Adaptive Robust Traffic Engineering in Software Defined Networks

One of the key advantages of Software-Defined Networks (SDN) is the opportunity to integrate traffic engineering modules able to optimize network configuration according to traffic. Ideally, network should be dynamically reconfigured as traffic evolves, so as to achieve remarkable gains in the efficient use of resources with respect to traditional static approaches. Unfortunately, reconfigurations cannot be too frequent due to a number of reasons related to route stability, forwarding rules instantiation, individual flows dynamics, traffic monitoring overhead, etc. In this paper, we focus on the fundamental problem of deciding whether, when and how to reconfigure the network during traffic evolution. We propose a new approach to cluster relevant points in the multi-dimensional traffic space taking into account similarities in optimal routing and not only in traffic values. Moreover, to provide more flexibility to the online decisions on when applying a reconfiguration, we allow some overlap between clusters that can guarantee a good-quality routing regardless of the transition instant. We compare our algorithm with state-of-the-art approaches in realistic network scenarios. Results show that our method significantly reduces the number of reconfigurations with a negligible deviation of the network performance with respect to the continuous update of the network configuration.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, submitted to IFIP Networking 201

IDEALIST control and service management solutions for dynamic and adaptive flexi-grid DWDM networks

Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSON) were designed with the premise that all channels in a network have the same spectrum needs, based on the ITU-T DWDM grid. However, this rigid grid-based approach is not adapted to the spectrum requirements of the signals that are best candidates for long-reach transmission and high-speed data rates of 400Gbps and beyond. An innovative approach is to evolve the fixed DWDM grid to a flexible grid, in which the optical spectrum is partitioned into fixed-sized spectrum slices. This allows facilitating the required amount of optical bandwidth and spectrum for an elastic optical connection to be dynamically and adaptively allocated by assigning the necessary number of slices of spectrum. The ICT IDEALIST project will provide the architectural design, protocol specification, implementation, evaluation and standardization of a control plane and a network and service management system. This architecture and tools are necessary to introduce dynamicity, elasticity and adaptation in flexi-grid DWDM networks. This paper provides an overview of the objectives, framework, functional requirements and use cases of the elastic control plane and the adaptive network and service management system targeted in the ICT IDEALIST project

Fast network configuration in Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides a framework to dynamically adjust and re-program the data plane with the use of flow rules. The realization of highly adaptive SDNs with the ability to respond to changing demands or recover after a network failure in a short period of time, hinges on efficient updates of flow rules. We model the time to deploy a set of flow rules by the update time at the bottleneck switch, and formulate the problem of selecting paths to minimize the deployment time under feasibility constraints as a mixed integer linear program (MILP). To reduce the computation time of determining flow rules, we propose efficient heuristics designed to approximate the minimum-deployment-time solution by relaxing the MILP or selecting the paths sequentially. Through extensive simulations we show that our algorithms outperform current, shortest path based solutions by reducing the total network configuration time up to 55% while having similar packet loss, in the considered scenarios. We also demonstrate that in a networked environment with a certain fraction of failed links, our algorithms are able to reduce the average time to reestablish disrupted flows by 40%

Optimal user association, backhaul routing and switching off in 5G heterogeneous networks with mesh millimeter wave backhaul links

Next generation, i.e., fifth generation (5G), cellular networks will provide a significant higher capacity per area to support the ever-increasing traffic demands. In order to achieve that, many small cells need to be deployed that are connected using a combination of optical fiber links and millimeter-wave (mmWave) backhaul architecture to forward heterogeneous traffic over mesh topologies. In this paper, we present a general optimization framework for the design of policies that optimally solve the problem of where to associate a user, over which links to route its traffic towards which mesh gateway, and which base stations and backhaul links to switch o¿ in order to minimize the energy cost for the network operator and still satisfy the user demands. We develop an optimal policy based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP) which considers different user distribution and traffic demands over multiple time periods. We develop also a fast iterative two-phase solution heuristic, which associates users and calculates backhaul routes to maximize energy savings. Our strategies optimize the backhaul network configuration at each timeslot based on the current demands and user locations. We discuss the application of our policies to backhaul management of mmWave cellular networks in light of current trend of network softwarization (Software-Defined Networking, SDN). Finally, we present extensive numerical simulations of our proposed policies, which show how the algorithms can efficiently trade-off energy consumption with required capacity, while satisfying flow demand requirements.Postprint (author's final draft

Joint Power-Efficient Traffic Shaping and Service Provisioning for Metro Elastic Optical Networks

Considering the time-averaged behavior of a metro elastic optical network, we develop a joint procedure for resource allocation and traffic shaping to exploit the inherent service diversity among the requests for power-efficient network operation. To support the quality of service diversity, we consider minimum transmission rate, average transmission rate, maximum burst size, and average transmission delay as the adjustable parameters of a general service profile. The work evolves from a stochastic optimization problem, which minimizes the power consumption subject to stability, physical, and service constraints. The optimal solution of the problem is obtained using a complex dynamic programming method. To provide a near-optimal fast-achievable solution, we propose a sequential heuristic with a scalable and causal software implementation, according to the basic Lyapunov iterations of an integer linear program. The heuristic method has a negligible optimality gap and a considerably shorter runtime compared to the optimal dynamic programming, and reduces the consumed power by 72% for an offered traffic with a unit variation coefficient. The adjustable trade-offs of the proposed scheme offer a typical 10% power saving for an acceptable amount of excess transmission delay or drop rate