SDN/NFV-enabled satellite communications networks: opportunities, scenarios and challenges

In the context of next generation 5G networks, the satellite industry is clearly committed to revisit and revamp the role of satellite communications. As major drivers in the evolution of (terrestrial) fixed and mobile networks, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies are also being positioned as central technology enablers towards improved and more flexible integration of satellite and terrestrial segments, providing satellite network further service innovation and business agility by advanced network resources management techniques. Through the analysis of scenarios and use cases, this paper provides a description of the benefits that SDN/NFV technologies can bring into satellite communications towards 5G. Three scenarios are presented and analysed to delineate different potential improvement areas pursued through the introduction of SDN/NFV technologies in the satellite ground segment domain. Within each scenario, a number of use cases are developed to gain further insight into specific capabilities and to identify the technical challenges stemming from them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

End-to-end 5G service deployment and orchestration in optical networks with QoE guarantees

© 2018 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 worksThe upcoming 5G deployments will impose stringent requirements. Optical networks control and resource orchestration is set to potentially turn into software-defined approaches in order to address such requirements. As a result, there rises a need for an architectural scheme capable of supporting the different types of services defined for 5G verticals.We present in this paper an architecture enabling end-to-end (E2E) provisioning and monitoring of such 5G services over optical network segments. In particular, the scenario considers the coordination of various optical enabled network segments by a higher level E2E Orchestrator, which provides of network slice deployment and is able to guarantee agreed levels of Quality of Experience (QoE). Moreover, we discuss an example of 5G service provisioning using the proposed architecture to demonstrate its behaviour in front of different network events.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Addressing the Challenges in Federating Edge Resources

This book chapter considers how Edge deployments can be brought to bear in a global context by federating them across multiple geographic regions to create a global Edge-based fabric that decentralizes data center computation. This is currently impractical, not only because of technical challenges, but is also shrouded by social, legal and geopolitical issues. In this chapter, we discuss two key challenges - networking and management in federating Edge deployments. Additionally, we consider resource and modeling challenges that will need to be addressed for a federated Edge.Comment: Book Chapter accepted to the Fog and Edge Computing: Principles and Paradigms; Editors Buyya, Sriram