5G SA and NSA Solutions

This paper explains in detail the 5G packet core gateway solution. It also gives an overview of the 5G Architecture, the platform and the hardware details of this solution. 5G is the next generation of Third-Generation Partnership Program (3GPP) technology, after 4G/LTE, being defined for wireless mobile data communication. Starting with 3GPP Release 15 onward, this technology defines standards for 5G. As part of 3GPP Release 15, new 5G Radio and Packet Core evolution is being defined to cater to the needs of 5G networks. The two solutions that will be talked about in this paper are 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) and 5G Standalone (SA) both of which will coexist for some time together. As you might have understood by just looking at the names of these solutions, 5G Non-Standalone stands for the existing LTE radio access and core network (EPC) to be used as an anchor for mobility management and coverage to add the 5G carrier. This solution enables operators to provide 5G services with shorter time and lesser cost, and as for the 5G Standalone an all new 5G Packet Core will be introduced with several new capabilities built inherently into it. The SA architecture comprises of 5G New Radio (5G NR) and 5G Core Network (5GC)

Implementation of IPv6

On 14 September 2012 last block of IPv4 has been allocated from the Regional Internet Register (RIR) across the Europe, Middle East and Asia. In addition, the demand of further addresses, security and efficient routing across Internet has been increasing every day. Hence, to provide the abundant IP addresses and also to overcome the shortcoming of IPv4, IETF developed a new protocol IPv6. IPv6 overcome the limitations of IPv4 and integrate advance feature. These advanced improvements include larger address space, more efficient addressing and routing, auto-configuration, security, and QOS. The main objective of this project was to implement IPv6 network in Cisco laboratory of Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences (RAMK). Cisco 2800 and 1700 Series routers, 3500 series Cisco Catalyst Switches, Microsoft Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows 8 and finally Mac OS X were used during implementation process. This project covers the implementation of IPv6, DHCPv6, DNS, Routing Protocols EIGRP, and Security. The goal of the project was to implement IPv6 to existing IPv4 network without affecting the running services. Furthermore, this project was implementation in Local Area Network (LAN) only

IPv6 VPN Testing in GNS3

Cílem mé diplomové práce je popis virtuální privátní sítě (VPN) se zaměřením na protokoly Wireguard a OpenVPN. Teoretická část popisuje zabezpečení VPN prostřednictvím důvěryhodnosti, autentizace a integrity. V praktické části je popsán způsob implementace zařízení Ubuntu Docker do prostředí GNS3 a zpřístupnění internetového připojení pomocí zařízení Cloud. Dále je na ukázkové topologii popsána konfigurace pro vytvoření vzdáleného připojení do sítě prostřednictvím tunelu. Závěrem je ověření zabezpečení proti úniku dat, měření propustnosti navržených řešení a měření nároků prostředí GNS3 a jeho součástí na fyzické prostředky výpočetního zařízení.The aim of my diploma thesis is to describe a virtual private network (VPN) with a focus on protocols Wireguard and OpenVPN. The theoretical part describes VPN security by implementing confidentiality, authentication and integrity. The practical part describes how to import an Ubuntu Docker device in a GNS3 environment and how to use a Cloud device to connect to the internet. Furthermore, the configuration for establishing a remote network connection through a tunnel is described using a example topology. Finally, data leakage security was verified, the throughput of the proposed solutions was measured, and the hardware requirements of the GNS3 environment and its components were measured on my device.440 - Katedra telekomunikační technikyvelmi dobř

IP Mobility in Wireless Operator Networks

Wireless network access is gaining increased heterogeneity in terms of the types of IP capable access technologies. The access network heterogeneity is an outcome of incremental and evolutionary approach of building new infrastructure. The recent success of multi-radio terminals drives both building a new infrastructure and implicit deployment of heterogeneous access networks. Typically there is no economical reason to replace the existing infrastructure when building a new one. The gradual migration phase usually takes several years. IP-based mobility across different access networks may involve both horizontal and vertical handovers. Depending on the networking environment, the mobile terminal may be attached to the network through multiple access technologies. Consequently, the terminal may send and receive packets through multiple networks simultaneously. This dissertation addresses the introduction of IP Mobility paradigm into the existing mobile operator network infrastructure that have not originally been designed for multi-access and IP Mobility. We propose a model for the future wireless networking and roaming architecture that does not require revolutionary technology changes and can be deployed without unnecessary complexity. The model proposes a clear separation of operator roles: (i) access operator, (ii) service operator, and (iii) inter-connection and roaming provider. The separation allows each type of an operator to have their own development path and business models without artificial bindings with each other. We also propose minimum requirements for the new model. We present the state of the art of IP Mobility. We also present results of standardization efforts in IP-based wireless architectures. Finally, we present experimentation results of IP-level mobility in various wireless operator deployments.Erilaiset langattomat verkkoyhteydet lisääntyvät Internet-kykyisten teknologioiden muodossa. Lukuisten eri teknologioiden päällekkäinen käyttö johtuu vähitellen ja tarpeen mukaan rakennetusta verkkoinfrastruktuurista. Useita radioteknologioita (kuten WLAN, GSM ja UMTS) sisältävien päätelaitteiden (kuten älypuhelimet ja kannettavat tietokoneet) viimeaikainen kaupallinen menestys edesauttaa uuden verkkoinfrastruktuurin rakentamista, sekä mahdollisesti johtaa verkkoteknologioiden kirjon lisääntymiseen. Olemassa olevaa verkkoinfrastruktuuria ei kaupallisista syistä kannata korvata uudella teknologialla yhdellä kertaa, vaan vaiheittainen siirtymävaihe kestää tyypillisesti useita vuosia. Internet-kykyiset päätelaitteet voivat liikkua joko saman verkkoteknologian sisällä tai eri verkkoteknologioiden välillä. Verkkoympäristöstä riippuen liikkuvat päätelaitteet voivat liittyä verkkoon useiden verkkoyhteyksien kautta. Näin ollen päätelaite voi lähettää ja vastaanottaa tietoliikennepaketteja yhtäaikaisesti lukuisia verkkoja pitkin. Tämä väitöskirja käsittelee Internet-teknologioiden liikkuvuutta ja näiden teknologioiden tuomista olemassa oleviin langattomien verkko-operaattorien verkkoinfrastruktuureihin. Käsiteltäviä verkkoinfrastruktuureita ei alun perin ole suunniteltu Internet-teknologian liikkuvuuden ja monien yhtäaikaisten yhteyksien ehdoilla. Tässä työssä ehdotetaan tulevaisuuden langattomien verkkojen arkkitehtuurimallia ja ratkaisuja verkkovierailujen toteuttamiseksi. Ehdotettu arkkitehtuuri voidaan toteuttaa ilman mittavia teknologisia mullistuksia. Mallin mukaisessa ehdotuksessa verkko-operaattorin roolit jaetaan selkeästi (i) verkko-operaattoriin, (ii) palveluoperaattoriin ja (iii) yhteys- sekä verkkovierailuoperaattoriin. Roolijako mahdollistaa sen, että kukin operaattorityyppi voi kehittyä itsenäisesti, ja että teennäiset verkkoteknologiasidonnaisuudet poistuvat palveluiden tuottamisessa. Työssä esitetään myös alustava vaatimuslista ehdotetulle mallille, esimerkiksi yhteysoperaattorien laatuvaatimukset. Väitöskirja esittelee myös liikkuvien Internet-teknologioiden viimeisimmän kehityksen. Työssä näytetään lisäksi standardointituloksia Internet-kykyisissä langattomissa arkkitehtuureissa

IPv6 : prospects and problems : a technical and management investigation into the deployment of IPv6

Masteroppgave i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi 2003 - Høgskolen i Agder, GrimstadIPv4 has been used for over twenty years, and will most likely be used in many years ahead. However, we are now experiencing that the IPv4 address space is running out, resulting in restrictions on who will be able to get these types of addresses assigned to them. Methods such as Network Address Translator (NAT) have been developed and implemented in order to save the IPv4 address space. It is said that this is not a good enough solution, as such techniques introduce new problems at the same time solving some. A new version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, has been developed and is likely to replace IPv4. IPv6 has been developed to solve the address problem, but also new features are designed to supposedly enhance network traffic. In our thesis we give an overview of the problems with IPv4. This includes the limited address space and the limited quality of service. Further we present the features of IPv6 that are meant to solve these problems and add new possibilities. These are: New address format, the IPv6 header and Extension headers to mention some. Further we have investigated and here present how the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is expected to take place, followed by a thorough description of the transition mechanisms. One of the original intentions on the development of IPv6 was that IPv4 and IPv6 have to be able to coexist for a long period of time. Transition mechanisms have therefore been designed to make this possible. There are three main types of mechanisms: - Tunnelling - Translation - Dual-stack. Each of these mechanisms requires different configuration and implementations in hosts and network. Technical research on transition mechanisms states that these are not good enough for all IPv6/IPv4 scenarios and need improvements in order to make IPv4 and IPv6 coexist smoothly. There are a lot of transition mechanisms that are agreed upon as being good for general use and then there are transition mechanisms that are good for certain scenarios and not for others. Some scenarios still lack a good translation mechanism. As a result of this, IPv6 networks are being built separately from IPv4 networks. In Asia commercial IPv6 networks are offered, while the process is slower in other parts of the world. The reasons for not building IPv6 networks are many, and not agreed upon. Some believe it is because of economical restrictions, while others claim it is technical reasons and that it exists far too few applications supporting IPv6. The number of IPv6 enabled applications is growing. Large companies like; Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems Inc, Apple Computers Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc and various versions of Linux include support for IPv6. The deployment of IPv6 is expected to happen at different times in different parts of the world. We have investigated the status of IPv6 globally and in Norway. The main results are that the roll-out has reached the furthest in Asia where commercial IPv6 networks already are offered. The activity in Norway is still small, but growing. It was desired to run an experiment in order to prove or disprove some of the information we gathered on how IPv6 interoperates with IPv4, but because of limitations in the network at Heriot-Watt University we were not able to do this. Instead we have focused on a project by Telenor R&D; “IPv6 migration of unmanaged networks-The Tromsø IPv6 Pilot”. We also gathered some information from people working at Norwegian ISPs in order to address some of the aspects of the upgrading

Enhancing Networks via Virtualized Network Functions

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2019. Major: Computer Science. Advisor: Zhi-Li Zhang. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 116 pages.In an era of ubiquitous connectivity, various new applications, network protocols, and online services (e.g., cloud services, distributed machine learning, cryptocurrency) have been constantly creating, underpinning many of our daily activities. Emerging demands for networks have led to growing traffic volume and complexity of modern networks, which heavily rely on a wide spectrum of specialized network functions (e.g., Firewall, Load Balancer) for performance, security, etc. Although (virtual) network functions (VNFs) are widely deployed in networks, they are instantiated in an uncoordinated manner failing to meet growing demands of evolving networks. In this dissertation, we argue that networks equipped with VNFs can be designed in a fashion similar to how computer software is today programmed. By following the blueprint of joint design over VNFs, networks can be made more effective and efficient. We begin by presenting Durga, a system fusing wide area network (WAN) virtualization on gateway with local area network (LAN) virtualization technology. It seamlessly aggregates multiple WAN links into a (virtual) big pipe for better utilizing WAN links and also provides fast fail-over thus minimizing application performance degradation under WAN link failures. Without the support from LAN virtualization technology, existing solutions fail to provide high reliability and performance required by today’s enterprise applications. We then study a newly standardized protocol, Multipath TCP (MPTCP), adopted in Durga, showing the challenge of associating MPTCP subflows in network for the purpose of boosting throughput and enhancing security. Instead of designing a customized solution in every VNF to conquer this common challenge (making VNFs aware of MPTCP), we implement an online service named SAMPO to be readily integrated into VNFs. Following the same principle, we make an attempt to take consensus as a service in software-defined networks. We illustrate new network failure scenarios that are not explicitly handled by existing consensus algorithms such as Raft, thereby severely affecting their correct or efficient operations. Finally, we re-consider VNFs deployed in a network from the perspective of network administrators. A global view of deployed VNFs brings new opportunities for performance optimization over the network, and thus we explore parallelism in service function chains composing a sequence of VNFs that are typically traversed in-order by data flows

An Introduction to Computer Networks

An open textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on computer networks

Mecanismos de offloading para redes móveis usando SDN em ambientes virtualizados

The exploding mobile data traffic increase in recent years has been putting a high load on both mobile cells and core network, with operators facing the need to upgrade their networks. Nowadays, to do this upgrade, operators need to purchase new specialized equipment for network functions, having to cope with a high upgrade CAPEX. Furthermore, networks are deployed with a one size fits all approach, which in some cases might not satisfy the requirements of specific services. 5G aims to solve these problems by virtualizing network functions in datacenters, decoupling the software from the hardware for network functions and using general purpose hardware instead. To support this, Software Defined Networking (SDN) is introduced, which allows the network to have a higher degree of programmability, enabling new features such as higher flexibility and network slicing, where multiple virtual networks can be created and tailored to specific requirements. This thesis addresses an architecture that evolves the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) into a core network closer to 5G by virtualizing EPC’s network functions, introducing SDN and supporting 4G to Wi-Fi traffic offloading, helping to reduce the load on mobile cells by leveraging on the smartphone’s support for dual connectivity and high density of Wi-Fi access points already deployed worldwide. The proposed architecture is then evaluated and compared to a vanilla EPC whenever possible showing that, although there is an increase in latency at the virtual EPC, the bottleneck of the system resides in the air interface. Also, a use case for this architecture was defined and evaluated. The use case considered traffic offloading and dynamic Wi-Fi slice creation, with results showing that it can seamlessly offload a video stream from 4G to Wi-Fi without affecting the user’s Quality of Experience.O explosivo aumento do tráfego móvel em anos recentes tem vindo a aumentar a carga nas células e núcleo da rede móvel, com os operadores a serem confrontados com a necessidade de atualizar as mesmas. Hoje em dia, para executar esta atualização, os operadores necessitam de adquirir equipamento novo e especializado para as funções de rede, levando a um grande CAPEX de atualização. Além disso, as redes são implementadas seguindo uma abordagem de uma solução única para todos os casos, o que nalguns pode não satisfazer os requisitos de serviços específicos. O 5G visa resolver estes problemas ao virtualizar funções de rede em datacenters, desacoplando o software do hardware para as funções de rede e ao utilizar hardware de uso geral. Para suportar isto, as redes definidas por software (SDN) são introduzidas, permitindo um maior grau de programabilidade na rede, e permitindo novas funcionalidades como maior flexibilidade e segmentação de rede, onde múltiplas redes virtuais podem ser criadas com requisitos específicos. Esta tese endereça uma arquitetura que evolui o Evolved Packet Core (EPC) para uma rede de core mais próxima do 5G ao virtualizar as funções de rede do EPC, introduzindo SDN e suportando Wi-Fi e "offloading" de tráfego da rede móvel para a rede Wi-Fi, auxiliando na redução da carga das células móveis ao tirar partido da capacidade de conectividade múltipla e da grande densidade de pontos de acesso implementados mundialmente. A arquitetura proposta é então avaliada e comparada com um EPC implementado numa máquina física sempre que possível mostrando que, apesar do aumento da latência no EPC virtualizado, a limitação do sistema é devida à interface de rádio. Um cenário para esta arquitetura é definido e avaliado, considerando o "offloading" de tráfego e instanciação dinâmica de redes segmentadas, com resultados a mostrar que o sistema consegue fazer um offload perfeito de tráfego de um stream de vídeo de 4G para Wi-Fi sem afetar a Qualidade de Experiência do utilizador.Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e Telecomunicaçõe

Towards Seamless Mobility: An IEEE 802.21 Practical Approach

In the recent years, mobile devices such as cell phones, notebook or ultra mobile computers and videogame consoles are experiencing an impressive evolution in terms of hardware and software possibilities. Elements such a wideband Internet connection allows a broad range of possibilities for creative developers. Many of these possibilities can include applications requiring continuity of service when the user moves form a coverage area to another. Nowadays, mobile devices are equipped with one or more radio interfaces such as GSM, UMTS, WiMax or Wi‐ Fi. Many of these technologies are ready to allow transparent roaming within their own coverage areas, but they are not ready to handle a service transfer between different technologies. In order to find a solution to this issue, the IEEE has developed a standard known as Media Independent Handover (MIH) Services with the aim of easing seamless mobility between these technologies. The present work has been centered in developing a system capable to enable a service of mobility under the terms specified in the stated standard. The development of a platform aiming to provide service continuity is mandatory, being a cross‐layer solution based in elements from link and network layers supplying a transparent roaming mechanism from user’s point of view. Two applications have been implemented in C/C++ language under a Linux environment. One application is designed to work within a mobile device, and the other one in the network access point. The mobile device basically consists in a notebook equipped with two Wi‐Fi interfaces, which is not a common feature in commercial devices, allowing seamless communication transfers aided by the application. Network access points are computers equipped with a Wi‐Fi interface and configured to provide Internet wireless access and services of mobility. In order to test the operation, a test‐bed has been implemented. It consists on a pair of access points connected through a network and placed within partially overlapped coverage areas, and a mobile device, all of them properly set. The mobile detects the networks that are compatible and gets attached to the one that provides better conditions for the demanded service. When the service degrades up to certain level, the mobile transfers the communication to the other access point, which offers better service conditions. Finally, in order to check if the changes have been done properly, the duration of the required actions has been measured, as well as the data that can have been lost or buffered meanwhile. The result is a MIH‐alike system working in a proper way. The discovery and selection of a destination network is correct and is done before the old connection gets too degraded, providing seamless mobility. The measured latencies and packet losses are affordable in terms of MIH protocol, but require future work improvements in terms of network protocols that have not been considered under the scope of this work