Ethernet - a survey on its fields of application

During the last decades, Ethernet progressively became the most widely used local area networking (LAN) technology. Apart from LAN installations, Ethernet became also attractive for many other fields of application, ranging from industry to avionics, telecommunication, and multimedia. The expanded application of this technology is mainly due to its significant assets like reduced cost, backward-compatibility, flexibility, and expandability. However, this new trend raises some problems concerning the services of the protocol and the requirements for each application. Therefore, specific adaptations prove essential to integrate this communication technology in each field of application. Our primary objective is to show how Ethernet has been enhanced to comply with the specific requirements of several application fields, particularly in transport, embedded and multimedia contexts. The paper first describes the common Ethernet LAN technology and highlights its main features. It reviews the most important specific Ethernet versions with respect to each application field’s requirements. Finally, we compare these different fields of application and we particularly focus on the fundamental concepts and the quality of service capabilities of each proposal

Fronthaul evolution: From CPRI to Ethernet

It is proposed that using Ethernet in the fronthaul, between base station baseband unit (BBU) pools and remote radio heads (RRHs), can bring a number of advantages, from use of lower-cost equipment, shared use of infrastructure with fixed access networks, to obtaining statistical multiplexing and optimised performance through probe-based monitoring and software-defined networking. However, a number of challenges exist: ultra-high-bit-rate requirements from the transport of increased bandwidth radio streams for multiple antennas in future mobile networks, and low latency and jitter to meet delay requirements and the demands of joint processing. A new fronthaul functional division is proposed which can alleviate the most demanding bit-rate requirements by transport of baseband signals instead of sampled radio waveforms, and enable statistical multiplexing gains. Delay and synchronisation issues remain to be solved

Per-Priority Flow Control (Ppfc) Framework For Enhancing Qos In Metro Ethernet

Day by day Internet communication and services are experiencing an increase in variety and quantity in their capacity and demand. Thus, making traffic management and quality of service (QoS) approaches for optimization of the Internet become a challenging area of research; meanwhile flow control and congestion control will be considered as significant fundamentals for the traffic control especially on the high speed Metro Ethernet. IEEE had standardized a method (IEEE 802.3x standard), which provides Ethernet Flow Control (EFC) using PAUSE frames as MAC control frames in the data link layer, to enable or disable data frame transmission. With the initiation of Metro Carrier Ethernet, the conventional ON/OFF IEEE 802.3x approach may no longer be sufficient. Therefore, a new architecture and mechanism that offer more flexible and efficient flow and congestion control, as well as better QoS provisioning is now necessary

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

Internet protocol television (IPTV): The Killer application for the next-generation internet

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) will be the killer application for the next-generation Internet and will provide exciting new revenue opportunities for service providers. However, to deploy IPTV services with a full quality of service (QoS) guarantee, many underlying technologies must be further studied. This article serves as a survey of IPTV services and the underlying technologies. Technical challenges also are identified

Cooperative intrusion detection for the next generation carrier: ethernet

Tese de mestrado em Informática, apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2007Hoje em dia os elementos de rede (NEs) da camada 2 do modelo OSI, bridges ou switches, são componentes complexos, com centenas de milhares de linhas de código, que podem ser vulneráveis a ataques, permitindo até a execçuão remota de código. Este trabalho tem como objectivo a criação de um sistema para proteger infra-estruturas de rede Carrier Ethernet de ataques lançados por NEs maliciosos contra o protocolo de gestão de ligações, o Spanning Tree Protocol, e as sua variantes. Na tese é proposto que os NEs sejam equipados com um componente de detecção de intrusões. Cada um dos detectores utiliza um mecanismo da detecção de intrusões baseada em especificacão e inspecciona o comportamento dos outros NEs através da análise das mensagens recebidas. O comportamento correcto dos NEs é descrito tendo em conta a especificação normalizada do protocolo STP. Se existir um desvio entre um comportamento esperado e o actual, o NE é suspeito de ser malicioso. A especificação é estendida com anotações de padrões temporais, de modo a detectar desvios do protocolo por parte dos NEs localmente. Os resultados da detecção local nos NEs são enviados para os outros, para que todos possam correlacionar a informação da detecção, diagnosticar quais são os NEs maliciosos e logicamente removê-los da rede, desligando todas as portas a eles ligadas.Current OSI model layer 2 network elements (NEs, e.g., bridges, switches) are complex hardware and software boxes, often running an operating system, service and administration software, that can be vulnerable to attacks, including to remote code execution inside them. The purpose of this thesis is to present an architecture to protect the Carrier Ethernet network infrastructure from attacks performed by malicious NEs against the link management protocol, Spanning Tree Protocol, and its variations. This thesis proposes that NEs are equipped with an intrusion detection component. Each detector uses a specification-based intrusion detection mechanism in order to inspect the behaviour of other NEs through the analysis of the received messages. The correct behaviour of the NEs is crafted from the standard specification of the STP protocol. If there is a deviation between current and expected behaviour, then the NE is considered to be malicious. The specification is extended with temporal pattern annotations, in order to detect certain deviations from the protocol. The results of the local detection are then transmitted to the other NEs, in order to cooperatively establish a correlation between all the NEs, so that malicious NEs can be logically removed from the network (disconnecting the ports connected to them)