Analysis, characterization and optimization of the energy efficiency on softwarized mobile platforms

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorLa inminente 5ª generación de sistemas móviles (5G) está a punto de revolucionar la industria, trayendo una nueva arquitectura orientada a los nuevos mercados verticales y servicios. Debido a esto, el 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP) ha especificado una lista de Indicadores de Rendimiento Clave (KPI) que todo sistema 5G tiene que soportar, por ejemplo incrementar por 1000 el volumen de datos, de 10 a 100 veces m´as dispositivos conectados o consumos energéticos 10 veces inferiores. Con el fin de conseguir estos requisitos, se espera expandir los despligues actuales usando mas Puntos de Acceso (PoA) incrementando así su densidad con múltiples tecnologías inalámbricas. Esta estrategia de despliegue masivo tiene una contrapartida en la eficiencia energética, generando un conflicto con el KPI de reducir por 10 el consumo energético. En este contexto, la comunidad investigadora ha propuesto nuevos paradigmas para alcanzar los requisitos impuestos para los sistemas 5G, siendo materializados en tecnologías como Redes Definidas por Software (SDN) y Virtualización de Funciones de Red (NFV). Estos nuevos paradigmas son el primer paso hacia la softwarización de los despliegues móviles, incorporando nuevos grados de flexibilidad y reconfigurabilidad de la Red de Acceso Radio (RAN). En esta tesis, presentamos primero un análisis detallado y caracterización de las redes móviles softwarizadas. Consideramos el software como la base de la nueva generación de redes celulares y, por lo tanto, analizaremos y caracterizaremos el impacto en la eficiencia energética de estos sistemas. La primera meta de este trabajo es caracterizar las plataformas software disponibles para Radios Definidas por Software (SDR), centrándonos en las dos soluciones principales de código abierto: OpenAirInterface (OAI) y srsLTE. Como resultado, proveemos una metodología para analizar y caracterizar el rendimiento de estas soluciones en función del uso de la CPU, rendimiento de red, compatibilidad y extensibilidad de dicho software. Una vez hemos entendido qué rendimiento podemos esperar de este tipo de soluciones, estudiamos un prototipo SDR construido con aceleración hardware, que emplea una plataformas basada en FPGA. Este prototipo está diseñado para incluir capacidad de ser consciente de la energía, permiento al sistema ser reconfigurado para minimizar la huella energética cuando sea posible. Con el fin de validar el diseño de nuestro sistema, más tarde presentamos una plataforma para caracterizar la energía que será empleada para medir experimentalmente el consumo energético de dispositivos reales. En nuestro enfoque, realizamos dos tipos de análisis: a pequeña escala de tiempo y a gran escala de tiempo. Por lo tanto, para validar nuestro entorno de medidas, caracterizamos a través de análisis numérico los algoritmos para la Adaptación de la Tasa (RA) en IEEE 802.11, para entonces comparar nuestros resultados teóricos con los experimentales. A continuación extendemos nuestro análisis a la plataforma SDR acelerada por hardware previamente mencionada. Nuestros resultados experimentales muestran que nuestra sistema puede en efecto reducir la huella energética reconfigurando el despligue del sistema. Entonces, la escala de tiempos es elevada y presentamos los esquemas para Recursos bajo Demanda (RoD) en despliegues de red ultra-densos. Esta estrategia está basada en apagar/encender dinámicamente los elementos que forman la red con el fin de reducir el total del consumo energético. Por lo tanto, presentamos un modelo analítico en dos sabores, un modelo exacto que predice el comportamiento del sistema con precisión pero con un alto coste computacional y uno simplificado que es más ligero en complejidad mientras que mantiene la precisión. Nuestros resultados muestran que estos esquemas pueden efectivamente mejorar la eficiencia energética de los despliegues y mantener la Calidad de Servicio (QoS). Con el fin de probar la plausibilidad de los esquemas RoD, presentamos un plataforma softwarizada que sigue el paradigma SDN, OFTEN (OpenFlow framework for Traffic Engineering in mobile Network with energy awareness). Nuestro diseño está basado en OpenFlow con funcionalidades para hacerlo consciente de la energía. Finalmente, un prototipo real con esta plataforma es presentando, probando así la plausibilidad de los RoD en despligues reales.The upcoming 5th Generation of mobile systems (5G) is about to revolutionize the industry, bringing a new architecture oriented to new vertical markets and services. Due to this, the 5G-PPP has specified a list of Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that 5G systems need to support e.g. increasing the 1000 times higher data volume, 10 to 100 times more connected devices or 10 times lower power consumption. In order to achieve these requirements, it is expected to expand the current deployments using more Points of Attachment (PoA) by increasing their density and by using multiple wireless technologies. This massive deployment strategy triggers a side effect in the energy efficiency though, generating a conflict with the “10 times lower power consumption” KPI. In this context, the research community has proposed novel paradigms to achieve the imposed requirements for 5G systems, being materialized in technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). These new paradigms are the first step to softwarize the mobile network deployments, enabling new degrees of flexibility and reconfigurability of the Radio Access Network (RAN). In this thesis, we first present a detailed analysis and characterization of softwarized mobile networking. We consider software as a basis for the next generation of cellular networks and hence, we analyze and characterize the impact on the energy efficiency of these systems. The first goal of this work is to characterize the available software platforms for Software Defined Radio (SDR), focusing on the two main open source solutions: OAI and srsLTE. As result, we provide a methodology to analyze and characterize the performance of these solutions in terms of CPU usage, network performance, compatibility and extensibility of the software. Once we have understood the expected performance for such platformsc, we study an SDR prototype built with hardware acceleration, that employs a FPGA based platform. This prototype is designed to include energy-awareness capabilites, allowing the system to be reconfigured to minimize the energy footprint when possible. In order to validate our system design, we later present an energy characterization platform that we will employ to experimentally measure the energy consumption of real devices. In our approach, we perform two kind of analysis: at short time scale and large time scale. Thus, to validate our approach in short time scale and the energy framework, we have characterized though numerical analysis the Rate Adaptation (RA) algorithms in IEEE 802.11, and then compare our theoretical results to the obtained ones through experimentation. Next we extend our analysis to the hardware accelerated SDR prototype previously mentioned. Our experimental results show that our system can indeed reduce the energy footprint reconfiguring the system deployment. Then, the time scale of our analysis is elevated and we present Resource-on-Demand (RoD) schemes for ultradense network deployments. This strategy is based on dynamically switch on/off the elements that form the network to reduce the overall energy consumption. Hence, we present a analytic model in two flavors, an exact model that accurately predicts the system behaviour but high computational cost and a simplified one that is lighter in complexity while keeping the accuracy. Our results show that these schemes can effectively enhance the energy efficiency of the deployments and mantaining the Quality of Service (QoS). In order to prove the feasibility of RoD, we present a softwarized platform that follows the SDN paradigm, the OFTEN (Open Flow framework for Traffic Engineering in mobile Networks with energy awareness) framework. Our design is based on OpenFlow with energy-awareness functionalities. Finally, a real prototype of this framework is presented, proving the feasibility of the RoD in real deployments.FP7-CROWD (2013-2015) CROWD (Connectivity management for eneRgy Optimised Wireless Dense networks).-- H2020-Flex5GWare (2015-2017) Flex5GWare (Flexible and efficient hardware/software platforms for 5G network elements and devices).Programa de Doctorado en Ingeniería Telemática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Gramaglia , Marco.- Secretario: José Nuñez.- Vocal: Fabrizio Giulian

Conserve and Protect Resources in Software-Defined Networking via the Traffic Engineering Approach

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is revolutionizing the architecture and operation of computer networks and promises a more agile and cost-efficient network management. SDN centralizes the network control logic and separates the control plane from the data plane, thus enabling flexible management of networks. A network based on SDN consists of a data plane and a control plane. To assist management of devices and data flows, a network also has an independent monitoring plane. These coexisting network planes have various types of resources, such as bandwidth utilized to transmit monitoring data, energy spent to power data forwarding devices and computational resources to control a network. Unwise management, even abusive utilization of these resources lead to the degradation of the network performance and increase the Operating Expenditure (Opex) of the network owner. Conserving and protecting limited network resources is thus among the key requirements for efficient networking. However, the heterogeneity of the network hardware and network traffic workloads expands the configuration space of SDN, making it a challenging task to operate a network efficiently. Furthermore, the existing approaches usually lack the capability to automatically adapt network configurations to handle network dynamics and diverse optimization requirements. Addtionally, a centralized SDN controller has to run in a protected environment against certain attacks. This thesis builds upon the centralized management capability of SDN, and uses cross-layer network optimizations to perform joint traffic engineering, e.g., routing, hardware and software configurations. The overall goal is to overcome the management complexities in conserving and protecting resources in multiple functional planes in SDN when facing network heterogeneities and system dynamics. This thesis presents four contributions: (1) resource-efficient network monitoring, (2) resource-efficient data forwarding, (3) using self-adaptive algorithms to improve network resource efficiency, and (4) mitigating abusive usage of resources for network controlling. The first contribution of this thesis is a resource-efficient network monitoring solution. In this thesis, we consider one specific type of virtual network management function: flow packet inspection. This type of the network monitoring application requires to duplicate packets of target flows and send them to packet monitors for in-depth analysis. To avoid the competition for resources between the original data and duplicated data, the network operators can transmit the data flows through physically (e.g., different communication mediums) or virtually (e.g., distinguished network slices) separated channels having different resource consumption properties. We propose the REMO solution, namely Resource Efficient distributed Monitoring, to reduce the overall network resource consumption incurred by both types of data, via jointly considering the locations of the packet monitors, the selection of devices forking the data packets, and flow path scheduling strategies. In the second contribution of this thesis, we investigate the resource efficiency problem in hybrid, server-centric data center networks equipped with both traditional wired connections (e.g., InfiniBand or Ethernet) and advanced high-data-rate wireless links (e.g., directional 60GHz wireless technology). The configuration space of hybrid SDN equipped with both wired and wireless communication technologies is massively large due to the complexity brought by the device heterogeneity. To tackle this problem, we present the ECAS framework to reduce the power consumption and maintain the network performance. The approaches based on the optimization models and heuristic algorithms are considered as the traditional way to reduce the operation and facility resource consumption in SDN. These approaches are either difficult to directly solve or specific for a particular problem space. As the third contribution of this thesis, we investigates the approach of using Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to improve the adaptivity of the management modules for network resource and data flow scheduling. The goal of the DRL agent in the SDN network is to reduce the power consumption of SDN networks without severely degrading the network performance. The fourth contribution of this thesis is a protection mechanism based upon flow rate limiting to mitigate abusive usage of the SDN control plane resource. Due to the centralized architecture of SDN and its handling mechanism for new data flows, the network controller can be the failure point due to the crafted cyber-attacks, especially the Control-Plane- Saturation (CPS) attack. We proposes an In-Network Flow mAnagement Scheme (INFAS) to effectively reduce the generation of malicious control packets depending on the parameters configured for the proposed mitigation algorithm. In summary, the contributions of this thesis address various unique challenges to construct resource-efficient and secure SDN. This is achieved by designing and implementing novel and intelligent models and algorithms to configure networks and perform network traffic engineering, in the protected centralized network controller

Flow Monitoring Explained: From Packet Capture to Data Analysis With NetFlow and IPFIX

Flow monitoring has become a prevalent method for monitoring traffic in high-speed networks. By focusing on the analysis of flows, rather than individual packets, it is often said to be more scalable than traditional packet-based traffic analysis. Flow monitoring embraces the complete chain of packet observation, flow export using protocols such as NetFlow and IPFIX, data collection, and data analysis. In contrast to what is often assumed, all stages of flow monitoring are closely intertwined. Each of these stages therefore has to be thoroughly understood, before being able to perform sound flow measurements. Otherwise, flow data artifacts and data loss can be the consequence, potentially without being observed. This paper is the first of its kind to provide an integrated tutorial on all stages of a flow monitoring setup. As shown throughout this paper, flow monitoring has evolved from the early 1990s into a powerful tool, and additional functionality will certainly be added in the future. We show, for example, how the previously opposing approaches of deep packet inspection and flow monitoring have been united into novel monitoring approaches

QoE on media deliveriy in 5G environments

231 p.5G expandirá las redes móviles con un mayor ancho de banda, menor latencia y la capacidad de proveer conectividad de forma masiva y sin fallos. Los usuarios de servicios multimedia esperan una experiencia de reproducción multimedia fluida que se adapte de forma dinámica a los intereses del usuario y a su contexto de movilidad. Sin embargo, la red, adoptando una posición neutral, no ayuda a fortalecer los parámetros que inciden en la calidad de experiencia. En consecuencia, las soluciones diseñadas para realizar un envío de tráfico multimedia de forma dinámica y eficiente cobran un especial interés. Para mejorar la calidad de la experiencia de servicios multimedia en entornos 5G la investigación llevada a cabo en esta tesis ha diseñado un sistema múltiple, basado en cuatro contribuciones.El primer mecanismo, SaW, crea una granja elástica de recursos de computación que ejecutan tareas de análisis multimedia. Los resultados confirman la competitividad de este enfoque respecto a granjas de servidores. El segundo mecanismo, LAMB-DASH, elige la calidad en el reproductor multimedia con un diseño que requiere una baja complejidad de procesamiento. Las pruebas concluyen su habilidad para mejorar la estabilidad, consistencia y uniformidad de la calidad de experiencia entre los clientes que comparten una celda de red. El tercer mecanismo, MEC4FAIR, explota las capacidades 5G de analizar métricas del envío de los diferentes flujos. Los resultados muestran cómo habilita al servicio a coordinar a los diferentes clientes en la celda para mejorar la calidad del servicio. El cuarto mecanismo, CogNet, sirve para provisionar recursos de red y configurar una topología capaz de conmutar una demanda estimada y garantizar unas cotas de calidad del servicio. En este caso, los resultados arrojan una mayor precisión cuando la demanda de un servicio es mayor

MACSAD: Sistema de Compilador Multi-Arquitetura para Planos de Dados Abstratos

Orientador: Christian Rodolfo Esteve RothenbergTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Redes Definidas por Software (Software-Defined Networking - SDN) almejam um plano de dados programável, além de planos de controle e aplicação flexíveis e escaláveis. Apesar de ter recebido menor atenção quando comparado aos aspectos dos planos de controle e aplicação, o plano de dados concerne uma peça chave nos enigmas de SDN. Nós contemplamos um plano de dados flexível apresentando as características, nomeadas, Programabilidade, Portabilidade, Desempenho e Escalabilidade (Programmability, Portability, Performance, and Scalability - 3PS) como diferentes aspectos de flexibilidade. Enquanto os aspectos de Programabilidade e Portabilidade focam na arquitetura e projeto do plano de dados, Desempenho e Escalabilidade aparecem durante a avaliação do mesmo. Estendemos o foco da evolução do plano de dados de Programabilidade da escola de pensamento SDN para incluir Portabilidade como aspecto de flexibilidade. O plano de dados programável confirma a natureza independente do protocolo, enquanto a Portabilidade atende aos requisitos de arquitetura múltipla do projeto do plano de dados. A linguagem P4, uma nova entrante, sendo uma linguagem de programação de alto nível independente do protocolo e independente do alvo, é capaz de levar a evolução do plano de dados ao próximo nível, desbloqueando as facetas desejadas da flexibilidade do plano de dados. Para trazer esse nível necessário de flexibilidade para um plano de dados, é necessário um sistema de compilador com várias arquiteturas que possa compilar um programa P4 em conformidade com o protocolo e a natureza de independência de destino de P4; No entanto, essa solução de sistema de compilador unificado é o que nos falta. A principal contribuição desta tese, a proposta do Sistema de Compiladores de Arquitetura Múltipla para Planos de Dados (Multi-Architecture Compiler System for Abstract Dataplanes - MACSAD), é um esforço para preencher a lacuna estendendo a abordagem Top-Down de P4 em direção à programabilidade com a abordagem Bottom-Up do OpenDataPlane (ODP) em direção à independência de destino com suas APIs de baixo nível, mas de plataforma cruzada (HW & SW). Reforçamos as contribuições desta tese incluindo aspectos de Desempenho e Escalabilidade da flexibilidade também como parte de nossa avaliação do MACSAD em múltiplos cenários realistasAbstract: Software-Defined Networking (SDN) strives for programmable data plane, yet flexible and scalable control and application planes. Despite having received less attention compared to control and application aspects of SDN, data planes are a critical piece of the SDN puzzle. We envision a flexible data plane showing characteristics, namely, Programmability, Portability, Performance, and Scalability (3PS) as different aspects of flexibility. While Programmability & Portability aspects focus on the architecture and design of the data plane, Performance & Scalability appears during the evaluation of it. We extend the focus of data plane evolution from Programmability from SDN school of thought to include Portability aspect of flexibility. Programmable data plane confirms to protocol-independent nature, whereas Portability addresses multi-architecture requirements of data plane design. P4 language, a new entrant, being a protocol-independent and target-independent high-level programming language is capable to take data plane evolution to the next level by unlocking the desired facets of data plane flexibility. To bring this required level of flexibility to a data plane, a multi-architecture compiler system is necessary which can compile P4 program conforming to protocol & target independence nature of P4; However, such a unified compiler system solution is what we lack of. The main contribution of this thesis, the MACSAD proposal, is an effort to fill the gap by extending the Top-Down approach of P4 towards programmability with Bottom-Up approach of OpenDataPlane (ODP) towards target-independence with its low-level but cross-platform (HW & SW) APIs. We strengthen the contributions of this thesis by including Performance, and Scalability aspects of flexibility too as part of our evaluation of MACSAD in multiple realistic scenariosDoutoradoEngenharia de ComputaçãoDoutor em Engenharia Elétric