Coexistence of ICN and IP networks: an NFV as a service approach

International audienceIn contrast to the current host-centric architecture, Information-Centric Networking (ICN) adopts content naming instead of host address and in-network caching to enhance the content delivery, improve the data distribution, and satisfy users' requirements. As ICN is being incrementally deployed in different real-world scenarios, it will exist with IP-based services in a hybrid network setting. Full deployment of ICN and total replacement of IP protocol is not feasible at the current stage since IP is dominating the Internet. On the other hand, redesigning TCP/IP applications from ICN perspective is a time-consuming task and requires a careful investigation from both business and technical point of view. Thus, the coexistence of ICN and IP is one of the suitable solutions. Towards this end, we propose a simple yet efficient coexistence solution based on Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technology. We define a set of communication regions and control virtual functions. A gateway node is used as an intermediate entity to fetch and deliver content over regions. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is valid and allow content fetching and delivering from different ICN and/to IP regions in an efficient manner

Interoperabilidade e mobilidade na internet do futuro

Research on Future Internet has been gaining traction in recent years, with both evolutionary (e.g., Software Defined Networking (SDN)- based architectures) and clean-slate network architectures (e.g., Information Centric Networking (ICN) architectures) being proposed. With each network architectural proposal aiming to provide better solutions for specific Internet utilization requirements, an heterogeneous Future Internet composed by several architectures can be expected, each targeting and optimizing different use case scenarios. Moreover, the increasing number of mobile devices, with increasing capabilities and supporting different connectivity technologies, are changing the patterns of traffic exchanged in the Internet. As such, this thesis focuses on the study of interoperability and mobility in Future Internet architectures, two key requirements that need to be addressed for the widely adoption of these network architectures. The first contribution of this thesis is an interoperability framework that, by enabling resources to be shared among different network architectures, avoids resources to be restricted to a given network architecture and, at the same time, promotes the initial roll out of new network architectures. The second contribution of this thesis consists on the development of enhancements for SDN-based and ICN network architectures through IEEE 802.21 mechanisms to facilitate and optimize the handover procedures on those architectures. The last contribution of this thesis is the definition of an inter-network architecture mobility framework that enables MNs to move across access network supporting different network architectures without losing the reachability to resources being accessed. All the proposed solutions were evaluated with results highlighting the feasibility of such solutions and the impact on the overall communication.A Internet do Futuro tem sido alvo de vários estudos nos últimos anos, com a proposta de arquitecturas de rede seguindo quer abordagens evolutionárias (por exemplo, Redes Definidas por Software (SDN)) quer abordagens disruptivas (por exemplo, Redes Centradas na Informação (ICN)). Cada uma destas arquitecturas de rede visa providenciar melhores soluções relativamente a determinados requisitos de utilização da Internet e, portanto, uma Internet do Futuro heterogénea composta por diversas arquitecturas de rede torna-se uma possibilidade, onde cada uma delas é usada para optimizar diferentes casos de utilização. Para além disso, o aumento do número de dispositivos móveis, com especificações acrescidas e com suporte para diferentes tecnologias de conectividade, está a mudar os padrões do tráfego na Internet. Assim, esta tese foca-se no estudo de aspectos de interoperabilidade e mobilidade em arquitecturas de rede da Internet do Futuro, dois importantes requisitos que necessitam de ser satisfeitos para que a adopção destas arquitecturas de rede seja considerada. A primeira contribuição desta tese é uma solução de interoperabilidade que, uma vez que permite que recursos possam ser partilhados por diferentes arquitecturas de rede, evita que os recursos estejam restringidos a uma determinada arquitectura de rede e, ao mesmo tempo, promove a adopção de novas arquitecturas de rede. A segunda contribuição desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de extensões para arquitecturas de rede baseadas em SDN ou ICN através dos mecanismos propostos na norma IEEE 802.21 com o objectivo de facilitar e optimizar os processos de mobilidade nessas arquitecturas de rede. Finalmente, a terceira contribuição desta tese é a definição de uma solução de mobilidade envolvendo diferentes arquitecturas de rede que permite a mobilidade de dispositivos móveis entre redes de acesso que suportam diferentes arquitecturas de rede sem que estes percam o acesso aos recursos que estão a ser acedidos. Todas as soluções propostas foram avaliadas com os resultados a demonstrar a viabilidade de cada uma das soluções e o impacto que têm na comunicação.Programa Doutoral em Informátic

On Information-centric Resiliency and System-level Security in Constrained, Wireless Communication

The Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects many heterogeneous embedded devices either locally between each other, or globally with the Internet. These things are resource-constrained, e.g., powered by battery, and typically communicate via low-power and lossy wireless links. Communication needs to be secured and relies on crypto-operations that are often resource-intensive and in conflict with the device constraints. These challenging operational conditions on the cheapest hardware possible, the unreliable wireless transmission, and the need for protection against common threats of the inter-network, impose severe challenges to IoT networks. In this thesis, we advance the current state of the art in two dimensions. Part I assesses Information-centric networking (ICN) for the IoT, a network paradigm that promises enhanced reliability for data retrieval in constrained edge networks. ICN lacks a lower layer definition, which, however, is the key to enable device sleep cycles and exclusive wireless media access. This part of the thesis designs and evaluates an effective media access strategy for ICN to reduce the energy consumption and wireless interference on constrained IoT nodes. Part II examines the performance of hardware and software crypto-operations, executed on off-the-shelf IoT platforms. A novel system design enables the accessibility and auto-configuration of crypto-hardware through an operating system. One main focus is the generation of random numbers in the IoT. This part of the thesis further designs and evaluates Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) to provide novel randomness sources that generate highly unpredictable secrets, on low-cost devices that lack hardware-based security features. This thesis takes a practical view on the constrained IoT and is accompanied by real-world implementations and measurements. We contribute open source software, automation tools, a simulator, and reproducible measurement results from real IoT deployments using off-the-shelf hardware. The large-scale experiments in an open access testbed provide a direct starting point for future research

Recent advances in information-centric networking based internet of things (ICN-IoT)

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) is being realized as a promising approach to accomplish the shortcomings of current IP-address based networking. ICN models are based on naming the content to get rid of address-space scarcity, accessing the content via name-based-routing, caching the content at intermediate nodes to provide reliable, efficient data delivery and self-certifying contents to ensure better security. Obvious benefits of ICN in terms of fast and efficient data delivery and improved reliability raises ICN as highly promising networking model for Internet of Things (IoTs) like environments. IoT aims to connect anyone and/or anything at any time by any path on any place. From last decade, IoTs attracts both industry and research communities. IoTs is an emerging research field and still in its infancy. Thus, this paper presents the potential of ICN for IoTs by providing state-of-the-art literature survey. We discuss briefly the feasibility of ICN features and their models (and architectures) in the context of IoT. Subsequently, we present a comprehensive survey on ICN based caching, naming, security and mobility approaches for IoTs with appropriate classification. Furthermore, we present operating systems (OS) and simulation tools for ICN-IoT. Finally, we provide important research challenges and issues faced by ICN for IoTs

Data Structures and Algorithms for Scalable NDN Forwarding

Named Data Networking (NDN) is a recently proposed general-purpose network architecture that aims to address the limitations of the Internet Protocol (IP), while maintaining its strengths. NDN takes an information-centric approach, focusing on named data rather than computer addresses. In NDN, the content is identified by its name, and each NDN packet has a name that specifies the content it is fetching or delivering. Since there are no source and destination addresses in an NDN packet, it is forwarded based on a lookup of its name in the forwarding plane, which consists of the Forwarding Information Base (FIB), Pending Interest Table (PIT), and Content Store (CS). In addition, as an in-network caching element, a scalable Repository (Repo) design is needed to provide large-scale long-term content storage in NDN networks. Scalable NDN forwarding is a challenge. Compared to the well-understood approaches to IP forwarding, NDN forwarding performs lookups on packet names, which have variable and unbounded lengths, increasing the lookup complexity. The lookup tables are larger than in IP, requiring more memory space. Moreover, NDN forwarding has a read-write data plane, requiring per-packet updates at line rates. Designing and evaluating a scalable NDN forwarding node architecture is a major effort within the overall NDN research agenda. The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that scalable NDN forwarding is feasible with the proposed data structures and algorithms. First, we propose a FIB lookup design based on the binary search of hash tables that provides a reliable longest name prefix lookup performance baseline for future NDN research. We have demonstrated 10 Gbps forwarding throughput with 256-byte packets and one billion synthetic forwarding rules, each containing up to seven name components. Second, we explore data structures and algorithms to optimize the FIB design based on the specific characteristics of real-world forwarding datasets. Third, we propose a fingerprint-only PIT design that reduces the memory requirements in the core routers. Lastly, we discuss the Content Store design issues and demonstrate that the NDN Repo implementation can leverage many of the existing databases and storage systems to improve performance

Middleware de comunicações para a internet móvel futura

Doutoramento em Informática (MAP-I)A evolução constante em novas tecnologias que providenciam suporte à forma como os nossos dispositivos se ligam, bem como a forma como utilizamos diferentes capacidades e serviços on-line, criou um conjunto sem precedentes de novos desafios que motivam o desenvolvimento de uma recente área de investigação, denominada de Internet Futura. Nesta nova área de investigação, novos aspectos arquiteturais estão ser desenvolvidos, os quais, através da re-estruturação de componentes nucleares subjacentesa que compõem a Internet, progride-a de uma forma capaz de não são fazer face a estes novos desafios, mas também de a preparar para os desafios de amanhã. Aspectos chave pertencendo a este conjunto de desafios são os ambientes de rede heterogéneos compostos por diferentes tipos de redes de acesso, a cada vez maior mudança do tráfego peer-to-peer (P2P) como o tipo de tráfego mais utilizado na Internet, a orquestração de cenários da Internet das Coisas (IoT) que exploram mecanismos de interação Maquinaa-Maquina (M2M), e a utilização de mechanismos centrados na informação (ICN). Esta tese apresenta uma nova arquitetura capaz de simultaneamente fazer face a estes desafios, evoluindo os procedimentos de conectividade e entidades envolvidas, através da adição de uma camada de middleware, que age como um mecanismo de gestão de controlo avançado. Este mecanismo de gestão de controlo aproxima as entidades de alto nível (tais como serviços, aplicações, entidades de gestão de mobilidade, operações de encaminhamento, etc.) com as componentes das camadas de baixo nível (por exemplo, camadas de ligação, sensores e atuadores), permitindo uma otimização conjunta dos procedimentos de ligação subjacentes. Os resultados obtidos não só sublinham a flexibilidade dos mecanismos que compoem a arquitetura, mas também a sua capacidade de providenciar aumentos de performance quando comparados com outras soluÇÕes de funcionamento especÍfico, enquanto permite um maior leque de cenáios e aplicações.The constant evolution in new technologies that support the way our devices are able to connect, as well the way we use available on-line services and capabilities, has created a set of unprecedented new challenges that motivated the development of a recent research trend known as the Future Internet. In this research trend, new architectural aspects are being developed which, through the restructure of underlying core aspects composing the Internet, reshapes it in a way capable of not only facing these new challenges, but also preparing it to tackle tomorrow’s new set of complex issues. Key aspects belonging to this set of challenges are heterogeneous networking environments composed by di↵erent kinds of wireless access networks, the evergrowing change from peer-to-peer (P2P) to video as the most used kind of traffic in the Internet, the orchestration of Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios exploiting Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interactions, and the usage of Information-Centric Networking (ICN). This thesis presents a novel framework able to simultaneous tackle these challenges, empowering connectivity procedures and entities with a middleware acting as an advanced control management mechanism. This control management mechanism brings together both high-level entities (such as application services, mobility management entities, routing operations, etc.) with the lower layer components (e.g., link layers, sensor devices, actuators), allowing for a joint optimization of the underlying connectivity and operational procedures. Results highlight not only the flexibility of the mechanisms composing the framework, but also their ability in providing performance increases when compared with other specific purpose solutions, while allowing a wider range of scenarios and deployment possibilities

Software Defined Application Delivery Networking

In this thesis we present the architecture, design, and prototype implementation details of AppFabric. AppFabric is a next generation application delivery platform for easily creating, managing and controlling massively distributed and very dynamic application deployments that may span multiple datacenters. Over the last few years, the need for more flexibility, finer control, and automatic management of large (and messy) datacenters has stimulated technologies for virtualizing the infrastructure components and placing them under software-based management and control; generically called Software-defined Infrastructure (SDI). However, current applications are not designed to leverage this dynamism and flexibility offered by SDI and they mostly depend on a mix of different techniques including manual configuration, specialized appliances (middleboxes), and (mostly) proprietary middleware solutions together with a team of extremely conscientious and talented system engineers to get their applications deployed and running. AppFabric, 1) automates the whole control and management stack of application deployment and delivery, 2) allows application architects to define logical workflows consisting of application servers, message-level middleboxes, packet-level middleboxes and network services (both, local and wide-area) composed over application-level routing policies, and 3) provides the abstraction of an application cloud that allows the application to dynamically (and automatically) expand and shrink its distributed footprint across multiple geographically distributed datacenters operated by different cloud providers. The architecture consists of a hierarchical control plane system called Lighthouse and a fully distributed data plane design (with no special hardware components such as service orchestrators, load balancers, message brokers, etc.) called OpenADN . The current implementation (under active development) consists of ~10000 lines of python and C code. AppFabric will allow applications to fully leverage the opportunities provided by modern virtualized Software-Defined Infrastructures. It will serve as the platform for deploying massively distributed, and extremely dynamic next generation application use-cases, including: Internet-of-Things/Cyber-Physical Systems: Through support for managing distributed gather-aggregate topologies common to most Internet-of-Things(IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems(CPS) use-cases. By their very nature, IoT and CPS use cases are massively distributed and have different levels of computation and storage requirements at different locations. Also, they have variable latency requirements for their different distributed sites. Some services, such as device controllers, in an Iot/CPS application workflow may need to gather, process and forward data under near-real time constraints and hence need to be as close to the device as possible. Other services may need more computation to process aggregated data to drive long term business intelligence functions. AppFabric has been designed to provide support for such very dynamic, highly diversified and massively distributed application use-cases. Network Function Virtualization: Through support for heterogeneous workflows, application-aware networking, and network-aware application deployments, AppFabric will enable new partnerships between Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Network Service Providers (NSPs). An application workflow in AppFabric may comprise of application services, packet and message-level middleboxes, and network transport services chained together over an application-level routing substrate. The Application-level routing substrate allows policy-based service chaining where the application may specify policies for routing their application traffic over different services based on application-level content or context. Virtual worlds/multiplayer games: Through support for creating, managing and controlling dynamic and distributed application clouds needed by these applications. AppFabric allows the application to easily specify policies to dynamically grow and shrink the application\u27s footprint over different geographical sites, on-demand. Mobile Apps: Through support for extremely diversified and very dynamic application contexts typical of such applications. Also, AppFabric provides support for automatically managing massively distributed service deployment and controlling application traffic based on application-level policies. This allows mobile applications to provide the best Quality-of-Experience to its users without This thesis is the first to handle and provide a complete solution for such a complex and relevant architectural problem that is expected to touch each of our lives by enabling exciting new application use-cases that are not possible today. Also, AppFabric is a non-proprietary platform that is expected to spawn lots of innovations both in the design of the platform itself and the features it provides to applications. AppFabric still needs many iterations, both in terms of design and implementation maturity. This thesis is not the end of journey for AppFabric but rather just the beginning

Future of networking is the future of Big Data, The

2019 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Scientific domains such as Climate Science, High Energy Particle Physics (HEP), Genomics, Biology, and many others are increasingly moving towards data-oriented workflows where each of these communities generates, stores and uses massive datasets that reach into terabytes and petabytes, and projected soon to reach exabytes. These communities are also increasingly moving towards a global collaborative model where scientists routinely exchange a significant amount of data. The sheer volume of data and associated complexities associated with maintaining, transferring, and using them, continue to push the limits of the current technologies in multiple dimensions - storage, analysis, networking, and security. This thesis tackles the networking aspect of big-data science. Networking is the glue that binds all the components of modern scientific workflows, and these communities are becoming increasingly dependent on high-speed, highly reliable networks. The network, as the common layer across big-science communities, provides an ideal place for implementing common services. Big-science applications also need to work closely with the network to ensure optimal usage of resources, intelligent routing of requests, and data. Finally, as more communities move towards data-intensive, connected workflows - adopting a service model where the network provides some of the common services reduces not only application complexity but also the necessity of duplicate implementations. Named Data Networking (NDN) is a new network architecture whose service model aligns better with the needs of these data-oriented applications. NDN's name based paradigm makes it easier to provide intelligent features at the network layer rather than at the application layer. This thesis shows that NDN can push several standard features to the network. This work is the first attempt to apply NDN in the context of large scientific data; in the process, this thesis touches upon scientific data naming, name discovery, real-world deployment of NDN for scientific data, feasibility studies, and the designs of in-network protocols for big-data science