Reliable and efficient deployment for virtual network functions

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018. Network function virtualization (NFV) is a promising technique aimed at reducing capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenditures (OPEX), and improving the flexibility and scalability of an entire network. However, this emerging technique has some challenges. A major problem is reliability, which involves ensuring the availability of deployed SFCs, namely, the probability of successfully chaining a series of big-data-based virtual network functions (VNFs) while considering both the feasibility and the specific requirements of clients, because the substrate network remains vulnerable to earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters. Based on the premise of users’ demands for SFC requirements, we present an Ensure Reliability Cost Saving (ER_CS) algorithm to reduce the CAPEX and OPEX of telecommunication service providers (TSPs) by reducing the reliability of the SFC deployments. We employ big-data-based arbitrary topologies as the substrate network. The results of extensive experiments indicate that the proposed algorithms perform efficiently in terms of the blocking ratio, resource consumption and time consumption

A multidimensional colored packing approach for network slicing with dedicated protection

International audienceNetwork Function Virtualization (NFV) enables the virtualization of core-business network functions on top of a NFV infrastructure. NFV has gained an increasing attention in the telecommunication field these last few years. Virtual network functions (VNFs) can be represented by a set of virtual network function components (VNFCs). These VNFCs are typically designed with a redundancy scheme and need to be deployed against failures of, e.g., compute servers. However, such deployment must respect a particular resiliency mechanism for protection purposes. Therefore, choosing an efficient mapping of VNFCs to the compute servers is a challenging problem in the optimization of the software-defined, virtualization-based next generation of networks. In this paper, we model the problem of reliable VNFCs placement under anti-affinity constraints using several optimization techniques. A novel approach based on an extension of bin packing is proposed. We perform a comprehensive evaluation in terms of performance under realworld ISP networks along with synthetic traces. We show that our methods can calculate rapidly efficient solutions for large instances

A Survey on Communication Networks for Electric System Automation

Published in Computer Networks 50 (2006) 877–897, an Elsevier journal. The definitive version of this publication is available from Science Direct. Digital Object Identifier:10.1016/j.comnet.2006.01.005In today’s competitive electric utility marketplace, reliable and real-time information become the key factor for reliable delivery of power to the end-users, profitability of the electric utility and customer satisfaction. The operational and commercial demands of electric utilities require a high-performance data communication network that supports both existing functionalities and future operational requirements. In this respect, since such a communication network constitutes the core of the electric system automation applications, the design of a cost-effective and reliable network architecture is crucial. In this paper, the opportunities and challenges of a hybrid network architecture are discussed for electric system automation. More specifically, Internet based Virtual Private Networks, power line communications, satellite communications and wireless communications (wireless sensor networks, WiMAX and wireless mesh networks) are described in detail. The motivation of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the hybrid network architecture that can provide heterogeneous electric system automation application requirements. In this regard, our aim is to present a structured framework for electric utilities who plan to utilize new communication technologies for automation and hence, to make the decision making process more effective and direct.This work was supported by NEETRAC under Project #04-157

MENU: multicast emulation using netlets and unicast

High-end networking applications such as Internet TV and software distribution have generated a demand for multicast protocols as an integral part of the network. This will allow such applications to support data dissemination to large groups of users in a scalable and reliable manner. Existing IP multicast protocols lack these features and also require state storage in the core of the network which is costly to implement. In this paper, we present a new multicast protocol referred to as MENU. It realises a scalable and a reliable multicast protocol model by pushing the tree building complexity to the edges of the network, thereby eliminating processing and state storage in the core of the network. The MENU protocol builds multicast support in the network using mobile agent based active network services, Netlets, and unicast addresses. The multicast delivery tree in MENU is a two level hierarchical structure where users are partitioned into client communities based on geographical proximity. Each client community in the network is treated as a single virtual destination for traffic from the server. Netlet based services referred to as hot spot delegates (HSDs) are deployed by servers at "hot spots" close to each client community. They function as virtual traffic destinations for the traffic from the server and also act as virtual source nodes for all users in the community. The source node feeds data to these distributed HSDs which in turn forward data to all downstream users through a locally constructed traffic delivery tree. It is shown through simulations that the resulting system provides an efficient means to incrementally build a source customisable secured multicast protocol which is both scalable and reliable. Furthermore, results show that MENU employs minimal processing and reduced state information in networks when compared to existing IP multicast protocols