Accelerating orchestration with in-network offloading

The demand for low-latency Internet applications has pushed functionality that was originally placed in commodity hardware into the network. Either in the form of binaries for the programmable data plane or virtualised network functions, services are implemented within the network fabric with the aim of improving their performance and placing them close to the end user. Training of machine learning algorithms, aggregation of networking traffic, virtualised radio access components, are just some of the functions that have been deployed within the network. Therefore, as the network fabric becomes the accelerator for various applications, it is imperative that the orchestration of their components is also adapted to the constraints and capabilities of the deployment environment. This work identifies performance limitations of in-network compute use cases for both cloud and edge environments and makes suitable adaptations. Within cloud infrastructure, this thesis proposes a platform that relies on programmable switches to accelerate the performance of data replication. It then proceeds to discuss design adaptations of an orchestrator that will allow in-network data offloading and enable accelerated service deployment. At the edge, the topic of inefficient orchestration of virtualised network functions is explored, mainly with respect to energy usage and resource contention. An orchestrator is adapted to schedule requests by taking into account edge constraints in order to minimise resource contention and accelerate service processing times. With data transfers consuming valuable resources at the edge, an efficient data representation mechanism is implemented to provide statistical insight on the provenance of data at the edge and enable smart query allocation to nodes with relevant data. Taking into account the previous state of the art, the proposed data plane replication method appears to be the most computationally efficient and scalable in-network data replication platform available, with significant improvements in throughput and up to an order of magnitude decrease in latency. The orchestrator of virtual network functions at the edge was shown to reduce event rejections, total processing time, and energy consumption imbalances over the default orchestrator, thus proving more efficient use of the infrastructure. Lastly, computational cost at the edge was further reduced with the use of the proposed query allocation mechanism which minimised redundant engagement of nodes

A reduced reference video quality assessment method for provision as a service over SDN/NFV-enabled networks

139 p.The proliferation of multimedia applications and services has generarted a noteworthy upsurge in network traffic regarding video content and has created the need for trustworthy service quality assessment methods. Currently, predominent position among the technological trends in telecommunication networkds are Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN) and 5G mobile networks equipped with small cells. Additionally Video Quality Assessment (VQA) methods are a very useful tool for both content providers and network operators, to understand of how users perceive quality and this study the feasibility of potential services and adapt the network available resources to satisfy the user requirements

Intelligent Management of Virtualised Computer Based Workloads and Systems

Managing the complexity within virtualised IT infrastructure platforms is a common problem for many organisations today. Computer systems are often highly consolidated into a relatively small physical footprint compared with previous decades prior to late 2000s, so much thought, planning and control is necessary to effectively operate such systems within the enterprise computing space. With the development of private, hybrid and public cloud utility computing this has become even more relevant; this work examines how such cloud systems are using virtualisation technology and embedded software to leverage advantages, and it uses a fresh approach of developing and creating an Intelligent decision engine (expert system). Its aim is to help reduce the complexity of managing virtualised computer-based platforms, through tight integration, high-levels of automation to minimise human inputs, errors, and enforce standards and consistency, in order to achieve better management and control. The thesis investigates whether an expert system known as the Intelligent Decision Engine (IDE) could aid the management of virtualised computer-based platforms. Through conducting a series of mixed quantitative and qualitative experiments in the areas of research, the initial findings and evaluation are presented in detail, using repeatable and observable processes and provide detailed analysis on the recorded outputs. The results of the investigation establish the advantages of using the IDE (expert system) to achieve the goal of reducing the complexity of managing virtualised computer-based platforms. In each detailed area examined, it is demonstrated how using a global management approach in combination with VM provisioning, migration, failover, and system resource controls can create a powerful autonomous system

A reduced reference video quality assessment method for provision as a service over SDN/NFV-enabled networks

139 p.The proliferation of multimedia applications and services has generarted a noteworthy upsurge in network traffic regarding video content and has created the need for trustworthy service quality assessment methods. Currently, predominent position among the technological trends in telecommunication networkds are Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN) and 5G mobile networks equipped with small cells. Additionally Video Quality Assessment (VQA) methods are a very useful tool for both content providers and network operators, to understand of how users perceive quality and this study the feasibility of potential services and adapt the network available resources to satisfy the user requirements

BCFL logging: an approach to acquire and preserve admissible digital forensics evidence in cloud ecosystem

Log files are the primary source of recording users, applications and protocols, activities in the cloud ecosystem. Cloud forensic investigators can use log evidence to ascertain when, why and how a cyber adversary or an insider compromised a system by establishing the crime scene and reconstructing how the incident occurred. However, digital evidence acquisition in a cloud ecosystem is complicated and proven difficult, even with modern forensic acquisition toolkit. The multi-tenancy, Geo-location and Service-Level Agreement have added another layer of complexity in acquiring digital log evidence from a cloud ecosystem. In order to mitigate these complexities of evidence acquisition in the cloud ecosystem, we need a framework that can forensically maintain the trustworthiness and integrity of log evidence. In this paper, we design and implement a Blockchain Cloud Forensic Logging (BCFL) framework, using a Design Science Research Methodological (DSRM) approach. BCFL operates primarily in four stages: (1) Process transaction logs using Blockchain distributed ledger technology (DLT). (2) Use a Blockchain smart contract to maintain the integrity of logs and establish a clear chain of custody. (3) Validate all transaction logs. (4) Maintain transaction log immutability. BCFL will also enhance and strengthen compliance with the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The results from our single case study will demonstrate that BCFL will mitigate the challenges and complexities faced by digital forensics investigators in acquiring admissible digital evidence from the cloud ecosystem. Furthermore, an instantaneous performance monitoring of the proposed Blockchain cloud forensic logging framework was evaluated. BCFL will ensure trustworthiness, integrity, authenticity and non-repudiation of the log evidence in the cloud

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

View on 5G Architecture: Version 2.0

The 5G Architecture Working Group as part of the 5GPPP Initiative is looking at capturing novel trends and key technological enablers for the realization of the 5G architecture. It also targets at presenting in a harmonized way the architectural concepts developed in various projects and initiatives (not limited to 5GPPP projects only) so as to provide a consolidated view on the technical directions for the architecture design in the 5G era. The first version of the white paper was released in July 2016, which captured novel trends and key technological enablers for the realization of the 5G architecture vision along with harmonized architectural concepts from 5GPPP Phase 1 projects and initiatives. Capitalizing on the architectural vision and framework set by the first version of the white paper, this Version 2.0 of the white paper presents the latest findings and analyses with a particular focus on the concept evaluations, and accordingly it presents the consolidated overall architecture design