VINEA: a policy-based virtual network embedding architecture

Network virtualization has enabled new business models by allowing infrastructure providers to lease or share their physical network. To concurrently run multiple customized virtual network services, such infrastructure providers need to run a virtual network embedding protocol. The virtual network embedding is the (NP-hard) problem of matching constrained virtual networks onto the physical network. We present the design and implementation of a policy-based architecture for the virtual network embedding problem. By policy, we mean a variant aspect of any of the (invariant) embedding mechanisms: resource discovery, virtual network mapping, and allocation on the physical infrastructure. Our architecture adapts to different scenarios by instantiating appropriate policies, and has bounds on embedding efficiency and on convergence embedding time, over a single provider, or across multiple federated providers. The performance of representative novel policy configurations are compared over a prototype implementation. We also present an object model as a foundation for a protocol specification, and we release a testbed to enable users to test their own embedding policies, and to run applications within their virtual networks. The testbed uses a Linux system architecture to reserve virtual node and link capacities.National Science Foundation (CNS-0963974

Distributed control in virtualized networks

The increasing number of the Internet connected devices requires novel solutions to control the next generation network resources. The cooperation between the Software Defined Network (SDN) and the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) seems to be a promising technology paradigm. The bottleneck of current SDN/NFV implementations is the use of a centralized controller. In this paper, different scenarios to identify the pro and cons of a distributed control-plane were investigated. We implemented a prototypal framework to benchmark different centralized and distributed approaches. The test results have been critically analyzed and related considerations and recommendations have been reported. The outcome of our research influenced the control plane design of the following European R&D projects: PLATINO, FI-WARE and T-NOVA

SDN-based virtual machine management for cloud data centers

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm to logically centralize the network control plane and automate the configuration of individual network elements. At the same time, in Cloud Data Centers (DCs), even though network and server resources converge over the same infrastructure and typically over a single administrative entity, disjoint control mechanisms are used for their respective management. In this paper, we propose a unified server-network control mechanism for converged ICT environments. We present a SDN-based orchestration framework for live Virtual Machine (VM) management where server hypervisors exploit temporal network information to migrate VMs and minimize the network-wide communication cost of the resulting traffic dynamics. A prototype implementation is presented and Mininet is used to evaluate the impact of diverse orchestration algorithms

Algorithms for advance bandwidth reservation in media production networks

Media production generally requires many geographically distributed actors (e.g., production houses, broadcasters, advertisers) to exchange huge amounts of raw video and audio data. Traditional distribution techniques, such as dedicated point-to-point optical links, are highly inefficient in terms of installation time and cost. To improve efficiency, shared media production networks that connect all involved actors over a large geographical area, are currently being deployed. The traffic in such networks is often predictable, as the timing and bandwidth requirements of data transfers are generally known hours or even days in advance. As such, the use of advance bandwidth reservation (AR) can greatly increase resource utilization and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose an Integer Linear Programming formulation of the bandwidth scheduling problem, which takes into account the specific characteristics of media production networks, is presented. Two novel optimization algorithms based on this model are thoroughly evaluated and compared by means of in-depth simulation results

SDN/NFV-enabled satellite communications networks: opportunities, scenarios and challenges

In the context of next generation 5G networks, the satellite industry is clearly committed to revisit and revamp the role of satellite communications. As major drivers in the evolution of (terrestrial) fixed and mobile networks, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies are also being positioned as central technology enablers towards improved and more flexible integration of satellite and terrestrial segments, providing satellite network further service innovation and business agility by advanced network resources management techniques. Through the analysis of scenarios and use cases, this paper provides a description of the benefits that SDN/NFV technologies can bring into satellite communications towards 5G. Three scenarios are presented and analysed to delineate different potential improvement areas pursued through the introduction of SDN/NFV technologies in the satellite ground segment domain. Within each scenario, a number of use cases are developed to gain further insight into specific capabilities and to identify the technical challenges stemming from them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Offline and online power aware resource allocation algorithms with migration and delay constraints

© . This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/In order to handle advanced mobile broadband services and Internet of Things (IoT), future Internet and 5G networks are expected to leverage the use of network virtualization, be much faster, have greater capacities, provide lower latencies, and significantly be power efficient than current mobile technologies. Therefore, this paper proposes three power aware algorithms for offline, online, and migration applications, solving the resource allocation problem within the frameworks of network function virtualization (NFV) environments in fractions of a second. The proposed algorithms target minimizing the total costs and power consumptions in the physical network through sufficiently allocating the least physical resources to host the demands of the virtual network services, and put into saving mode all other not utilized physical components. Simulations and evaluations of the offline algorithm compared to the state-of-art resulted on lower total costs by 32%. In addition to that, the online algorithm was tested through four different experiments, and the results argued that the overall power consumption of the physical network was highly dependent on the demands’ lifetimes, and the strictness of the required end-to-end delay. Regarding migrations during online, the results concluded that the proposed algorithms would be most effective when applied for maintenance and emergency conditions.Peer ReviewedPreprin