Cloud provider independence using DevOps methodologies with Infrastructure-as-Code

On choosing cloud computing infrastructure for IT needs there is a risk of becoming dependent and locked-in on a specific cloud provider from which it becomes difficult to switch should an entity decide to move all of the infrastructure resources into a different provider. There’s widespread information available on how to migrate existing infrastructure to the cloud notwithstanding common cloud solutions and providers don't have any clear path or framework for supporting their tenants to migrate off the cloud into another provider or cloud infrastructure with similar service levels should they decide to do so. Under these circumstances it becomes difficult to switch from cloud provider not just because of the technical complexity of recreating the entire infrastructure from scratch and moving related data but also because of the cost it may involve. One possible solution is to evaluate the use of Infrastructure-as-Code languages for defining infrastructure (“Infrastructure-as-Code”) combined with DevOps methodologies and technologies to create a mechanism that helps streamline the migration process between different cloud infrastructure especially if taken into account from the beginning of a project. A well-structured DevOps methodology combined with Infrastructure-as-Code may allow a more integrated control on cloud resources as those can be defined and controlled with specific languages and be submitted to automation processes. Such definitions must take into account what is currently available to support those operations under the chosen cloud infrastructure APIs, always seeking to guarantee the tenant an higher degree of control over its infrastructure and higher level of preparation of the necessary steps for the recreation or migration of such infrastructure should the need arise, somehow integrating cloud resources as part of a development model. The objective of this dissertation is to create a conceptual reference framework that can identify different forms for migration of IT infrastructure while always contemplating a higher provider independence by resorting to such mechanisms, as well as identify possible constraints or obstacles under this approach. Such a framework can be referenced from the beginning of a development project if foreseeable changes in infrastructure or provider are a possibility in the future, taking into account what the API’s provide in order to make such transitions easier.Ao optar-se por infraestruturas de computação em nuvem para soluções de TI existe um risco associado de se ficar dependente de um fornecedor de serviço específico, do qual se torna difícil mudar caso se decida posteriormente movimentar toda essa infraestrutura para um outro fornecedor. Encontra-se disponível extensa documentação sobre como migrar infraestrutura já  existente para modelos de computação em nuvem, de qualquer modo as soluções e os fornecedores de serviço não dispõem de formas ou metodologias claras que suportem os seus clientes em migrações para fora da nuvem, seja para outro fornecedor ou infraestrutura com semelhantes tipos de serviço, caso assim o desejem. Nestas circunstâncias torna-se difícil mudar de fornecedor de serviço não apenas pela complexidade técnica associada à criação de toda a infraestrutura de raiz e movimentação de todos os dados associados a esta mas também devido aos custos que envolve uma operação deste tipo. Uma possível solução é avaliar a utilização de linguagens para definição de infraestrutura como código (“Infrastructure-as-Code”) em conjunção com metodologias e tecnologias “DevOps” de forma a criar um mecanismo que permita flexibilizar um processo de migração entre diferentes infraestruturas de computação em nuvem, especialmente se for contemplado desde o início de um projecto. Uma metodologia “DevOps” devidamente estruturada quando combinada com definição de infraestrutura como código pode permitir um controlo mais integrado de recursos na nuvem uma vez que estes podem ser definidos e controlados através de linguagens específicas e submetidos a processos de automação. Tais definições terão de ter em consideração o que existe disponível para suportar as necessárias operações através das “API’s” das infraestruturas de computação em nuvem, procurando sempre garantir ao utilizador um elevado grau de controlo sobre a sua infraestrutura e um maior nível de preparação dos passos necessários para recriação ou migração da infraestrutura caso essa necessidade surja, integrando de certa forma os recursos de computação em nuvem como parte do modelo de desenvolvimento. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a criação de um modelo de referência conceptual que identifique formas de migração de infraestruturas de computação procurando ao mesmo tempo uma maior independência do fornecedor de serviço com recurso a tais mecanismos, assim como identificar possíveis constrangimentos ou impedimentos nesta aproximação. Tal modelo poderá ser referenciado desde o início de um projecto de desenvolvimento caso seja necessário contemplar uma possível necessidade futura de alterações ao nível da infraestrutura ou de fornecedor, com base no que as “API’s” disponibilizam, de modo a facilitar essa operação.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Demo of Application Lifecycle Management for IoT Collaborative Neighborhood in the Fog

International audienceRegarding latency, privacy, resiliency and network scarcity management, only distributed approaches such as proposed by Fog Computing architecture can efficiently address the fantastic growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT applications could be deployed and run hierarchically at different levels in an infrastructure ranging from centralized datacenters to the connected things themselves. Consequently, software entities composing IoT applications could be executed in many different configurations. The heterogeneity of the equipment and devices of the target infrastructure opens opportunities in the placement of the software entities, taking into account their requirements in terms of hardware, cyber-physical interactions and software dependencies. Once the most appropriate place has been found, software entities have to be deployed and run. Container-based virtualization has been considered to overpass the complexity of packaging, deploying and running software entities in a heterogeneous distributed infrastructure at the vicinity of the connected devices. This paper reports a practical experiment presented as a live demo that showcases a " Smart Bell in a Collaborative Neighborhood " IoT application in the Fog. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) has been put in place based on Docker technologies to deploy and run micro-services in the context of Smart Homes operated by Orange

Algorithms for advance bandwidth reservation in media production networks

Media production generally requires many geographically distributed actors (e.g., production houses, broadcasters, advertisers) to exchange huge amounts of raw video and audio data. Traditional distribution techniques, such as dedicated point-to-point optical links, are highly inefficient in terms of installation time and cost. To improve efficiency, shared media production networks that connect all involved actors over a large geographical area, are currently being deployed. The traffic in such networks is often predictable, as the timing and bandwidth requirements of data transfers are generally known hours or even days in advance. As such, the use of advance bandwidth reservation (AR) can greatly increase resource utilization and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose an Integer Linear Programming formulation of the bandwidth scheduling problem, which takes into account the specific characteristics of media production networks, is presented. Two novel optimization algorithms based on this model are thoroughly evaluated and compared by means of in-depth simulation results

A Demo of Application Lifecycle Management for IoT Collaborative Neighborhood in the Fog

International audienceRegarding latency, privacy, resiliency and network scarcity management, only distributed approaches such as proposed by Fog Computing architecture can efficiently address the fantastic growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT applications could be deployed and run hierarchically at different levels in an infrastructure ranging from centralized datacenters to the connected things themselves. Consequently, software entities composing IoT applications could be executed in many different configurations. The heterogeneity of the equipment and devices of the target infrastructure opens opportunities in the placement of the software entities, taking into account their requirements in terms of hardware, cyber-physical interactions and software dependencies. Once the most appropriate place has been found, software entities have to be deployed and run. Container-based virtualization has been considered to overpass the complexity of packaging, deploying and running software entities in a heterogeneous distributed infrastructure at the vicinity of the connected devices. This paper reports a practical experiment presented as a live demo that showcases a " Smart Bell in a Collaborative Neighborhood " IoT application in the Fog. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) has been put in place based on Docker technologies to deploy and run micro-services in the context of Smart Homes operated by Orange

A Scalable Telemetry Framework for Zero Touch Optical Network Management

The interest about Zero Touch Network and Service Management (ZSM) is rapidly emerging. As defined by ETSI, the ZSM architecture is based on a closed-loop/feedback control of the network and the services. Such closed-loop control can be based on the Boyd's Observe Orient Decide and Act (OODA) loop that matches some specific management functions such as Data Collection, Data Analytics, Intelligence, Orchestration and Control. An efficient implementation of such control loop allows the network to timely adapt to changes and maintain the required quality of service.Many solutions for collecting network parameters (i.e., implementing ZSM data collection) are proposed that fall under the broad umbrella of network telemetry. An example is the Google gRPC, that represented one of the first solutions to provide a framework for data collection. Since then, the number of available frameworks is proliferating. In this paper we propose the utilisation of Apache Kafka as a framework for collecting optical network parameters. Then, the paper goes beyond that by proposing and showing how Apache Kafka can be effective for supporting data exchange and management of whole ZSM closed-loop.Experimental evaluation results show that, even when a large number of data are collected, the solution is scalable and the time to disseminate the parameter values is short. Indeed, the difference between the reception time and the generation time of data is, on average, 40-50ms when about four thousand messages are generated

Design, implementation and experimental evaluation of a network-slicing aware mobile protocol stack

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorWith the arrival of new generation mobile networks, we currently observe a paradigm shift, where monolithic network functions running on dedicated hardware are now implemented as software pieces that can be virtualized on general purpose hardware platforms. This paradigm shift stands on the softwarization of network functions and the adoption of virtualization techniques. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) comprises softwarization of network elements and virtualization of these components. It brings multiple advantages: (i) Flexibility, allowing an easy management of the virtual network functions (VNFs) (deploy, start, stop or update); (ii) efficiency, resources can be adequately consumed due to the increased flexibility of the network infrastructure; and (iii) reduced costs, due to the ability of sharing hardware resources. To this end, multiple challenges must be addressed to effectively leverage of all these benefits. Network Function Virtualization envisioned the concept of virtual network, resulting in a key enabler of 5G networks flexibility, Network Slicing. This new paradigm represents a new way to operate mobile networks where the underlying infrastructure is "sliced" into logically separated networks that can be customized to the specific needs of the tenant. This approach also enables the ability of instantiate VNFs at different locations of the infrastructure, choosing their optimal placement based on parameters such as the requirements of the service traversing the slice or the available resources. This decision process is called orchestration and involves all the VNFs withing the same network slice. The orchestrator is the entity in charge of managing network slices. Hands-on experiments on network slicing are essential to understand its benefits and limits, and to validate the design and deployment choices. While some network slicing prototypes have been built for Radio Access Networks (RANs), leveraging on the wide availability of radio hardware and open-source software, there is no currently open-source suite for end-to-end network slicing available to the research community. Similarly, orchestration mechanisms must be evaluated as well to properly validate theoretical solutions addressing diverse aspects such as resource assignment or service composition. This thesis contributes on the study of the mobile networks evolution regarding its softwarization and cloudification. We identify software patterns for network function virtualization, including the definition of a novel mobile architecture that squeezes the virtualization architecture by splitting functionality in atomic functions. Then, we effectively design, implement and evaluate of an open-source network slicing implementation. Our results show a per-slice customization without paying the price in terms of performance, also providing a slicing implementation to the research community. Moreover, we propose a framework to flexibly re-orchestrate a virtualized network, allowing on-the-fly re-orchestration without disrupting ongoing services. This framework can greatly improve performance under changing conditions. We evaluate the resulting performance in a realistic network slicing setup, showing the feasibility and advantages of flexible re-orchestration. Lastly and following the required re-design of network functions envisioned during the study of the evolution of mobile networks, we present a novel pipeline architecture specifically engineered for 4G/5G Physical Layers virtualized over clouds. The proposed design follows two objectives, resiliency upon unpredictable computing and parallelization to increase efficiency in multi-core clouds. To this end, we employ techniques such as tight deadline control, jitter-absorbing buffers, predictive Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request, and congestion control. Our experimental results show that our cloud-native approach attains > 95% of the theoretical spectrum efficiency in hostile environments where stateof- the-art architectures collapse.This work has been supported by IMDEA Networks InstitutePrograma de Doctorado en Ingeniería Telemática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Francisco Valera Pintor.- Secretario: Vincenzo Sciancalepore.- Vocal: Xenofon Fouka

View on 5G Architecture: Version 2.0

The 5G Architecture Working Group as part of the 5GPPP Initiative is looking at capturing novel trends and key technological enablers for the realization of the 5G architecture. It also targets at presenting in a harmonized way the architectural concepts developed in various projects and initiatives (not limited to 5GPPP projects only) so as to provide a consolidated view on the technical directions for the architecture design in the 5G era. The first version of the white paper was released in July 2016, which captured novel trends and key technological enablers for the realization of the 5G architecture vision along with harmonized architectural concepts from 5GPPP Phase 1 projects and initiatives. Capitalizing on the architectural vision and framework set by the first version of the white paper, this Version 2.0 of the white paper presents the latest findings and analyses with a particular focus on the concept evaluations, and accordingly it presents the consolidated overall architecture design

Hybrid SDN Evolution: A Comprehensive Survey of the State-of-the-Art

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an evolutionary networking paradigm which has been adopted by large network and cloud providers, among which are Tech Giants. However, embracing a new and futuristic paradigm as an alternative to well-established and mature legacy networking paradigm requires a lot of time along with considerable financial resources and technical expertise. Consequently, many enterprises can not afford it. A compromise solution then is a hybrid networking environment (a.k.a. Hybrid SDN (hSDN)) in which SDN functionalities are leveraged while existing traditional network infrastructures are acknowledged. Recently, hSDN has been seen as a viable networking solution for a diverse range of businesses and organizations. Accordingly, the body of literature on hSDN research has improved remarkably. On this account, we present this paper as a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey which expands upon hSDN from many different perspectives