Avoiding Loops and Packet Losses in ISP Networks

Even in well managed Large ISP networks failures of links and routers are common Due to these failures the routers update their routing tables Transient loops can occur in the networks when the routers adapt their forwarding tables In this paper a new approach is proposed that lets the network converge to its optimal state without loops and the related packet lossless The mechanism OUTFC-Ordered Updating Technique with Fast Convergence is based on an ordering of the updates of the forwarding tables of the routers and fast convergence Typically we have chosen a Network consisting of routers and Link costs for simulation Link failures are simulated Avoiding transient loops in each case is demonstrated by constructing a Reverse Shortest PathTree RSP

Hybrid SDN Evolution: A Comprehensive Survey of the State-of-the-Art

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an evolutionary networking paradigm which has been adopted by large network and cloud providers, among which are Tech Giants. However, embracing a new and futuristic paradigm as an alternative to well-established and mature legacy networking paradigm requires a lot of time along with considerable financial resources and technical expertise. Consequently, many enterprises can not afford it. A compromise solution then is a hybrid networking environment (a.k.a. Hybrid SDN (hSDN)) in which SDN functionalities are leveraged while existing traditional network infrastructures are acknowledged. Recently, hSDN has been seen as a viable networking solution for a diverse range of businesses and organizations. Accordingly, the body of literature on hSDN research has improved remarkably. On this account, we present this paper as a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey which expands upon hSDN from many different perspectives

Active self-diagnosis in telecommunication networks

Les réseaux de télécommunications deviennent de plus en plus complexes, notamment de par la multiplicité des technologies mises en œuvre, leur couverture géographique grandissante, la croissance du trafic en quantité et en variété, mais aussi de par l évolution des services fournis par les opérateurs. Tout ceci contribue à rendre la gestion de ces réseaux de plus en plus lourde, complexe, génératrice d erreurs et donc coûteuse pour les opérateurs. On place derrière le terme réseaux autonome l ensemble des solutions visant à rendre la gestion de ce réseau plus autonome. L objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer à la réalisation de certaines fonctions autonomiques dans les réseaux de télécommunications. Nous proposons une stratégie pour automatiser la gestion des pannes tout en couvrant les différents segments du réseau et les services de bout en bout déployés au-dessus. Il s agit d une approche basée modèle qui adresse les deux difficultés du diagnostic basé modèle à savoir : a) la façon d'obtenir un tel modèle, adapté à un réseau donné à un moment donné, en particulier si l'on souhaite capturer plusieurs couches réseau et segments et b) comment raisonner sur un modèle potentiellement énorme, si l'on veut gérer un réseau national par exemple. Pour répondre à la première difficulté, nous proposons un nouveau concept : l auto-modélisation qui consiste d abord à construire les différentes familles de modèles génériques, puis à identifier à la volée les instances de ces modèles qui sont déployées dans le réseau géré. La seconde difficulté est adressée grâce à un moteur d auto-diagnostic actif, basé sur le formalisme des réseaux Bayésiens et qui consiste à raisonner sur un fragment du modèle du réseau qui est augmenté progressivement en utilisant la capacité d auto-modélisation: des observations sont collectées et des tests réalisés jusqu à ce que les fautes soient localisées avec une certitude suffisante. Cette approche de diagnostic actif a été expérimentée pour réaliser une gestion multi-couches et multi-segments des alarmes dans un réseau IMS.While modern networks and services are continuously growing in scale, complexity and heterogeneity, the management of such systems is reaching the limits of human capabilities. Technically and economically, more automation of the classical management tasks is needed. This has triggered a significant research effort, gathered under the terms self-management and autonomic networking. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the realization of some self-management properties in telecommunication networks. We propose an approach to automatize the management of faults, covering the different segments of a network, and the end-to-end services deployed over them. This is a model-based approach addressing the two weaknesses of model-based diagnosis namely: a) how to derive such a model, suited to a given network at a given time, in particular if one wishes to capture several network layers and segments and b) how to reason a potentially huge model, if one wishes to manage a nation-wide network for example. To address the first point, we propose a new concept called self-modeling that formulates off-line generic patterns of the model, and identifies on-line the instances of these patterns that are deployed in the managed network. The second point is addressed by an active self-diagnosis engine, based on a Bayesian network formalism, that consists in reasoning on a progressively growing fragment of the network model, relying on the self-modeling ability: more observations are collected and new tests are performed until the faults are localized with sufficient confidence. This active diagnosis approach has been experimented to perform cross-layer and cross-segment alarm management on an IMS network.RENNES1-Bibl. électronique (352382106) / SudocSudocFranceF

Enabling architectures for QoS provisioning

Nowadays, new multimedia services have been deployed with stringent requirements for Quality of Service (QoS). The QoS provisioning is faced with the heterogeneity of system components. This thesis presents two research: on architectures for QoS management at the application layer, fulfilled mainly by software components; and on distributed software architectures for routing devices providing desired QoS at the underlying communication layer. At the application layer, the QoS architecture we propose, based on the Quality Driven Delivery (QDD) framework, deals with the increasing amount of QoS information of a distributed system. Based on various QoS information models we define for key actors of a distributed system, a QoS information base is generated using QoS information collecting and analysis tools. To translate QoS information among different components, we propose mechanisms to build QoS mapping rules from statistical data. Experiments demonstrate that efficient QoS decisions can be made effectively regarding the contribution of all system components with the help of the QoS information management system. At the underlying layer, we investigate distributed and scalable software architectures for QoS-enabled devices. Due to the huge volume of traffic to be switched, the traditional software model used for current generation routers, where the control card of the router performs all the processing tasks, is no longer appropriate in the near future. We propose a new scalable and distributed architecture to fully exploit the hardware platforms of the next generation routers, and to improve the quality of routers, particularly with respect to scalability and to a lesser extent to resiliency and availability. Our proposal is a distributed software framework where control tasks are shared among the control and line cards of the router. Specific architectures for routing, signaling protocols and routing table management are developed. We investigate the challenges for such distributed architectures and proposed various solutions to overcome them. Based on a general distributed software framework, an efficient scalable distributed architecture for MPLS/LDP and different scalable distributed schemes for the routing table manager (RTM) are developed. We also evaluate the performance of proposed distributed schemes and discuss where to deploy these architectures depending on the type of routers (i.e., their hardware capacity

Dynamic Upgrades for High Availability Systems

In this thesis I show that it is possible to build general-purpose frameworks for efficient, on-line data transformation in support of flexible system services, especially dynamic software updates (DSU). This approach generalizes some of the ideas from prior work on DSU, making those ideas applicable to more situations. In particular, I generalize DSU's notion of in-memory state transformation---normally used to upgrade run-time state to be consistent with the new software---so that it can be applied to data not necessarily stored in memory, and for services other than DSU. To support this thesis, I present three artifacts. First, I present C-strider, a generic, type-aware C heap traversal framework. C-strider constitutes a flexible, easy-to-use framework with which developers can program reusable services that have a heap traversal at their core, e.g., serialization, profiling, invariant checking, and state transformation (in support of DSU). C-strider supports both parallel and single-threaded heap traversals, and I demonstrate that C-strider requires little programmer effort, and the resulting services are efficient and effective. Second, I present KVolve, a data transformation service for NoSQL databases. KVolve is notable in that transformations are carried out on-line and on-demand, as data is accessed, rather than off-line and all at once, which would reduce service availability. Experiments with on-line upgrades of services using KVolve show little overhead during normal operation, and only brief pauses at update-time. Finally, I present Morpheus, a dynamically updatable software-defined network (SDN) controller. Morpheus' architecture is fundamentally distributed, with each service running as a separate process that accesses a shared KVolve instance. Morpheus can update multiple controller applications without loss of availability or degradation of performance

Avoiding Instability during Graceful Shutdown of Multiple OSPF Routers

Many recent router architectures decouple the routing engine from the forwarding engine, allowing packet forwarding to continue even when the routing process is not active. This opens up the possibility of using the forwarding capability of a router even when its routing process is brought down for software upgrade or maintenance, thus avoiding the route flaps that normally occur when the routing process goes down. Unfortunately, current routing protocols, such as BGP, OSPF and IS-IS do not support such operation. In an earlier paper [1] , we described an enhancement to OSPF, called the IBB (I’ll Be Back) capability, that enables a router to continue forwarding packets while its routing process is inactive. When the OSPF process in an IBB-capable router is inactive, it cannot adapt its forwarding table to reflect changes in network topology. This can lead to routing loops and/or black holes. In this paper we focus on the loop problem, and provide a detailed analysis of how and when loops are formed and propose solutions to prevent them. We develop two necessary conditions for the formation of routing loops in the general case when multiple routers are inactive. These conditions can easily be checked by the neighbors of the inactive routers. Simulations on several network topologies showed that checking the two conditions together signaled a loop in most cases only when a loop actually existed.

Global connectivity architecture of mobile personal devices

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-207).The Internet's architecture, designed in the days of large, stationary computers tended by technically savvy and accountable administrators, fails to meet the demands of the emerging ubiquitous computing era. Nontechnical users now routinely own multiple personal devices, many of them mobile, and need to share information securely among them using interactive, delay-sensitive applications.Unmanaged Internet Architecture (UIA) is a novel, incrementally deployable network architecture for modern personal devices, which reconsiders three architectural cornerstones: naming, routing, and transport. UIA augments the Internet's global name system with a personal name system, enabling users to build personal administrative groups easily and intuitively, to establish secure bindings between his devices and with other users' devices, and to name his devices and his friends much like using a cell phone's address book. To connect personal devices reliably, even while mobile, behind NATs or firewalls, or connected via isolated ad hoc networks, UIA gives each device a persistent, location-independent identity, and builds an overlay routing service atop IP to resolve and route among these identities. Finally, to support today's interactive applications built using concurrent transactions and delay-sensitive media streams, UIA introduces a new structured stream transport abstraction, which solves the efficiency and responsiveness problems of TCP streams and the functionality limitations of UDP datagrams. Preliminary protocol designs and implementations demonstrate UIA's features and benefits. A personal naming prototype supports easy and portable group management, allowing use of personal names alongside global names in unmodified Internet applications. A prototype overlay router leverages the naming layer's social network to provide efficient ad hoc connectivity in restricted but important common-case scenarios.(cont) Simulations of more general routing protocols--one inspired by distributed hash tables, one based on recent compact routing theory--explore promising generalizations to UIA's overlay routing. A library-based prototype of UIA's structured stream transport enables incremental deployment in either OS infrastructure or applications, and demonstrates the responsiveness benefits of the new transport abstraction via dynamic prioritization of interactive web downloads. Finally, an exposition and experimental evaluation of NAT traversal techniques provides insight into routing optimizations useful in UIA and elsewhere.by Bryan Alexander Ford.Ph.D

The Virtual Bus: A Network Architecture Designed to Support Modular-Redundant Distributed Periodic Real-Time Control Systems

The Virtual Bus network architecture uses physical layer switching and a combination of space- and time-division multiplexing to link segments of a partial mesh network together on schedule to temporarily form contention-free multi-hop, multi-drop simplex signalling paths, or 'virtual buses'. Network resources are scheduled and routed by a dynamic distributed resource allocation mechanism with self-forming and self-healing characteristics. Multiple virtual buses can coexist simultaneously in a single network, as the resources allocated to each bus are orthogonal in either space or time. The Virtual Bus architecture achieves deterministic delivery times for time-sensitive traffic over multi-hop partial mesh networks by employing true line-speed switching; delays of around 15ns at each switching point are demonstrated experimentally, and further reductions in switching delays are shown to be achievable. Virtual buses are inherently multicast, with delivery skew across multiple destinations proportional to the difference in equivalent physical length to each destination. The Virtual Bus architecture is not a purely theoretical concept; a small research platform has been constructed for development, testing and demonstration purposes