Optimization of Elastic Cloud Brokerage Mechanisms for Future Telecommunication Service Environments

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Cloud computing mechanisms and cloud-based services are currently revolutionizing Web as well as telecommunication service platforms and service offerings. Apart from providing infrastructures, platforms and software as a service, mechanism for dynamic allocation of compute and storage resources on-demand, commonly termed as “elastic cloud computing” account for the most important cloud computing functionalities. Resource elasticity allows not only for efficient internal compute and storage resource consumption, but also, through so called hybrid cloud computing mechanisms, for dynamic utilization of external resources on-demand. This capability is especially useful in order to cost-efficiently cope with peakworkloads, allowing service providers to significantly reduce usually required over-provisioned service infrastructures, allowing for “pay-per-use” cost models. With a steadily growing number of cloud providers and with the proliferation of unified cloud computing interfaces, service providers are given free choice of flexibly selecting and utilizing cloud resources from different cloud providers. Cloud brokering systems allow for dynamic selection and utilization of cloud computing resources based on functional (e.g. QoS, SLA, energy consumption) as well as nonfunctional criteria (e.g. costs). The presented work focuses on enhanced cloud brokering mechanisms for telecommunication service platforms, enabling quality telecommunication service assurance, still optimizing cloud resources consumption, i.e. saving costs and energy. Furthermore this work shows that by combining cloud brokering mechanisms with standardized telecommunication service brokering mechanisms an even greater benefit for telecommunication service providers can be achieved as this enables an even better cost-efficiency since different user segments can seamlessly be served by allocating different cloud resources to them in a policy-driven manner

Cloudifying the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem: Why and How?

The 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has been specified as the service delivery platform of 3G networks. It subsequently became the de facto service delivery platform of 4G networks. Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm with inherent benefits such as scalability, elasticity and easy deployment of new applications and services. Scalability and elasticity are currently among the major roadblocks to the wide scale deployment of IMS. Cloudifying IMS can help in removing these roadblocks. It will also certainly bring many other advantages. However, this cloudification is no easy task and is still in its infancy. This paper motivates the cloudification of IMS, critically review the architectures proposed so far, sketch a vision and discusses the related research challenges

Live Migration of Virtualized Carrier Grade SIP Server

The concept of network virtualization, such as network functions virtualization, has attracted considerable attention from telecom carriers and a live migration technique is a key feature of virtualization technology. However, there are some challenges associated with applying server virtualization technology including live migration to a SIP server. Previous work has not dealt with the performance or behavior of a SIP server during live migration. Neither has it targeted a carrier grade SIP server for live migration. In this paper we present a virtualized carrier grade SIP server running on a virtual machine, which is configured with Carrier Grade Linux, HA middleware and SIP-AS application. We also assess its performance to investigate the impact of throughput degradation and suspension on a SIP layer and HA cluster configuration

Cloud brokering : nouveaux services de valeur ajoutée et politique de prix

Cloud brokering is a service paradigm that provides interoperability and portability of applications across multiple Cloud providers. The attractiveness of Cloud brokering relies on the new services and extended computing facilities that enhance or complement those already offered by isolated Cloud providers. These services provide new value to Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises and make Cloud providers more competitive. Nowadays, at the infrastructure level, Cloud brokers act as an intermediary between the end-users and the Cloud providers. A Cloud broker provides a single point for service consumption in order to avoid vendor lock-in, increase application resilience, provide a unified billing, and simplify governance, procurement and settlement processes across multiple Cloud providers. In the future, Cloud brokers will provide advanced valueadded services and will use attractive pricing models to capture potential Cloud consumers. The aim of this thesis is to propose advanced value-added services and a pricing model for Cloud brokers.Le « Cloud brokering » est un paradigme de service qui fournit interopérabilité et portabilité des applications à travers plusieurs fournisseurs de Cloud. Les nouveaux services et capacités étendues qui améliorent ou complètent celles déjà offertes par les fournisseurs de Cloud sont la caractéristique principale des « Cloud brokers ». Actuellement, d’un point de vue de l’infrastructure Cloud, les Cloud brokers jouent un rôle d’agents intermédiaires entre les utilisateurs et les fournisseurs, agissant ainsi comme un point commun pour la consommation des services Cloud. Parmi les avantages les plus notables liés à ce point d’accès commun on trouve : l’augmentation de la résilience en allouant l’infrastructure chez de multiples fournisseurs ; la délivrance d’une facturation unifiée ; la simplification des processus de gouvernance ; l’approvisionnement et le règlement à travers de multiples fournisseurs. Dans le futur, les Cloud brokers fourniront des services avancés de valeur ajoutée et vendront des services Cloud en utilisant d’attractives politiques de prix. Le but de cette thèse est de proposer deux services avancés de valeur ajoutée et une politique de prix pour les Cloud broker

Challenges in real-time virtualization and predictable cloud computing

Cloud computing and virtualization technology have revolutionized general-purpose computing applications in the past decade. The cloud paradigm offers advantages through reduction of operation costs, server consolidation, flexible system configuration and elastic resource provisioning. However, despite the success of cloud computing for general-purpose computing, existing cloud computing and virtualization technology face tremendous challenges in supporting emerging soft real-time applications such as online video streaming, cloud-based gaming, and telecommunication management. These applications demand real-time performance in open, shared and virtualized computing environments. This paper identifies the technical challenges in supporting real-time applications in the cloud, surveys recent advancement in real-time virtualization and cloud computing technology, and offers research directions to enable cloud-based real-time applications in the future

Climbing Up Cloud Nine: Performance Enhancement Techniques for Cloud Computing Environments

With the transformation of cloud computing technologies from an attractive trend to a business reality, the need is more pressing than ever for efficient cloud service management tools and techniques. As cloud technologies continue to mature, the service model, resource allocation methodologies, energy efficiency models and general service management schemes are not yet saturated. The burden of making this all tick perfectly falls on cloud providers. Surely, economy of scale revenues and leveraging existing infrastructure and giant workforce are there as positives, but it is far from straightforward operation from that point. Performance and service delivery will still depend on the providers’ algorithms and policies which affect all operational areas. With that in mind, this thesis tackles a set of the more critical challenges faced by cloud providers with the purpose of enhancing cloud service performance and saving on providers’ cost. This is done by exploring innovative resource allocation techniques and developing novel tools and methodologies in the context of cloud resource management, power efficiency, high availability and solution evaluation. Optimal and suboptimal solutions to the resource allocation problem in cloud data centers from both the computational and the network sides are proposed. Next, a deep dive into the energy efficiency challenge in cloud data centers is presented. Consolidation-based and non-consolidation-based solutions containing a novel dynamic virtual machine idleness prediction technique are proposed and evaluated. An investigation of the problem of simulating cloud environments follows. Available simulation solutions are comprehensively evaluated and a novel design framework for cloud simulators covering multiple variations of the problem is presented. Moreover, the challenge of evaluating cloud resource management solutions performance in terms of high availability is addressed. An extensive framework is introduced to design high availability-aware cloud simulators and a prominent cloud simulator (GreenCloud) is extended to implement it. Finally, real cloud application scenarios evaluation is demonstrated using the new tool. The primary argument made in this thesis is that the proposed resource allocation and simulation techniques can serve as basis for effective solutions that mitigate performance and cost challenges faced by cloud providers pertaining to resource utilization, energy efficiency, and client satisfaction

Les opérateurs sauront-ils survivre dans un monde en constante évolution? Considérations techniques conduisant à des scénarios de rupture

Le secteur des télécommunications passe par une phase délicate en raison de profondes mutations technologiques, principalement motivées par le développement de l'Internet. Elles ont un impact majeur sur l'industrie des télécommunications dans son ensemble et, par conséquent, sur les futurs déploiements des nouveaux réseaux, plateformes et services. L'évolution de l'Internet a un impact particulièrement fort sur les opérateurs des télécommunications (Telcos). En fait, l'industrie des télécommunications est à la veille de changements majeurs en raison de nombreux facteurs, comme par exemple la banalisation progressive de la connectivité, la domination dans le domaine des services de sociétés du web (Webcos), l'importance croissante de solutions à base de logiciels et la flexibilité qu'elles introduisent (par rapport au système statique des opérateurs télécoms). Cette thèse élabore, propose et compare les scénarios possibles basés sur des solutions et des approches qui sont technologiquement viables. Les scénarios identifiés couvrent un large éventail de possibilités: 1) Telco traditionnel; 2) Telco transporteur de Bits; 3) Telco facilitateur de Plateforme; 4) Telco fournisseur de services; 5) Disparition des Telco. Pour chaque scénario, une plateforme viable (selon le point de vue des opérateurs télécoms) est décrite avec ses avantages potentiels et le portefeuille de services qui pourraient être fournisThe telecommunications industry is going through a difficult phase because of profound technological changes, mainly originated by the development of the Internet. They have a major impact on the telecommunications industry as a whole and, consequently, the future deployment of new networks, platforms and services. The evolution of the Internet has a particularly strong impact on telecommunications operators (Telcos). In fact, the telecommunications industry is on the verge of major changes due to many factors, such as the gradual commoditization of connectivity, the dominance of web services companies (Webcos), the growing importance of software based solutions that introduce flexibility (compared to static system of telecom operators). This thesis develops, proposes and compares plausible future scenarios based on future solutions and approaches that will be technologically feasible and viable. Identified scenarios cover a wide range of possibilities: 1) Traditional Telco; 2) Telco as Bit Carrier; 3) Telco as Platform Provider; 4) Telco as Service Provider; 5) Telco Disappearance. For each scenario, a viable platform (from the point of view of telecom operators) is described highlighting the enabled service portfolio and its potential benefitsEVRY-INT (912282302) / SudocSudocFranceF

End-to-end Mobile Network Slicing

Wireless networks have gone through several years of evolution until now and will continue to do so in order to cater for the varying needs of its users. These demands are expected to continue to grow even more in the future, both in size and variability. Hence, the 5G technology needs to consider these variabilities in service demands and potential data explosion which could accompany users’ demands at the core of its architecture. For 5G mobile network to handle these foreseen challenges, network slicing \cite{c13} is seen as a potential path to tread as its standardization is progressing. In light of the proposed 5G network architecture and to support and end-to-end mobile network slicing, we implemented radio access network (RAN) slicing over a virtualized evolved Node B (eNodeB) and ensured multiple core network slices could communicate through it successfully. Our results, challenges and further research path are presented in this thesis report

A Cloud Infrastructure for Multimedia Conferencing Applications

Conferencing enables the conversational exchange of media between several parties. Conferencing applications are among important enterprise applications nowadays. However, fine grained scalability and elasticity remain quite elusive for multimedia conferencing applications, although they are key to efficiency in the resource usage. Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm for provisioning network, storage, and computing resources on demand using a pay-per-use model. Cloud-based conferencing services can inherent several benefits such as resource usage efficiency, scalability and easy introduction of different types of conferences. This thesis relies on a recently proposed business model for cloud-based conferencing. The model has the following roles: conferencing substrate provider, conferencing infrastructure provider, conferencing platform provider, conferencing service provider, and broker. Conferencing substrates are generally atomic and served as elementary building blocks (e.g. signalling, mixing) of conferencing applications. They can be virtualized and shared among several conferencing applications for resource efficiency purposes. Multiple conferencing substrates provided by different conferencing substrate providers can be combined to build a conferencing service (e.g. a dial-out signalling substrate and an audio mixer substrate can be composed to build a dial-out audio conference service). This thesis focuses on the conferencing infrastructure provider and conferencing substrate provider roles. It proposes a virtualized cloud infrastructure for multimedia conferencing applications. This infrastructure relies on fine grained conferencing substrates (e.g. dial-out signalling, dial-in signalling, audio mixer, video mixer, floor control, etc.) and offers several advantages in addition to fine grained scalability and elasticity (e.g. assembling substrates on the fly to build new conferencing applications). An architecture is proposed to realize the roles of conferencing infrastructure provider, conferencing substrate provider and their interactions. A resource allocation mechanism for conferencing substrates is also proposed. We have also built a prototype with Xen as the virtualization platform and validated the architecture. Performance has also been evaluated