2,000 research outputs found
Segment Routing: a Comprehensive Survey of Research Activities, Standardization Efforts and Implementation Results
Fixed and mobile telecom operators, enterprise network operators and cloud
providers strive to face the challenging demands coming from the evolution of
IP networks (e.g. huge bandwidth requirements, integration of billions of
devices and millions of services in the cloud). Proposed in the early 2010s,
Segment Routing (SR) architecture helps face these challenging demands, and it
is currently being adopted and deployed. SR architecture is based on the
concept of source routing and has interesting scalability properties, as it
dramatically reduces the amount of state information to be configured in the
core nodes to support complex services. SR architecture was first implemented
with the MPLS dataplane and then, quite recently, with the IPv6 dataplane
(SRv6). IPv6 SR architecture (SRv6) has been extended from the simple steering
of packets across nodes to a general network programming approach, making it
very suitable for use cases such as Service Function Chaining and Network
Function Virtualization. In this paper we present a tutorial and a
comprehensive survey on SR technology, analyzing standardization efforts,
patents, research activities and implementation results. We start with an
introduction on the motivations for Segment Routing and an overview of its
evolution and standardization. Then, we provide a tutorial on Segment Routing
technology, with a focus on the novel SRv6 solution. We discuss the
standardization efforts and the patents providing details on the most important
documents and mentioning other ongoing activities. We then thoroughly analyze
research activities according to a taxonomy. We have identified 8 main
categories during our analysis of the current state of play: Monitoring,
Traffic Engineering, Failure Recovery, Centrally Controlled Architectures, Path
Encoding, Network Programming, Performance Evaluation and Miscellaneous...Comment: SUBMITTED TO IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIAL
Hardware-accelerator aware VNF-chain recovery
Hardware-accelerators in Network Function Virtualization (NFV) environments have aided telecommunications companies (telcos) to reduce their expenditures by offloading compute-intensive VNFs to hardware-accelerators. To fully utilize the benefits of hardware-accelerators, VNF-chain recovery models need to be adapted. In this paper, we present an ILP model for optimizing prioritized recovery of VNF-chains in heterogeneous NFV environments following node failures. We also propose an accelerator-aware heuristic for solving prioritized VNF-chain recovery problems of large-size in a reasonable time. Evaluation results show that the performance of heuristic matches with that of ILP in regard to restoration of high and medium priority VNF-chains and a small penalty occurs only for low-priority VNF-chains
Server resource dimensioning and routing of service function chain in NFV network architectures
The Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technology aims at virtualizing the network service with the execution of the single service components in Virtual Machines activated on Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. Any service is represented by the Service Function Chain (SFC) that is a set of VNFs to be executed according to a given order. The running of VNFs needs the instantiation of VNF instances (VNFI) that in general are software components executed on Virtual Machines. In this paper we cope with the routing and resource dimensioning problem in NFV architectures. We formulate the optimization problem and due to its NP-hard complexity, heuristics are proposed for both cases of offline and online traffic demand. We show how the heuristics works correctly by guaranteeing a uniform occupancy of the server processing capacity and the network link bandwidth. A consolidation algorithm for the power consumption minimization is also proposed. The application of the consolidation algorithm allows for a high power consumption saving that however is to be paid with an increase in SFC blocking probability
Contributions to topology discovery, self-healing and VNF placement in software-defined and virtualized networks
The evolution of information and communication technologies (e.g. cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G, among others) has enabled a large market of applications and network services for a massive number of users connected to the Internet. Achieving high programmability while decreasing complexity and costs has become an essential aim of networking research due to the ever-increasing pressure generated by these applications and services. However, meeting these goals is an almost impossible task using traditional IP networks.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network architecture that could address the needs of service providers and network operators. This new technology consists in decoupling the control plane from the data plane, enabling the centralization of control functions on a concentrated or distributed platform. It also creates an abstraction between the network infrastructure and network applications, which allows for designing more flexible and programmable networks. Recent trends of increased user demands, the explosion of Internet traffic and diverse service requirements have further driven the interest in the potential capabilities of SDN to enable the introduction of new protocols and traffic management models.
This doctoral research is focused on improving high-level policies and control strategies, which are becoming increasingly important given the limitations of current solutions for large-scale SDN environments. Specifically, the three largest challenges addressed in the development of this thesis are related to the processes of topology discovery, fault recovery and Virtual Network Function (VNF) placement in software-defined and virtualized networks. These challenges led to the design of a set of effective techniques, ranging from network protocols to optimal and heuristic algorithms, intended to solve existing problems and contribute to the deployment and adoption of such programmable networks.For the first challenge, this work presents a novel protocol that, unlike existing approaches, enables a distributed layer 2 discovery without the need for previous IP configurations or controller knowledge of the network. By using this mechanism, the SDN controller can discover the network view without incurring scalability issues, while taking advantage of the shortest control paths toward each switch. Moreover, this novel approach achieves noticeable improvement with respect to state-of-the-art techniques.
To address the resilience concern of SDN, we propose a self-healing mechanism that recovers the control plane connectivity in SDN-managed environments without overburdening the controller performance. The main idea underlying this proposal is to enable real-time recovery of control paths in the face of failures without the intervention of a controller. Obtained results show that the proposed approach recovers the control topology efficiently in terms of time and message load over a wide range of generated networks.
The third contribution made in this thesis combines topology knowledge with bin packing techniques in order to efficiently place the required VNF. An online heuristic algorithm with low-complexity was developed as a suitable solution for dynamic infrastructures. Extensive simulations, using network topologies representative of different scales, validate the good performance of the proposed approaches regarding the number of required instances and the delay among deployed functions. Additionally, the proposed heuristic algorithm improves the execution times by a fifth order of magnitude compared to the optimal formulation of this problem.Postprint (published version
Migration energy aware reconfigurations of virtual network function instances in NFV architectures
Network function virtualization (NFV) is a new network architecture framework that implements network functions in software running on a pool of shared commodity servers. NFV can provide the infrastructure flexibility and agility needed to successfully compete in today's evolving communications landscape. Any service is represented by a service function chain (SFC) that is a set of VNFs to be executed according to a given order. The running of VNFs needs the instantiation of VNF instances (VNFIs) that are software modules executed on virtual machines. This paper deals with the migration problem of the VNFIs needed in the low traffic periods to turn OFF servers and consequently to save energy consumption. Though the consolidation allows for energy saving, it has also negative effects as the quality of service degradation or the energy consumption needed for moving the memories associated to the VNFI to be migrated. We focus on cold migration in which virtual machines are redundant and suspended before performing migration. We propose a migration policy that determines when and where to migrate VNFI in response to changes to SFC request intensity. The objective is to minimize the total energy consumption given by the sum of the consolidation and migration energies. We formulate the energy aware VNFI migration problem and after proving that it is NP-hard, we propose a heuristic based on the Viterbi algorithm able to determine the migration policy with low computational complexity. The results obtained by the proposed heuristic show how the introduced policy allows for a reduction of the migration energy and consequently lower total energy consumption with respect to the traditional policies. The energy saving can be on the order of 40% with respect to a policy in which migration is not performed
QoE-Centric Control and Management of Multimedia Services in Software Defined and Virtualized Networks
Multimedia services consumption has increased tremendously since the deployment of 4G/LTE networks. Mobile video services (e.g., YouTube and Mobile TV) on smart devices are expected to continue to grow with the emergence and evolution of future networks such as 5G. The end user’s demand for services with better quality from service providers has triggered a trend towards Quality of Experience (QoE) - centric network management through efficient utilization of network resources. However, existing network technologies are either unable to adapt to diverse changing network conditions or limited in available resources.
This has posed challenges to service providers for provisioning of QoE-centric multimedia services. New networking solutions such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can provide better solutions in terms of
QoE control and management of multimedia services in emerging and future networks. The features of SDN, such as adaptability, programmability and cost-effectiveness make it suitable for bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications such as live video streaming, 3D/HD video and video gaming. However, the delivery of multimedia services over SDN/NFV networks to achieve optimized QoE, and the overall QoE-centric network resource management remain an open question especially in the advent development of future softwarized networks.
The work in this thesis intends to investigate, design and develop novel approaches for QoE-centric control and management of multimedia services (with a focus on video streaming services) over software defined and virtualized networks.
First, a video quality management scheme based on the traffic intensity under Dynamic Adaptive Video Streaming over HTTP (DASH) using SDN is developed. The proposed scheme can mitigate virtual port queue congestion which may cause
buffering or stalling events during video streaming, thus, reducing the video quality.
A QoE-driven resource allocation mechanism is designed and developed for improving the end user’s QoE for video streaming services. The aim of this approach is to find the best combination of network node functions that can provide an optimized QoE level to end-users through network node cooperation. Furthermore, a novel QoE-centric management scheme is proposed and developed, which utilizes Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and Segment Routing (SR) to enhance QoE for video streaming services over SDN/NFV-based networks. The goal of this strategy is to enable service providers to route network traffic through multiple
disjointed bandwidth-satisfying paths and meet specific service QoE guarantees to the end-users. Extensive experiments demonstrated that the proposed schemes in this work improve the video quality significantly compared with the state-of-the-
art approaches. The thesis further proposes the path protections and link failure-free MPTCP/SR-based architecture that increases survivability, resilience, availability and robustness of future networks. The proposed path protection and dynamic link recovery scheme achieves a minimum time to recover from a failed link and avoids link congestion in softwarized networks
Scalable and Reliable Middlebox Deployment
Middleboxes are pervasive in modern computer networks providing functionalities beyond mere packet forwarding. Load balancers, intrusion detection systems, and network address translators are typical examples of middleboxes. Despite their benefits, middleboxes come with several challenges with respect to their scalability and reliability.
The goal of this thesis is to devise middlebox deployment solutions that are cost effective, scalable, and fault tolerant. The thesis includes three main contributions: First, distributed service function chaining with multiple instances of a middlebox deployed on different physical servers to optimize resource usage; Second, Constellation, a geo-distributed middlebox framework enabling a middlebox application to operate with high performance across wide area networks; Third, a fault tolerant service function chaining system
Virtualisation and resource allocation in MECEnabled metro optical networks
The appearance of new network services and the ever-increasing network traffic and number
of connected devices will push the evolution of current communication networks towards the
Future Internet.
In the area of optical networks, wavelength routed optical networks (WRONs) are evolving
to elastic optical networks (EONs) in which, thanks to the use of OFDM or Nyquist WDM,
it is possible to create super-channels with custom-size bandwidth. The basic element in
these networks is the lightpath, i.e., all-optical circuits between two network nodes. The
establishment of lightpaths requires the selection of the route that they will follow and the
portion of the spectrum to be used in order to carry the requested traffic from the source to
the destination node. That problem is known as the routing and spectrum assignment (RSA)
problem, and new algorithms must be proposed to address this design problem.
Some early studies on elastic optical networks studied gridless scenarios, in which a slice
of spectrum of variable size is assigned to a request. However, the most common approach to
the spectrum allocation is to divide the spectrum into slots of fixed width and allocate multiple,
consecutive spectrum slots to each lightpath, depending on the requested bandwidth. Moreover,
EONs also allow the proposal of more flexible routing and spectrum assignment techniques,
like the split-spectrum approach in which the request is divided into multiple "sub-lightpaths".
In this thesis, four RSA algorithms are proposed combining two different levels of
flexibility with the well-known k-shortest paths and first fit heuristics. After comparing the
performance of those methods, a novel spectrum assignment technique, Best Gap, is proposed
to overcome the inefficiencies emerged when combining the first fit heuristic with highly
flexible networks. A simulation study is presented to demonstrate that, thanks to the use of
Best Gap, EONs can exploit the network flexibility and reduce the blocking ratio.
On the other hand, operators must face profound architectural changes to increase the
adaptability and flexibility of networks and ease their management. Thanks to the use of
network function virtualisation (NFV), the necessary network functions that must be applied
to offer a service can be deployed as virtual appliances hosted by commodity servers, which
can be located in data centres, network nodes or even end-user premises. The appearance of
new computation and networking paradigms, like multi-access edge computing (MEC), may
facilitate the adaptation of communication networks to the new demands. Furthermore, the
use of MEC technology will enable the possibility of installing those virtual network functions
(VNFs) not only at data centres (DCs) and central offices (COs), traditional hosts of VFNs, but
also at the edge nodes of the network. Since data processing is performed closer to the enduser,
the latency associated to each service connection request can be reduced. MEC nodes
will be usually connected between them and with the DCs and COs by optical networks.
In such a scenario, deploying a network service requires completing two phases: the
VNF-placement, i.e., deciding the number and location of VNFs, and the VNF-chaining,
i.e., connecting the VNFs that the traffic associated to a service must transverse in order to
establish the connection. In the chaining process, not only the existence of VNFs with available
processing capacity, but the availability of network resources must be taken into account to
avoid the rejection of the connection request. Taking into consideration that the backhaul of
this scenario will be usually based on WRONs or EONs, it is necessary to design the virtual
topology (i.e., the set of lightpaths established in the networks) in order to transport the tra c
from one node to another. The process of designing the virtual topology includes deciding the
number of connections or lightpaths, allocating them a route and spectral resources, and finally
grooming the traffic into the created lightpaths.
Lastly, a failure in the equipment of a node in an NFV environment can cause the
disruption of the SCs traversing the node. This can cause the loss of huge amounts of data
and affect thousands of end-users. In consequence, it is key to provide the network with faultmanagement
techniques able to guarantee the resilience of the established connections when a
node fails.
For the mentioned reasons, it is necessary to design orchestration algorithms which solve
the VNF-placement, chaining and network resource allocation problems in 5G networks
with optical backhaul. Moreover, some versions of those algorithms must also implements
protection techniques to guarantee the resilience system in case of failure.
This thesis makes contribution in that line. Firstly, a genetic algorithm is proposed to solve
the VNF-placement and VNF-chaining problems in a 5G network with optical backhaul based
on star topology: GASM (genetic algorithm for effective service mapping). Then, we propose
a modification of that algorithm in order to be applied to dynamic scenarios in which the
reconfiguration of the planning is allowed. Furthermore, we enhanced the modified algorithm
to include a learning step, with the objective of improving the performance of the algorithm.
In this thesis, we also propose an algorithm to solve not only the VNF-placement and
VNF-chaining problems but also the design of the virtual topology, considering that a WRON
is deployed as the backhaul network connecting MEC nodes and CO. Moreover, a version
including individual VNF protection against node failure has been also proposed and the
effect of using shared/dedicated and end-to-end SC/individual VNF protection schemes are
also analysed.
Finally, a new algorithm that solves the VNF-placement and chaining problems and
the virtual topology design implementing a new chaining technique is also proposed.
Its corresponding versions implementing individual VNF protection are also presented.
Furthermore, since the method works with any type of WDM mesh topologies, a technoeconomic
study is presented to compare the effect of using different network topologies in
both the network performance and cost.Departamento de TeorÃa de la Señal y Comunicaciones e IngenierÃa TelemáticaDoctorado en TecnologÃas de la Información y las Telecomunicacione
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