Quality of service technologies for multimedia applications in next generation networks

Next Generation Networks are constantly evolving towards solutions that allow the operator to provide advanced multimedia applications with QoS guarantees in heterogeneous, multi-domain and multi-services networks. Other than the unquestionable advantages inherent the ability to simultaneously handle traffic flows at different QoS levels, these architectures require management systems to efficiently perform quality guarantees and network resource utilization. These issues have been addressed in this thesis. DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) has been considered as reference architecture for the deployment of the quality management systems. It represents the most advanced technology to accomplish either network scalability and service granularity goals. On the basis of DS-TE features, a methodology for traffic and network resource management has been defined. It provides some rules for QoS service characterization and allows to implement Traffic Engineering policies with a class-based approach. A set of basic parameters for quality evaluation has been defined, that are the Key Performance Indicators; some mathematical model to derive the statistical nature of traffic have been analyzed and an algorithm to improve the fulfillment of quality of service targets and to optimize network resource utilization. It is aimed at reducing the complexity inherent the setting of some of the key parameters in the NGN architectures. Multidomain scenarios with technologies different from DS-TE have been also evaluated, defining some methodologies for network interoperability. Simulations with Opnet Modeler confirmed the efficacy of the proposed system in computing network configurations with QoS targets. With regard to QoS performance at the application level, video streaming applications in wireless domains have been particularly addressed. A rate control algorithm to adjust the rate on a per-window basis has been defined, making use of a short-term prediction of the network delay to keep the probability of playback buffer starvation lower than a desired threshold during each window. Finally, a framework for mutual authentication in web applications has been proposed and evaluated. It integrates an IBA password technique with a challenge-response scheme based on a shared secret key for image scrambling. The wireless environment is mainly addressed by the proposed system, which tries to overcome the severe constraints on security, data transmission capability and user friendliness imposed by such environment

A web services based framework for efficient monitoring and event reporting.

Network and Service Management (NSM) is a research discipline with significant research contributions the last 25 years. Despite the numerous standardised solutions that have been proposed for NSM, the quest for an "all encompassing technology" still continues. A new technology introduced lately to address NSM problems is Web Services (WS). Despite the research effort put into WS and their potential for addressing NSM objectives, there are efficiency, interoperability, etc issues that need to be solved before using WS for NSM. This thesis looks at two techniques to increase the efficiency of WS management applications so that the latter can be used for efficient monitoring and event reporting. The first is a query tool we built that can be used for efficient retrieval of management state data close to the devices where they are hosted. The second technique is policies used to delegate a number of tasks from a manager to an agent to make WS-based event reporting systems more efficient. We tested the performance of these mechanisms by incorporating them in a custom monitoring and event reporting framework and supporting systems we have built, against other similar mechanisms (XPath) that have been proposed for the same tasks, as well as previous technologies such as SNMP. Through these tests we have shown that these mechanisms are capable of allowing us to use WS efficiently in various monitoring and event reporting scenarios. Having shown the potential of our techniques we also present the design and implementation challenges for building a GUI tool to support and enhance the above systems with extra capabilities. In summary, we expect that other problems WS face will be solved in the near future, making WS a capable platform for it to be used for NSM

Towards a cloud enabler : from an optical network resource provisioning system to a generalized architecture for dynamic infrastructure services provisioning

This work was developed during a period where most of the optical management and provisioning system where manual and proprietary. This work contributed to the evolution of the state of the art of optical networks with new architectures and advanced virtual infrastructure services. The evolution of optical networks, and internet globally, have been very promising during the last decade. The impact of mobile technology, grid, cloud computing, HDTV, augmented reality and big data, among many others, have driven the evolution of optical networks towards current service technologies, mostly based on SDN (Software Defined Networking) architectures and NFV(Network Functions Virtualisation). Moreover, the convergence of IP/Optical networks and IT services, and the evolution of the internet and optical infrastructures, have generated novel service orchestrators and open source frameworks. In fact, technology has evolved that fast that none could foresee how important Internet is for our current lives. Said in other words, technology was forced to evolve in a way that network architectures became much more transparent, dynamic and flexible to the end users (applications, user interfaces or simple APIs). This Thesis exposes the work done on defining new architectures for Service Oriented Networks and the contribution to the state of the art. The research work is divided into three topics. It describes the evolution from a Network Resource Provisioning System to an advanced Service Plane, and ends with a new architecture that virtualized the optical infrastructure in order to provide coordinated, on-demand and dynamic services between the application and the network infrastructure layer, becoming an enabler for the new generation of cloud network infrastructures. The work done on defining a Network Resource Provisioning System established the first bases for future work on network infrastructure virtualization. The UCLP (User Light Path Provisioning) technology was the first attempt for Customer Empowered Networks and Articulated Private Networks. It empowered the users and brought virtualization and partitioning functionalities into the optical data plane, with new interfaces for dynamic service provisioning. The work done within the development of a new Service Plane allowed the provisioning of on-demand connectivity services from the application, and in a multi-domain and multi-technology scenario based on a virtual network infrastructure composed of resources from different infrastructure providers. This Service Plane facilitated the deployment of applications consuming large amounts of data under deterministic conditions, so allowing the networks behave as a Grid-class resource. It became the first on-demand provisioning system that at lower levels allowed the creation of one virtual domain composed from resources of different providers. The last research topic presents an architecture that consolidated the work done in virtualisation while enhancing the capabilities to upper layers, so fully integrating the optical network infrastructure into the cloud environment, and so providing an architecture that enabled cloud services by integrating the request of optical network and IT infrastructure services together at the same level. It set up a new trend into the research community and evolved towards the technology we use today based on SDN and NFV. Summing up, the work presented is focused on the provisioning of virtual infrastructures from the architectural point of view of optical networks and IT infrastructures, together with the design and definition of novel service layers. It means, architectures that enabled the creation of virtual infrastructures composed of optical networks and IT resources, isolated and provisioned on-demand and in advance with infrastructure re-planning functionalities, and a new set of interfaces to open up those services to applications or third parties.Aquesta tesi es va desenvolupar durant un període on la majoria de sistemes de gestió de xarxa òptica eren manuals i basats en sistemes propietaris. En aquest sentit, la feina presentada va contribuir a l'evolució de l'estat de l'art de les xarxes òptiques tant a nivell d’arquitectures com de provisió d’infraestructures virtuals. L'evolució de les xarxes òptiques, i d'Internet a nivell mundial, han estat molt prometedores durant l'última dècada. L'impacte de la tecnologia mòbil, la computació al núvol, la televisió d'alta definició, la realitat augmentada i el big data, entre molts altres, han impulsat l'evolució cap a xarxes d’altes prestacions amb nous serveis basats en SDN (Software Defined Networking) i NFV (Funcions de xarxa La virtualització). D'altra banda, la convergència de xarxes òptiques i els serveis IT, junt amb l'evolució d'Internet i de les infraestructures òptiques, han generat nous orquestradors de serveis i frameworks basats en codi obert. La tecnologia ha evolucionat a una velocitat on ningú podria haver predit la importància que Internet està tenint en el nostre dia a dia. Dit en altres paraules, la tecnologia es va veure obligada a evolucionar d'una manera on les arquitectures de xarxa es fessin més transparent, dinàmiques i flexibles vers als usuaris finals (aplicacions, interfícies d'usuari o APIs simples). Aquesta Tesi presenta noves arquitectures de xarxa òptica orientades a serveis. El treball de recerca es divideix en tres temes. Es presenta un sistema de virtualització i aprovisionament de recursos de xarxa i la seva evolució a un pla de servei avançat, per acabar presentant el disseny d’una nova arquitectura capaç de virtualitzar la infraestructura òptica i IT i proporcionar serveis de forma coordinada, i sota demanda, entre l'aplicació i la capa d'infraestructura de xarxa òptica. Tot esdevenint un facilitador per a la nova generació d'infraestructures de xarxa en el núvol. El treball realitzat en la definició del sistema de virtualització de recursos va establir les primeres bases sobre la virtualització de la infraestructura de xarxa òptica en el marc de les “Customer Empowered Networks” i “Articulated Private Networks”. Amb l’objectiu de virtualitzar el pla de dades òptic, i oferir noves interfícies per a la provisió de serveis dinàmics de xarxa. En quant al pla de serveis presentat, aquest va facilitat la provisió de serveis de connectivitat sota demanda per part de l'aplicació, tant en entorns multi-domini, com en entorns amb múltiples tecnologies. Aquest pla de servei, anomenat Harmony, va facilitar el desplegament de noves aplicacions que consumien grans quantitats de dades en condicions deterministes. En aquest sentit, va permetre que les xarxes es comportessin com un recurs Grid, i per tant, va esdevenir el primer sistema d'aprovisionament sota demanda que permetia la creació de dominis virtuals de xarxa composts a partir de recursos de diferents proveïdors. Finalment, es presenta l’evolució d’un pla de servei cap una arquitectura global que consolida el treball realitzat a nivell de convergència d’infraestructures (òptica + IT) i millora les capacitats de les capes superiors. Aquesta arquitectura va facilitar la plena integració de la infraestructura de xarxa òptica a l'entorn del núvol. En aquest sentit, aquest resultats van evolucionar cap a les tendències actuals de SDN i NFV. En resum, el treball presentat es centra en la provisió d'infraestructures virtuals des del punt de vista d’arquitectures de xarxa òptiques i les infraestructures IT, juntament amb el disseny i definició de nous serveis de xarxa avançats, tal i com ho va ser el servei de re-planificació dinàmicaPostprint (published version

Actas da 10ª Conferência sobre Redes de Computadores

Universidade do MinhoCCTCCentro AlgoritmiCisco SystemsIEEE Portugal Sectio