An SLA-driven framework for dynamic multimedia content delivery federations

Recently, the Internet has become a popular platform for the delivery of multimedia content. However, its best effort delivery approach is ill-suited to guarantee the stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of many existing multimedia services, which results in a significant reduction of the Quality of Experience. This paper presents a solution to these problems, in the form of a framework for dynamically setting up federations between the stakeholders involved in the content delivery chain. More specifically, the framework provides an automated mechanism to set up end-to-end delivery paths from the content provider to the access Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which act as its direct customers and represent a group of end-users. Driven by Service Level Agreements (SLAs), QoS contracts are automatically negotiated between the content provider, the access ISPs, and the intermediary network domains along the delivery paths. These contracts capture the delivered QoS and resource reservation costs, which are subsequently used in the price negotiations between content provider and access ISPs. Additionally, it supports the inclusion of cloud providers within the federations, supporting on-the-fly allocation of computational and storage resources. This allows the automatic deployment and configuration of proxy caches along the delivery paths, which potentially reduce delivery costs and increase delivered quality

A Survey on Communication Networks for Electric System Automation

Published in Computer Networks 50 (2006) 877–897, an Elsevier journal. The definitive version of this publication is available from Science Direct. Digital Object Identifier:10.1016/j.comnet.2006.01.005In today’s competitive electric utility marketplace, reliable and real-time information become the key factor for reliable delivery of power to the end-users, profitability of the electric utility and customer satisfaction. The operational and commercial demands of electric utilities require a high-performance data communication network that supports both existing functionalities and future operational requirements. In this respect, since such a communication network constitutes the core of the electric system automation applications, the design of a cost-effective and reliable network architecture is crucial. In this paper, the opportunities and challenges of a hybrid network architecture are discussed for electric system automation. More specifically, Internet based Virtual Private Networks, power line communications, satellite communications and wireless communications (wireless sensor networks, WiMAX and wireless mesh networks) are described in detail. The motivation of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the hybrid network architecture that can provide heterogeneous electric system automation application requirements. In this regard, our aim is to present a structured framework for electric utilities who plan to utilize new communication technologies for automation and hence, to make the decision making process more effective and direct.This work was supported by NEETRAC under Project #04-157

Model-driven and Compositional Service Creation in the Internet of Services

Doktorgradsavhandling i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi, Universitetet i Agder, Grimstad, 2012In the Future Internet, billions of devices will be connected to the Internet. Devices at any levels of hierarchy provide software functionality that can be used by others. We can call the device’s functionality a service, which in turn, introduces the concept of the Internet of Services. From the software developer perspectives, a new service can be created by utilizing services in the Internet of Services. An important issue of the creation of such service-based application is regarding their deployment method on personalized and embedded devices. For each device with different capability and configuration, different tailored code is required. For this, a flexible method and tools that support an automatic code generation for a device with a specific capability and configuration are mandatory. This thesis proposes PMG-pro (Present, Model, Generate and provide), a language- independent, bottom-up and model-driven method for the service creation in the Internet of Services. With this method, a service is created by providing the new functionality of a service-based application as a service. By using existing service frameworks and APIs, from a service description, PMG-pro generates an abstract graphical service representation (service model) and source code implementing for service invocations. Depending on the target modeling languages, different graphical notations can be used to represent services. Similarly, different programming languages can also be used to implement the service invocations. We call these pairs (i.e., the service model and the source code) platform-specific models. With these platform models, service composers use the graphical service representation to model new service-based applications, while the machine (i.e., computer system) uses the source code to generate code from the service-based application model. This thesis contributes to the service engineering method that applies a modeldriven development approach. Three main contributions are a model-driven method for service creation, an automatic service presentation of pre-made services, and a new method of handling device capability and configuration. With these, service creation in the Internet of Services can be done in a rapid and automatic manner. Service designers can create a new service by defining a model of service-based applications using pre-made service models, while code for a specific device can be generated automatically from the model. The PMG-pro method has been partly prototyped and validated on various case studies in the domain of smart homes that have produced encouraging results. The method promotes a rapid, language-independent, and unified process of software service development

Model-driven and Compositional Service Creation in the Internet of Services

Doktorgradsavhandling i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi, Universitetet i Agder, Grimstad, 2012In the Future Internet, billions of devices will be connected to the Internet. Devices at any levels of hierarchy provide software functionality that can be used by others. We can call the device’s functionality a service, which in turn, introduces the concept of the Internet of Services. From the software developer perspectives, a new service can be created by utilizing services in the Internet of Services. An important issue of the creation of such service-based application is regarding their deployment method on personalized and embedded devices. For each device with different capability and configuration, different tailored code is required. For this, a flexible method and tools that support an automatic code generation for a device with a specific capability and configuration are mandatory. This thesis proposes PMG-pro (Present, Model, Generate and provide), a language- independent, bottom-up and model-driven method for the service creation in the Internet of Services. With this method, a service is created by providing the new functionality of a service-based application as a service. By using existing service frameworks and APIs, from a service description, PMG-pro generates an abstract graphical service representation (service model) and source code implementing for service invocations. Depending on the target modeling languages, different graphical notations can be used to represent services. Similarly, different programming languages can also be used to implement the service invocations. We call these pairs (i.e., the service model and the source code) platform-specific models. With these platform models, service composers use the graphical service representation to model new service-based applications, while the machine (i.e., computer system) uses the source code to generate code from the service-based application model. This thesis contributes to the service engineering method that applies a modeldriven development approach. Three main contributions are a model-driven method for service creation, an automatic service presentation of pre-made services, and a new method of handling device capability and configuration. With these, service creation in the Internet of Services can be done in a rapid and automatic manner. Service designers can create a new service by defining a model of service-based applications using pre-made service models, while code for a specific device can be generated automatically from the model. The PMG-pro method has been partly prototyped and validated on various case studies in the domain of smart homes that have produced encouraging results. The method promotes a rapid, language-independent, and unified process of software service development

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version

Coherent, automatic address resolution for vehicular ad hoc networks

Published in: Int. J. of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2017 Vol.25, No.3, pp.163 - 179. DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2017.10001935The interest in vehicular communications has increased notably. In this paper, the use of the address resolution (AR) procedures is studied for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). We analyse the poor performance of AR transactions in such networks and we present a new proposal called coherent, automatic address resolution (CAAR). Our approach inhibits the use of AR transactions and instead increases the usefulness of routing signalling to automatically match the IP and MAC addresses. Through extensive simulations in realistic VANET scenarios using the Estinet simulator, we compare our proposal CAAR to classical AR and to another of our proposals that enhances AR for mobile wireless networks, called AR+. In addition, we present a performance evaluation of the behaviour of CAAR, AR and AR+ with unicast traffic of a reporting service for VANETs. Results show that CAAR outperforms the other two solutions in terms of packet losses and furthermore, it does not introduce additional overhead.Postprint (published version

Case Study - IPv6 based building automation solution integration into an IPv4 Network Service Provider infrastructure

The case study presents a case study describing an Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 (v6) introduction to an IPv4 Internet Service Provider (ISP) network infrastructure. The case study driver is an ISP willing to introduce a new “killer” service related to Internet of Things (IoT) style building automation. The provider and cooperation of third party companies specialized in building automation will provide the service. The ISP has to deliver the network access layer and to accommodate the building automation solution traffic throughout its network infrastructure. The third party companies are system integrators and building automation solution vendors. IPv6 is suitable for such solutions due to the following reasons. The operator can’t accommodate large number of IPv4 embedded devices in its current network due to the lack of address space and the fact that many of those will need clear 2 way IP communication channel. The Authors propose a strategy for IPv6 introduction into operator infrastructure based on the current network architecture present service portfolio and several transition mechanisms. The strategy has been applied in laboratory with setup close enough to the current operator’s network. The criterion for a successful experiment is full two-way IPv6 application layer connectivity between the IPv6 server and the IPv6 Internet of Things (IoT) cloud