ARIES WP3 – Needs and Requirements Analyses

Information and communication technologies have increasingly influenced and changed our daily life. They allow global connectivity and easy access to distributed applications and digital services over the Internet. This report analysis security requirements on trust establishment and trust evaluation based on two different use case scenarios: "Trusted Communication using COTS" and "Trust Establishment for Cross-organizational Crises Management". A systematic needs analysis is performed on both scenarios which haver resulted in a large and well documented set of requirements. This is the first step in a large effort to define a security architecture for the two use case scenarios.

A Novel Airborne Self-organising Architecture for 5G+ Networks

Network Flying Platforms (NFPs) such as unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned balloons or drones flying at low/medium/high altitude can be employed to enhance network coverage and capacity by deploying a swarm of flying platforms that implement novel radio resource management techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel layered architecture where NFPs, of various types and flying at low/medium/high layers in a swarm of flying platforms, are considered as an integrated part of the future cellular networks to inject additional capacity and expand the coverage for exceptional scenarios (sports events, concerts, etc.) and hard-to-reach areas (rural or sparsely populated areas). Successful roll-out of the proposed architecture depends on several factors including, but are not limited to: network optimisation for NFP placement and association, safety operations of NFP for network/equipment security, and reliability for NFP transport and control/signaling mechanisms. In this work, we formulate the optimum placement of NFP at a Lower Layer (LL) by exploiting the airborne Self-organising Network (SON) features. Our initial simulations show the NFP-LL can serve more User Equipment (UE)s using this placement technique.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, conference paper in IEEE VTC-Fall 2017, in Proceedings IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall 2017), Toronto, Canada, Sep. 201

Will SDN be part of 5G?

For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already, the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul, backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment, business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities, softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

A survey on cyber security for smart grid communications

A smart grid is a new form of electricity network with high fidelity power-flow control, self-healing, and energy reliability and energy security using digital communications and control technology. To upgrade an existing power grid into a smart grid, it requires significant dependence on intelligent and secure communication infrastructures. It requires security frameworks for distributed communications, pervasive computing and sensing technologies in smart grid. However, as many of the communication technologies currently recommended to use by a smart grid is vulnerable in cyber security, it could lead to unreliable system operations, causing unnecessary expenditure, even consequential disaster to both utilities and consumers. In this paper, we summarize the cyber security requirements and the possible vulnerabilities in smart grid communications and survey the current solutions on cyber security for smart grid communications. © 2012 IEEE

FABRIC: A National-Scale Programmable Experimental Network Infrastructure

FABRIC is a unique national research infrastructure to enable cutting-edge and exploratory research at-scale in networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing and storage systems, machine learning, and science applications. It is an everywhere-programmable nationwide instrument comprised of novel extensible network elements equipped with large amounts of compute and storage, interconnected by high speed, dedicated optical links. It will connect a number of specialized testbeds for cloud research (NSF Cloud testbeds CloudLab and Chameleon), for research beyond 5G technologies (Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research or PAWR), as well as production high-performance computing facilities and science instruments to create a rich fabric for a wide variety of experimental activities