ETSI MANO network orchestration

In the modern era there is a big change in the way computer networks are conceived and the old version defined by hardware implementation is leaving space for a new one based upon software functions. This innovation is the Network Function Virtualization and indeed aims at easing the management of networks and reducing the costs of their maintenance by deploying Virtual Network Functions in standard general purpose servers. The transition to this solution involved the necessity to improve the performance of virtualization techniques and with the development of new solutions now it is possible to run multiple different functions in the same physical machine. This means that also the cloud computing benefits from this technology, having computing, storaging and networking resources all easily manageable and accessible due to their separation from the hardware underneath. Therefore it is important that while building this architecture the components are properly working and interacting together and that the virtualization techniques do not produce too much overhead compared to the performance of the hardware implementation. In this essay will be discussed the Network Function Virtualization and the Open Source MANO project, focusing on its descriptors architecture and functioning. To better demonstrate how to create network topologies through these files, some examples are created and analyzed

Automatic Intent-Based Secure Service Creation Through a Multilayer SDN Network Orchestration

Growing traffic demands and increasing security awareness are driving the need for secure services. Current solutions require manual configuration and deployment based on the customer's requirements. In this work, we present an architecture for an automatic intent-based provisioning of a secure service in a multilayer - IP, Ethernet, and optical - network while choosing the appropriate encryption layer using an open-source software-defined networking (SDN) orchestrator. The approach is experimentally evaluated in a testbed with commercial equipment. Results indicate that the processing impact of secure channel creation on a controller is negligible. As the time for setting up services over WDM varies between technologies, it needs to be taken into account in the decision-making process.Comment: Parts of the presented work has received funding from the European Commission within the H2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under grant agreeement n.645127, project ACIN

Network orchestration: new role of business incubators?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance of incubators in the stages of formationand development of incubated business networks, especially in bottom-up and top-down network models.Design/methodology/approach – The research is defined as qualitative and descriptive, with theapplication of multiple case studies, in which two networks of incubated businesses were investigated, onebeing top-down and the other bottom-up, which emerged within the incubation process of two businessincubators (CIETEC and INCIT). To make the study operational, 11 semi-structured interviews were carriedout and the thematic analysis of content was developed.Findings – The results pointed out that in the top-down network the incubator performs a new assignment,the network orchestration, which corresponds to the actions of formation, coordination and governance of thegroup. In the bottom-up network, it was found that the role of the incubator was to expand the value offersusually practiced.Research limitations/implications – As a limitation of the research, the very limitation of case studiesis pointed out that is they do not allow for generalizations.Practical implications – The research contributes to reflections on the effectiveness of the incubator andsheds light on the complementarity of networks in incubation processes, providing gains for incubators,incubated businesses and society.Originality/value – The originality of this document is the new role of the incubator, which isorchestration, and its categorization. The results allow us to understand the effects of providing networks andrelationships for incubated businesses. In addition, this study broadens the focus of traditional analyses of theincubator–incubated duo to consider the incubator–network–incubated trio

Network orchestration in a large inter-organizational project

Multiple organizations working jointly on shared activities in inter-organizational projects for a defined period of time are used increasingly to coordinate the supply of complex products, subsystems, and services across many industries. Despite the growth in inter-organizational networks as an organizational form, scholars have only recently begun to identify how lead organizations orchestrate the coordination of multiple parties with disparate goals, responsibilities, and capabilities. Prior work offers limited insights into the choice of network governance forms, and how coordination is undertaken by the network orchestrator to govern these networks. We conducted a longitudinal study of four networks to deliver vital services into a large project. We identified how the choice of network governance form was based on task complexity. A shared governance form was chosen for networks developed to deliver routine services, whereas a lead organization governance form was chosen for networks set up to deliver complex services. However, findings showed that the selection of an appropriate governance form was not sufficient for ensuring high performance. The network orchestrator's mode of coordination (formal or informal), the intensity of coordination (active or passive), and fit with the form of governance form (shared or lead organization governed) was important in driving performance

Network Orchestration in Reliable 5G/NFV/SDN Infrastructures

In this paper, we elaborate an SDN orchestration solution aiming at the dynamic adaptation of service chain paths thereby addressing high-availability requirements of 5G applications. We present an SDN orchestrator that periodically monitors the availability of the network and, if necessary, promptly adapts service chain paths to recover from congestion events and to preserve network QoS performance of service data flows. A set of performance results are finally presented.This work has been partially supported by the EU H2020 5G Exchange (5GEx) innovation project (grant no. 671636) and by EU H2020 5G-Transformer Project (grant no. 761536