Virtualisation d'une plateforme de gestion de contexte

Depuis son apparition, le Cloud Computing a motivé différents acteurs du secteur des technologies de l’information à créer de nouveaux services virtuels. Le Cloud Computing apporte beaucoup d’avantages comme la personnalisation, le paiement au besoin ou encore l’effet d’avoir une élasticité infinie. Les systèmes CA sont des systèmes intelligents qui peuvent changer de comportement dépendamment du contexte dans lequel ils se trouvent. Ce type de système est le genre de système que l’utilisateur final préfère, car il anticipe ses besoins et s’y adapte. Pour avoir, un bon système CA, il faut avoir une bonne base de source d’informations. Ces informations de base permettent à ces systèmes d’être plus précis pour identifier leur contexte actuel. Les réseaux de capteurs sans fil sont une riche source d’information, car ils offrent une information diversifiée et en grand nombre. Notre projet consiste à virtualiser les systèmes CA en utilisant les réseaux de capteurs sans fil. Notre première contribution consiste à décomposer les systèmes CA en blocs fonctionnels. La deuxième contribution est la proposition d’une architecture de gestion de contexte qui permet la composition et le déploiement de services CA dans le nuage. Cette architecture est validée à travers le prototypage et les tests. Notre dernière contribution est la proposition d’une méthodologie de dimensionnement de ces blocs fonctionnels

Integrating Context-Awareness in the IP Multimedia Subsystem for Enhanced Session Control and Service Provisioning Capabilities

The 3GPP-defined IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is becoming the de-facto standard for IP-based multimedia communication services. It consists of an overlay control and service layer that is deployed on top of IP-based mobile and fixed networks. This layer encompasses a set of common functions (e.g. session control functions allowing the initiation/modification/termination of sessions) and service logics that are needed for the seamless provisioning of IP multimedia services to users, via different access technologies. As it continues to evolve, the IMS still faces several challenges including: the enabling of innovative and personalized services that would appeal to users and increase network operators' revenues; its interaction with other types of networks (e.g. wireless sensor networks) as means to enhance its capabilities; and the support of advanced QoS schemes that would manage the network resources in an efficient and adaptive manner. The context-awareness concept, which comes from the pervasive computing field, signifies the ability to use situational information (or context) in support to operations and decision making and for the provision of relevant services to the user. Context-awareness is considered to enhance users' experience and is seen as an enabler to adaptability and service personalization - two capabilities that could play important roles in telecommunication environments. This thesis focuses on the introduction of the context-awareness technology in the IMS, as means to enhance its session control and service provisioning capabilities. It starts by presenting the necessary background information, followed by a derivation of requirements and a review of the related work. To ensure the availability of contextual information within the network, we then propose an architecture for context information acquisition and management in the IMS. This architecture leverages and extends the 3GPP presence framework. Building on the capabilities of this architecture, we demonstrate how the managed information could be integrated in IMS operations, at the control and service levels. Showcasing control level integration, we propose a novel context-aware call differentiation framework as means to offer enhanced QoS support (for sessions/calls) in IMS-based networks. This framework enables the differentiation between different categories of calls at the IMS session control level, via dynamic and adaptive resource allocation, in addition to supporting a specialized charging model. Furthermore, we also propose a framework for enhanced IMS emergency communication services. This framework addresses the limitations of existing IP-based emergency solutions, by offering three main improvements: a QoS-enhanced emergency service; a context-aware personalized emergency service; and a conferencing-enhanced emergency service. We demonstrate the use of context awareness at the IMS service level using two new context-aware IMS applications. Finally, to validate our solutions and evaluate their performance, we build various proof-of-concept prototypes and OPNET simulation model