End-user traffic policing for QoS assurance in polyservice RINA networks

Looking at the ever-increasing amount of heterogeneous distributed applications supported on current data transport networks, it seems evident that best-effort packet delivery falls short to supply their actual needs. Multiple approaches to Quality of Service (QoS) differentiation have been proposed over the years, but their usage has always been hindered by the rigidness of the TCP/IP-based Internet model, which does not even allow for applications to express their QoS needs to the underlying network. In this context, the Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) has appeared as a clean-slate network architecture aiming to replace the current Internet based on TCP/IP. RINA provides a well-defined QoS support across layers, with standard means for layers to inform of the different QoS guarantees that they can support. Besides, applications and other processes can express their flow requirements, including different QoS-related measures, like delay and jitter, drop probability or average traffic usage. Greedy end-users, however, tend to request the highest quality for their flows, forcing providers to apply intelligent data rate limitation procedures at the edge of their networks. In this work, we propose a new rate limiting policy that, instead of enforcing limits on a per QoS class basis, imposes limits on several independent QoS dimensions. This offers a flexible traffic control to RINA network providers, while enabling end-users freely managing their leased resources. The performance of the proposed policy is assessed in an experimental RINA network test-bed and its performance compared against other policies, either RINA-specific or adopted from TCP/IP. Results show that the proposed policy achieves an effective traffic control for high QoS traffic classes, while also letting lower QoS classes to take profit of the capacity initially reserved for the former ones when available.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Experimenting with real application-specific QoS guarantees in a large-scale RINA demonstrator

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This paper reports the definition, setup and obtained results of the Fed4FIRE + medium experiment ERASER, aimed to evaluate the actual Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees that the clean-slate Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) can deliver to heterogeneous applications at largescale. To this goal, a 37Node 5G metro/regional RINA network scenario, spanning from the enduser to the server where applications run in a datacenter has been configured in the Virtual Wall experimentation facility. This scenario has initially been loaded with synthetic application traffic flows, with diverse QoS requirements, thus reproducing different network load conditions. Next,their experienced QoS metrics endtoend have been measured with two different QTAMux (i.e., the most accepted candidate scheduling policy for providing RINA with its QoS support) deployment scenarios. Moreover, on this RINA network scenario loaded with synthetic application traffic flows, a real HD (1080p) video streaming demonstration has also been conducted, setting up video streaming sessions to endusers at different network locations, illustrating the perceived Quality of Experience (QoE). Obtained results in ERASER disclose that, by appropriately deploying and configuring QTAMux, RINA can yield effective QoS support, which has provided perfect QoE in almost all locations in our demo when assigning video traffic flows the highest (i.e., Gold) QoS Cube.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

ARCFIRE : experimentation with the recursive InterNetwork Architecture

European funded research into the Recursive Inter-Network Architecture (RINA) started with IRATI, which developed an initial prototype implementation for OS/Linux. IRATI was quickly succeeded by the PRISTINE project, which developed different policies, each tailored to specific use cases. Both projects were development-driven, where most experimentation was limited to unit testing and smaller scale integration testing. In order to assess the viability of RINA as an alternative to current network technologies, larger scale experimental deployments are needed. The opportunity arose for a project that shifted focus from development towards experimentation, leveraging Europe's investment in Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE+) infrastructures. The ARCFIRE project took this next step, developing a user-friendly framework for automating RINA experiments. This paper reports and discusses the implications of the experimental results achieved by the ARCFIRE project, using open source RINA implementations deployed on FIRE+ Testbeds. Experiments analyze the properties of RINA relevant to fast network recovery, network renumbering, Quality of Service, distributed mobility management, and network management. Results highlight RINA properties that can greatly simplify the deployment and management of real-world networks; hence, the next steps should be focused on addressing very specific use cases with complete network RINA-based networking solutions that can be transferred to the market

Contributions to routing scalability and QoS assurance in cloud data transport networks based on the recursive internetwork architecture

With an increasing number of devices and heterogeneous distributed applications, it is becoming evident that service delivered by the current Internet fall short to supply the actual Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of applications. In addition, the global scope of the IP layer causes large scalability problems on the network. Multiple solutions aim to overcome the limitations of the model (BGP, NAT, etc.), but all end being constrained by the same networking model that they try to improve, ending simply breaking and patching the stack itself of TCP/IP. In contrast, RINA proposes a new clean-slate Internet architecture based on a recursive networking stack with focus on inter process communication, where each layer, or DIF, performs the same set of tasks. DIFs are fully configurable by mean of programmable policies, and provide complete support for QoS services. RINA is capable to provide a standardized way to express the capabilities of each layer, the QoS Cubes. With those, RINA allows for applications and upper processes to express their requirements in terms of latency, losses, etc. The contributions in this thesis take profit from the recursive stack of RINA and the use of policies to propose and analyse old and new solutions which would not be compatible with the current TCP/IP Internet. Improving the QoS services, this work takes profit from the information on requirements provided by the applications themselves to improve the assurance of QoS. With the use of Q-based scheduling policies, improved QoS assurances are provided, aiming to provide “good enough” service for all flows in the network, resulting in a more appropriate sharing of resources. These policies have been tested in backbone-like networks, showing interesting improvements with respect to commonly used solutions like MPLS-based VPNs. In addition the provisioning of QoS services to end-users is also considered. In order to allow that, it is required to impose some limits on what end-users can send to the network, limiting the amount of priority traffic that potentially greedy users can send. In that regard, while enforcing strict rate-limits per QoS would be trivial in RINA, a new △Q-based rate-limiting policy that aims to limit the amount of priority traffic in a more user-friendly way is also explored. In terms of scalability, this work also considers different measures to improve forwarding and routing within large-scale networks. As for the use of policies that could profit from specific network topologies, a new forwarding policy, that mix both topological rules and exceptions, is proposed. With this policy, forwarding table lookups in large tables are replaced with fast and simple forwarding rules based on the location of nodes and their neighbourhood. Given the common topologies used in large data centres, the proposed policy is found to be a perfect match for those scenarios. Test for different data centre topology showed clear improvements, requiring only a small fraction of all forwarding information despite the large size of such networks, depending that in the number of concurrent failures in the network rather than on the size of it. In addition, this work also considers the use of topological routing policies to populate exceptions upon failures. The use of topological routing solutions resulted in reduced complexity for computing paths and less routing messages. In addition to topological solutions, the use other routing solution, not well suited for the IP environment are also investigated. Specifically, it is shown how a Landmark routing solution could be implemented within RINA. Finally, efforts are also devoted to analyse the importance of path selection for ensuring QoS requirements and how it is not required to reach extremes solutions, like the use of connections, to provide the required services.Con un número cada vez mayor de dispositivos y aplicaciones distribuidas, se está volviendo evidente que el servicio best-effort ofrecido por la actual Internet TCP/IP no satisface los requisitos de calidad de servicio (QoS) de las aplicaciones. No solo eso, sino que el alcance global de la capa de IP se convierte en la causa de grandes problemas de escalabilidad, requiriendo costes cada vez más altos para ser resueltos. Desde la implantación de TCP/IP, han aparecido múltiples soluciones que tienen como objetivo superar las limitaciones del modelo (BGP, NAT, LISP, etc.). Aun así, todas estas soluciones terminan restringidas por el mismo modelo de red que intentan mejorar. Dado esto, la mayoría de las soluciones terminan simplemente rompiendo y parcheando la pila misma de TCP/IP. Con el objetivo de resolver esos problemas, la Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) propone una nueva arquitectura de Internet que vuelve a las raíces de la comunicación en red. En lugar de parchear la pila actual de TCP/IP, RINA propone una pila de red recursiva con enfoque en la comunicación entre procesos, donde cada capa, llamada Distributed IPC Facility (DIF), realiza el mismo conjunto de tareas. Mientras realizan las mismas tareas, las DIF de RINA son completamente configurables por medio de políticas programables, definiciones de cómo realizar tales tareas. Además, RINA brinda soporte completo para servicios de QoS por medio de los Cubos QoS, o clases de QoS que definen las capacidades de cada DIF. Con el uso de los Cubos QoS, RINA es capaz de proporcionar una forma estandarizada de expresar las capacidades de cada capa. Además, dada esa información, RINA también permite que las aplicaciones y los procesos de capas superiores expresen sus requisitos de QoS en términos de latencia aceptada, pérdidas, uso promedio, etc. Las contribuciones en esta tesis sacan provecho de la pila recursiva de RINA y el uso de políticas para proponer y analizar soluciones, antiguas y nuevas, para QoS y escalabilidad, que no serán compatibles con la Internet TCP/IP actual. En términos de mejoras de los servicios de QoS, el trabajo en esta tesis aprovecha la información sobre los requisitos de flujo, proporcionados por las propias aplicaciones, para mejorar las garantías de QoS proporcionadas por la red. Propone el uso de políticas basadas en △Q, proporcionando garantías de QoS mejoradas, que coinciden mejor con los requisitos de los flujos. A diferencia de las soluciones de diferenciación de QoS más simples, donde los servicios de QoS se proporcionan en orden de prioridad, △Q pretende proporcionar un servicio “suficientemente bueno" para todos los flujos en la red, lo que resulta en una repartición de recursos más apropiada. En este trabajo, estas políticas se han probado en redes tipo backbone, que muestran mejoras interesantes con respecto a las soluciones comunes de diferenciación de QoS, como las VPN basadas en MPLS. Además del uso de las políticas de △Q en el núcleo de la red, esta tesis también considera el suministro de servicios de QoS a los usuarios finales, siendo ese el objetivo final de las redes. Para permitir eso, se requiere imponer algunos límites a lo que los usuarios finales pueden enviar a la red, con el fin de limitar la cantidad de tráfico prioritario que usuarios codiciosos puedan enviar. En ese sentido, aunque imponer límites de velocidad estrictos por QoS sería trivial en RINA, también se explora una nueva política de limitación de tasas basada en △Q que pretende limitar la cantidad de tráfico prioritario de una manera más beneficiosa para los usuarios. En términos de escalabilidad, esta tesis también considera diferentes medidas para mejorar el reenvío y el enrutamiento dentro de redes de gran escala. Primero, en cuanto al uso de políticas que podrán beneficiarse de topologías de red específicas, se propone una nueva política de forwarding que combina reglas topológicas, es decir decisiones basadas en la ubicación de nodos, y excepciones, es decir entradas que sobrescriben reglas en caso de error. Con esta política, las costosas búsquedas en tablas grandes se reemplazan con reglas de rápidas y simples basadas en la ubicación de los nodos y su vecindad. Dadas las topologías específicas más comúnmente utilizadas en los grandes centros de datos hoy en día, se encuentra que el uso de la política propuesta es la combinación perfecta para esos escenarios. Pruebas en varias topologías comunes para centros de datos mostraron mejoras claras, que requieren solo una pequeña fracción de toda la información sobre la red, a pesar del gran tamaño de dichas redes, dependiendo esta de la cantidad de fallas concurrentes en la red y no del tamaño de la misma. Además, esta tesis también considera el uso de políticas de enrutamiento topológico para poblar tales excepciones en caso de fallas. El uso de soluciones de enrutamiento topológico dio como resultado la reducción de la complejidad en el cálculo de rutas, junto con un menor número de mensajes de enrutamiento. Además de las soluciones topológicas, también se investiga el uso de otra solución de enrutamiento, no adecuada para el entorno de IP. Específicamente, se muestra como una solución de enrutamiento Landmark, una solución de enrutamiento de la familia de enrutamiento compacto, podría implementarse dentro de RINA. Finalmente, también se dedican esfuerzos a analizar la importancia de la selección de rutas para garantizar los requisitos de QoS y como no se requiere llegar a soluciones extremas, como el uso de conexiones, para proporcionar los servicios requeridos.Postprint (published version

End-user traffic policing for QoS assurance in polyservice RINA networks

Looking at the ever-increasing amount of heterogeneous distributed applications supported on current data transport networks, it seems evident that best-effort packet delivery falls short to supply their actual needs. Multiple approaches to Quality of Service (QoS) differentiation have been proposed over the years, but their usage has always been hindered by the rigidness of the TCP/IP-based Internet model, which does not even allow for applications to express their QoS needs to the underlying network. In this context, the Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) has appeared as a clean-slate network architecture aiming to replace the current Internet based on TCP/IP. RINA provides a well-defined QoS support across layers, with standard means for layers to inform of the different QoS guarantees that they can support. Besides, applications and other processes can express their flow requirements, including different QoS-related measures, like delay and jitter, drop probability or average traffic usage. Greedy end-users, however, tend to request the highest quality for their flows, forcing providers to apply intelligent data rate limitation procedures at the edge of their networks. In this work, we propose a new rate limiting policy that, instead of enforcing limits on a per QoS class basis, imposes limits on several independent QoS dimensions. This offers a flexible traffic control to RINA network providers, while enabling end-users freely managing their leased resources. The performance of the proposed policy is assessed in an experimental RINA network test-bed and its performance compared against other policies, either RINA-specific or adopted from TCP/IP. Results show that the proposed policy achieves an effective traffic control for high QoS traffic classes, while also letting lower QoS classes to take profit of the capacity initially reserved for the former ones when available.Peer Reviewe