Solving a resource allocation problem in RFB-based 5G wireless networks

International audienceIn this work, we consider the 5G network architecture outcome of the Horizon 2020 project Superfluidity, where the main building blocks are virtual entities, namely Reusable Functional Blocks (RFBs). This 5G Superfluid network composed of RFBs and physical 5G nodes allows a high level of flexibility, agility, portability and high performance. The emergency problem we face is how to optimally minimize the total installation costs of such a Superfluid network while guaranteeing a minimum required user coverage and minimum downlink traffic demand. We propose an approach to break down the main resource allocation problem in a set of simplified problems that allow the computation of the solution in a more efficient way. Numerical results illustrate our findings

Algorithms for the Design of 5G networks with VNF-based Reusable Functional Blocks Annals of Telecommunications

We face the problem of designing a 5G network composed of Virtual Network Function (VNF)-based entities, called Reusable Functional Blocks (RFBs). RFBs provide a high level of flexibility and scalability, which are recognized as core functions for the deployment of the forthcoming 5G technology. Moreover, the RFBs can be run on different HardWare (HW) and SoftWare (SW) execution environments located in 5G nodes, in line with the current trend of network softwarization. After overviewing the considered RFB-based 5G network architecture, we formulate the problem of minimizing the total costs of a 5G network composed of RFBs and physical 5G nodes. Since the presented problem is NP-Hard, we derive two algorithms, called SFDA and 5G-PCDA, to tackle it. We then consider a set of scenarios located in the city of San Francisco, where the positions of the users and the set of candidate sites to host 5G nodes have been derived from the WeFi app. Our results clearly show the trade-offs that emerge between (i) the total costs incurred by the installation of the 5G equipment, (ii) the percentage of users that are served, and (iii) the minimum downlink traffic provided to the users

Bi-criteria network optimization: problems and algorithms

Several approaches, exact and heuristics, have been designed in order to generate the Pareto frontier for multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems. Although several classes of standard optimization models have been studied in their multi- objective version, there still exists a big gap between the solution techniques and the complexity of the mathematical models that derive from the most recent real world applications. In this thesis such aspect is highlighted with reference to a specific application field, the telecommunication sector, where several emerging optimization problems are characterized by a multi-objective nature. The study of some of these problems, analyzed and solved in the thesis, has been the starting point for an assessment of the state of the art in multicriteria optimization with particular focus on multi-objective integer linear programming. A general two-phase approach for bi-criteria integer network flow problems has been proposed and applied to the bi-objective integer minimum cost flow and the bi-objective minimum spanning tree problem. For both of them the two-phase approach has been designed and tested to generate a complete set of efficient solutions. This procedure, with appropriate changes according to the specific problem, could be applied on other bi-objective integer network flow problems. In this perspective, this work can be seen as a first attempt in the direction of closing the gap between the complex models associated with the most recent real world applications and the methodologies to deal with multi-objective programming. The thesis is structured in the following way: Chapter 1 reports some preliminary concepts on graph and networks and a short overview of the main network flow problems; in Chapter 2 some emerging optimization problems are described, mathematically formalized and solved, underling their multi-objective nature. Chapter 3 presents the state of the art on multicriteria optimization. Chapter 4 describes the general idea of the solution algorithm proposed in this work for bi-objective integer network flow problems. Chapter 5 is focused on the bi-objective integer minimum cost flow problem and on the adaptation of the procedure proposed in Chapter 4 on such a problem. Analogously, Chapter 6 describes the application of the same approach on the bi-objective minimum spanning tree problem. Summing up, the general scheme appears to adapt very well to both problems and can be easily implemented. For the bi-objective integer minimum cost flow problem, the numerical tests performed on a selection of test instances, taken from the literature, permit to verify that the algorithm finds a complete set of efficient solutions. For the bi-objective minimum spanning tree problem, we solved a numerical example using two alternative methods for the first phase, confirming the practicability of the approach

Re-designing Dynamic Content Delivery in the Light of a Virtualized Infrastructure

We explore the opportunities and design options enabled by novel SDN and NFV technologies, by re-designing a dynamic Content Delivery Network (CDN) service. Our system, named MOSTO, provides performance levels comparable to that of a regular CDN, but does not require the deployment of a large distributed infrastructure. In the process of designing the system, we identify relevant functions that could be integrated in the future Internet infrastructure. Such functions greatly simplify the design and effectiveness of services such as MOSTO. We demonstrate our system using a mixture of simulation, emulation, testbed experiments and by realizing a proof-of-concept deployment in a planet-wide commercial cloud system.Comment: Extended version of the paper accepted for publication in JSAC special issue on Emerging Technologies in Software-Driven Communication - November 201

Edge cloud architectures : a survey

Nowadays the number of connected devices is growing sharply. Mobile phones and other IoT devices are inherent parts of everyday life and used everywhere. The amount of data generated by IoT devices and mobile phones is enormous, which causes network congestions. In turn, the usage of centralized cloud architecture increases delay and cause jitter. To address those issues the research community discussed the new trend of decentralization – edge computing. There are different edge compute architectures suggested by various researchers. Some are more popular and supported by global companies. Most of those architectures have similarities. In this research, we reviewed seven edge compute architectures. This thesis is a comparative analysis carried out by using key attributes and presentation of the Venn diagram to select the right edge compute architecture

Rumba : a Python framework for automating large-scale recursive internet experiments on GENI and FIRE+

It is not easy to design and run Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) due to: 1) finding the optimal number of filters (i.e., the width) at each layer is tricky, given an architecture; and 2) the computational intensity of CNNs impedes the deployment on computationally limited devices. Oracle Pruning is designed to remove the unimportant filters from a well-trained CNN, which estimates the filters’ importance by ablating them in turn and evaluating the model, thus delivers high accuracy but suffers from intolerable time complexity, and requires a given resulting width but cannot automatically find it. To address these problems, we propose Approximated Oracle Filter Pruning (AOFP), which keeps searching for the least important filters in a binary search manner, makes pruning attempts by masking out filters randomly, accumulates the resulting errors, and finetunes the model via a multi-path framework. As AOFP enables simultaneous pruning on multiple layers, we can prune an existing very deep CNN with acceptable time cost, negligible accuracy drop, and no heuristic knowledge, or re-design a model which exerts higher accuracy and faster inferenc