Pruning Edge Research with Latency Shears

Edge computing has gained attention from both academia and industry by pursuing two significant challenges: 1) moving latency critical services closer to the users, 2) saving network bandwidth by aggregating large flows before sending them to the cloud. While the rationale appeared sound at its inception almost a decade ago, several current trends are impacting it. Clouds have spread geographically reducing end-user latency, mobile phones? computing capabilities are improving, and network bandwidth at the core keeps increasing. In this paper, we scrutinize edge computing, examining its outlook and future in the context of these trends. We perform extensive client-to-cloud measurements using RIPE Atlas, and show that latency reduction as motivation for edge is not as persuasive as once believed; for most applications the cloud is already 'close enough' for majority of the world's population. This implies that edge computing may only be applicable for certain application niches, as opposed to a general-purpose solution.Peer reviewe

Cloud-gaming:Analysis of Google Stadia traffic

Interactive, real-time, and high-quality cloud video games pose a serious challenge to the Internet due to simultaneous high-throughput and low round trip delay requirements. In this paper, we investigate the traffic characteristics of Stadia, the cloud-gaming solution from Google, which is likely to become one of the dominant players in the gaming sector. To do that, we design several experiments, and perform an extensive traffic measurement campaign to obtain all required data. Our first goal is to gather a deep understanding of Stadia traffic characteristics by identifying the different protocols involved for both signalling and video/audio contents, the traffic generation patterns, and the packet size and inter-packet time probability distributions. Then, our second goal is to understand how different Stadia games and configurations, such as the video codec and the video resolution selected, impact on the characteristics of the generated traffic. Finally, we aim to evaluate the ability of Stadia to adapt to different link capacity conditions, including those cases where the capacity drops suddenly. Our results and findings, besides illustrating the characteristics of Stadia traffic, are also valuable for planning and dimensioning future networks, as well as for designing new resource management strategies

Application-centric bandwidth allocation in datacenters

Today's datacenters host a large number of concurrently executing applications with diverse intra-datacenter latency and bandwidth requirements. Some of these applications, such as data analytics, graph processing, and machine learning training, are data-intensive and require high bandwidth to function properly. However, these bandwidth-hungry applications can often congest the datacenter network, leading to queuing delays that hurt application completion time. To remove the network as a potential performance bottleneck, datacenter operators have begun deploying high-end HPC-grade networks like InfiniBand. These networks offer fully offloaded network stacks, remote direct memory access (RDMA) capability, and non-discarding links, which allow them to provide both low latency and high bandwidth for a single application. However, it is unclear how well such networks accommodate a mix of latency- and bandwidth-sensitive traffic in a real-world deployment. In this thesis, we aim to answer the above question. To do so, we develop RPerf, a latency measurement tool for RDMA-based networks that can precisely measure the InfiniBand switch latency without hardware support. Using RPerf, we benchmark a rack-scale InfiniBand cluster in both isolated and mixed-traffic scenarios. Our key finding is that the evaluated switch can provide either low latency or high bandwidth, but not both simultaneously in a mixed-traffic scenario. We also evaluate several options to improve the latency-bandwidth trade-off and demonstrate that none are ideal. We find that while queue separation is a solution to protect latency-sensitive applications, it fails to properly manage the bandwidth of other applications. We also aim to resolve the problem with bandwidth management for non-latency-sensitive applications. Previous efforts to address this problem have generally focused on achieving max-min fairness at the flow level. However, we observe that different workloads exhibit varying levels of sensitivity to network bandwidth. For some workloads, even a small reduction in available bandwidth can significantly increase completion time, while for others, completion time is largely insensitive to available network bandwidth. As a result, simply splitting the bandwidth equally among all workloads is sub-optimal for overall application-level performance. To address this issue, we first propose a robust methodology capable of effectively measuring the sensitivity of applications to bandwidth. We then design Saba, an application-aware bandwidth allocation framework that distributes network bandwidth based on application-level sensitivity. Saba combines ahead-of-time application profiling to determine bandwidth sensitivity with runtime bandwidth allocation using lightweight software support, with no modifications to network hardware or protocols. Experiments with a 32-server hardware testbed show that Saba can significantly increase overall performance by reducing the job completion time for bandwidth-sensitive jobs

System designs for bulk and user-generated content delivery in the internet

This thesis proposes and evaluates new system designs to support two emerging Internet workloads: (a) bulk content, such as downloads of large media and scientific libraries, and (b) user-generated content (UGC), such as photos and videos that users share online, typically on online social networks (OSNs). Bulk content accounts for a large and growing fraction of today\u27s Internet traffic. Due to the high cost of bandwidth, delivering bulk content in the Internet is expensive. To reduce the cost of bulk transfers, I proposed traffic shaping and scheduling designs that exploit the delay-tolerant nature of bulk transfers to allow ISPs to deliver bulk content opportunistically. I evaluated my proposals through software prototypes and simulations driven by real-world traces from commercial and academic ISPs and found that they result in considerable reductions in transit costs or increased link utilization. The amount of user-generated content (UGC) that people share online has been rapidly growing in the past few years. Most users share UGC using online social networking websites (OSNs), which can impose arbitrary terms of use, privacy policies, and limitations on the content shared on their websites. To solve this problem, I evaluated the feasibility of a system that allows users to share UGC directly from the home, thus enabling them to regain control of the content that they share online. Using data from popular OSN websites and a testbed deployed in 10 households, I showed that current trends bode well for the delivery of personal UGC from users\u27 homes. I also designed and deployed Stratus, a prototype system that uses home gateways to share UGC directly from the home.Schwerpunkt dieser Doktorarbeit ist der Entwurf und die Auswertung neuer Systeme zur Unterstützung von zwei entstehenden Internet-Workloads: (a) Bulk-Content, wie zum Beispiel die Übertragung von großen Mediendateien und wissenschaftlichen Datenbanken, und (b) nutzergenerierten Inhalten, wie zum Beispiel Fotos und Videos, die Benutzer üblicherweise in sozialen Netzwerken veröffentlichen. Bulk-Content macht einen großen und weiter zunehmenden Anteil im heutigen Internetverkehr aus. Wegen der hohen Bandbreitenkosten ist die Übertragung von Bulk-Content im Internet jedoch teuer. Um diese Kosten zu senken habe ich neue Scheduling- und Traffic-Shaping-Lösungen entwickelt, die die Verzögerungsresistenz des Bulk-Verkehrs ausnutzen und es ISPs ermöglichen, Bulk-Content opportunistisch zu übermitteln. Durch Software-Prototypen und Simulationen mit Daten aus dem gewerblichen und akademischen Internet habe ich meine Lösungen ausgewertet und herausgefunden, dass sich die Übertragungskosten dadurch erheblich senken lassen und die Ausnutzung der Netze verbessern lässt. Der Anteil an nutzergenerierten Inhalten (user-generated content, UGC), die im Internet veröffentlicht wird, hat in den letzen Jahren ebenfalls schnell zugenommen. Meistens wird UGC in sozialen Netzwerken (online social networks, OSN) veröffentlicht. Dadurch sind Benutzer den willkürlichen Nutzungsbedingungen, Datenschutzrichtlinien, und Einschränkungen des OSN-Providers unterworfen. Um dieses Problem zu lösen, habe ich die Machbarkeit eines Systems ausgewertet, anhand dessen Benutzer UGC direkt von zu Hause veröffentlichen und die Kontrolle über ihren UGC zurückgewinnen können. Meine Auswertung durch Daten aus zwei populären OSN-Websites und einem Feldversuch in 10 Haushalten deutet darauf hin, dass angesichts der Fortschritte in der Bandbreite der Zugangsnetze die Veröffentlichung von persönlichem UGC von zu Hause in der nahen Zukunft möglich sein könnte.Schließlich habe ich Stratus entworfen und entwickelt, ein System, das auf Home-Gateways basiert und mit dem Benutzer UGC direkt von zu Hause veröffentlichen können

Analysis of Frontier’s Internet Network Quality

The demands of internet networks are ever increasing. This is caused by a huge number of applications that use the internet as their basic service and more affordable equipment that can connect to the internet. These conditions are raising a way to measure the quality of network services to see how well it could serve its user, especially regarding the internet. In this study, the parameters used to determine QoS (Quality of Service) are throughput, packet loss, delay and Jitter. Locations of measurement are wired and internet networks at the selected institute which is the shanti buana institute, bengkayang regency. The measurement method used is Quality of Service (QoS). This method is applied when analyzing the quality of the internet network. The results are very satisfactory, while the result of throughput methods are85.95 Mbps, and the amount of packet loss has a very small percentage, namely 1%. The amount of delay obtained is 46,741 ms, while the Jitter is 42,716 ms.Kebutuhan jaringan internet semakin meningkat. Hal tersebut diakibatkan oleh banyaknya aplikasi yang menggunakan internet serta semakin terjangkaunya peralatan yang dapat terhubung dengan internet. Keadaan tersebut memunculkan kebutuhan bagaimana mengukur kualitas layanan jaringan untuk melihat seberapa bagus sebuah jaringan mampu melayani penggunanya terutama berkaitan dengan jaringan internet. Dalam penelitian ini, parameter yang digunakan untuk mengetahui QoS adalah throughput, packet loss, delay serta Jitter. Lokasi pengukuran adalah jaringan kabel dan jaringan nirkabel pada instansi yang dipilih yakni Institut Shanti Bhuana Kabupaten Bengkayang. Metode pengukuran yang digunakan adalah Quality of Service (QoS). Metode tersebut diterapkan saat akan melakukan analisis kualitas jaringan internet.  Berdasarkan pengujian yang telah dilakukan pada jaringan internet di Institut Shanti Bhuana menunjukkan hasil akhir yaitu sangat memuaskan, yaitu nilai throughput yang dihasilkan sebesar 85,95 Mbps. Sementara itu, besarnya packet loss memiliki persentase yang sangat kecil yaitu 1% . Besar delay yang didapatkan sebesar 46,741 ms, sedangkan besar Jitter sebesar 42,716 ms

The Four-C Framework for High Capacity Ultra-Low Latency in 5G Networks: A Review

Network latency will be a critical performance metric for the Fifth Generation (5G) networks expected to be fully rolled out in 2020 through the IMT-2020 project. The multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology is a key enabler for the 5G massive connectivity criterion, especially from the massive densification perspective. Naturally, it appears that 5G MU-MIMO will face a daunting task to achieve an end-to-end 1 ms ultra-low latency budget if traditional network set-ups criteria are strictly adhered to. Moreover, 5G latency will have added dimensions of scalability and flexibility compared to prior existing deployed technologies. The scalability dimension caters for meeting rapid demand as new applications evolve. While flexibility complements the scalability dimension by investigating novel non-stacked protocol architecture. The goal of this review paper is to deploy ultra-low latency reduction framework for 5G communications considering flexibility and scalability. The Four (4) C framework consisting of cost, complexity, cross-layer and computing is hereby analyzed and discussed. The Four (4) C framework discusses several emerging new technologies of software defined network (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) and fog networking. This review paper will contribute significantly towards the future implementation of flexible and high capacity ultra-low latency 5G communications

Toward Open and Programmable Wireless Network Edge

Increasingly, the last hop connecting users to their enterprise and home networks is wireless. Wireless is becoming ubiquitous not only in homes and enterprises but in public venues such as coffee shops, hospitals, and airports. However, most of the publicly and privately available wireless networks are proprietary and closed in operation. Also, there is little effort from industries to move forward on a path to greater openness for the requirement of innovation. Therefore, we believe it is the domain of university researchers to enable innovation through openness. In this thesis work, we introduce and defines the importance of open framework in addressing the complexity of the wireless network. The Software Defined Network (SDN) framework has emerged as a popular solution for the data center network. However, the promise of the SDN framework is to make the network open, flexible and programmable. In order to deliver on the promise, SDN must work for all users and across all networks, both wired and wireless. Therefore, we proposed to create new modules and APIs to extend the standard SDN framework all the way to the end-devices (i.e., mobile devices, APs). Thus, we want to provide an extensible and programmable abstraction of the wireless network as part of the current SDN-based solution. In this thesis work, we design and develop a framework, weSDN (wireless extension of SDN), that extends the SDN control capability all the way to the end devices to support client-network interaction capabilities and new services. weSDN enables the control-plane of wireless networks to be extended to mobile devices and allows for top-level decisions to be made from an SDN controller with knowledge of the network as a whole, rather than device centric configurations. In addition, weSDN easily obtains user application information, as well as the ability to monitor and control application flows dynamically. Based on the weSDN framework, we demonstrate new services such as application-aware traffic management, WLAN virtualization, and security management