-objective multicast routing problems and outperform other conventional multi-objective evolutionary algorithms in the literature

vSkyConf: Cloud-assisted Multi-party Mobile Video Conferencing

As an important application in the busy world today, mobile video conferencing facilitates virtual face-to-face communication with friends, families and colleagues, via their mobile devices on the move. However, how to provision high-quality, multi-party video conferencing experiences over mobile devices is still an open challenge. The fundamental reason behind is the lack of computation and communication capacities on the mobile devices, to scale to large conferencing sessions. In this paper, we present vSkyConf, a cloud-assisted mobile video conferencing system to fundamentally improve the quality and scale of multi-party mobile video conferencing. By novelly employing a surrogate virtual machine in the cloud for each mobile user, we allow fully scalable communication among the conference participants via their surrogates, rather than directly. The surrogates exchange conferencing streams among each other, transcode the streams to the most appropriate bit rates, and buffer the streams for the most efficient delivery to the mobile recipients. A fully decentralized, optimal algorithm is designed to decide the best paths of streams and the most suitable surrogates for video transcoding along the paths, such that the limited bandwidth is fully utilized to deliver streams of the highest possible quality to the mobile recipients. We also carefully tailor a buffering mechanism on each surrogate to cooperate with optimal stream distribution. We have implemented vSkyConf based on Amazon EC2 and verified the excellent performance of our design, as compared to the widely adopted unicast solutions.Comment: 10 page

Applicability of group communication for increased scalability in MMOGs

Massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are today the driving factor for the development of distributed interactive applications, and they are increasing in size and complex-ity. Even a small MMOG supports thousands of players, the biggest support hundreds of thousands of concurrent players. Since they are typically built as strict client-server systems, they suffer from the inherent scalability problem of the architecture. Computing power and bandwidth limita-tions close to the server limit the possible number of players. Also, the latency of communication between players through the server will be higher than using direct communication. In the paper, we address these issues and investigate im-provement options. A typical MMOG consists of a virtual world with a con-cept of time and space that is similar to the real world. In it, players are represented by avatars. Only subsets of these avatars interact with each other at any given time. This allows us to divide them into groups, and communication among group members becomes a multi-party communica-tion problem. Thus, to reduce resource consumption, we compare the performance of several algorithms for group communication with the current central server approach. We use overlay multicast as the means of providing group communication, and research algorithms for creating short-est path trees, spanning trees, delay-bounded spanning trees and, more specific, applying Steiner tree heuristics. Our experimental results indicate that different approaches are useful to reduce resource consumption while achieving a good perceived quality under varying conditions, such as frequent changes in group membership and the demand for low latency. 1