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Measurement-Driven Algorithm and System Design for Wireless and Datacenter Networks
The growing number of mobile devices and data-intensive applications pose unique challenges for wireless access networks as well as datacenter networks that enable modern cloud-based services. With the enormous increase in volume and complexity of traffic from applications such as video streaming and cloud computing, the interconnection networks have become a major performance bottleneck. In this thesis, we study algorithms and architectures spanning several layers of the networking protocol stack that enable and accelerate novel applications and that are easily deployable and scalable. The design of these algorithms and architectures is motivated by measurements and observations in real world or experimental testbeds.
In the first part of this thesis, we address the challenge of wireless content delivery in crowded areas. We present the AMuSe system, whose objective is to enable scalable and adaptive WiFi multicast. AMuSe is based on accurate receiver feedback and incurs a small control overhead. This feedback information can be used by the multicast sender to optimize multicast service quality, e.g., by dynamically adjusting transmission bitrate. Specifically, we develop an algorithm for dynamic selection of a subset of the multicast receivers as feedback nodes which periodically send information about the channel quality to the multicast sender. Further, we describe the Multicast Dynamic Rate Adaptation (MuDRA) algorithm that utilizes AMuSe's feedback to optimally tune the physical layer multicast rate. MuDRA balances fast adaptation to channel conditions and stability, which is essential for multimedia applications.
We implemented the AMuSe system on the ORBIT testbed and evaluated its performance in large groups with approximately 200 WiFi nodes. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that AMuSe can provide accurate feedback in a dense multicast environment. It outperforms several alternatives even in the case of external interference and changing network conditions. Further, our experimental evaluation of MuDRA on the ORBIT testbed shows that MuDRA outperforms other schemes and supports high throughput multicast flows to hundreds of nodes while meeting quality requirements. As an example application, MuDRA can support multiple high quality video streams, where 90% of the nodes report excellent or very good video quality.
Next, we specifically focus on ensuring high Quality of Experience (QoE) for video streaming over WiFi multicast. We formulate the problem of joint adaptation of multicast transmission rate and video rate for ensuring high video QoE as a utility maximization problem and propose an online control algorithm called DYVR which is based on Lyapunov optimization techniques. We evaluated the performance of DYVR through analysis, simulations, and experiments using a testbed composed of Android devices and o the shelf APs. Our evaluation shows that DYVR can ensure high video rates while guaranteeing a low but acceptable number of segment losses, buffer underflows, and video rate switches.
We leverage the lessons learnt from AMuSe for WiFi to address the performance issues with LTE evolved Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (eMBMS). We present the Dynamic Monitoring (DyMo) system which provides low-overhead and real-time feedback about eMBMS performance. DyMo employs eMBMS for broadcasting instructions which indicate the reporting rates as a function of the observed Quality of Service (QoS) for each UE. This simple feedback mechanism collects very limited QoS reports which can be used for network optimization. We evaluated the performance of DyMo analytically and via simulations. DyMo infers the optimal eMBMS settings with extremely low overhead, while meeting strict QoS requirements under different UE mobility patterns and presence of network component failures.
In the second part of the thesis, we study datacenter networks which are key enablers of the end-user applications such as video streaming and storage. Datacenter applications such as distributed file systems, one-to-many virtual machine migrations, and large-scale data processing involve bulk multicast flows. We propose a hardware and software system for enabling physical layer optical multicast in datacenter networks using passive optical splitters. We built a prototype and developed a simulation environment to evaluate the performance of the system for bulk multicasting. Our evaluation shows that the optical multicast architecture can achieve higher throughput and lower latency than IP multicast and peer-to-peer multicast schemes with lower switching energy consumption.
Finally, we study the problem of congestion control in datacenter networks. Quantized Congestion Control (QCN), a switch-supported standard, utilizes direct multi-bit feedback from the network for hardware rate limiting. Although QCN has been shown to be fast-reacting and effective, being a Layer-2 technology limits its adoption in IP-routed Layer 3 datacenters. We address several design challenges to overcome QCN feedback's Layer- 2 limitation and use it to design window-based congestion control (QCN-CC) and load balancing (QCN-LB) schemes. Our extensive simulations, based on real world workloads, demonstrate the advantages of explicit, multi-bit congestion feedback, especially in a typical environment where intra-datacenter traffic with short Round Trip Times (RTT: tens of s) run in conjunction with web-facing traffic with long RTTs (tens of milliseconds)
Radio resource allocation algorithms for multicast OFDM systems
Mención Internacional en el título de doctorVideo services have become highly demanded in mobile networks leading
to an unprecedented traffic growth. It is expected that traffic from wireless
and mobile devices will account for nearly 70 percent of total IP traffic
by the year 2020, and the video services will account for nearly 75 percent
of mobile data traffic by 2022. Multicast transmission is one of the key
enablers towards a more spectral and energy efficient distribution of multimedia
content in current and envisaged mobile networks. It is worth noting
that multicast is a mechanism that efficiently delivers the same content to
many users, not only focusing on video broadcasting, but also distributing
many other media, such as software updates, weather forecast or breaking
news.
Although multicast services are available in Long Term Evolution (LTE)
and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks, new improvements are needed in
some areas to handle the demands expected in the near future. Resource
allocation techniques for multicast services are one of the main challenging
issues, since it is required the development of novel schemes to meet the
demands of their evolution towards the next generation. Most multicast
techniques adopt rather conservative strategies that select a very robust
modulation and coding scheme (MCS), whose characteristics are determined
by the propagation conditions experienced by the worst user in the group
in order to ensure that all users in a multicast group are able to correctly
decode the received data. Obviously, this robustness comes at the prize of
a low spectral efficiency.
This thesis presents an exhaustive study of broadcast/multicast technology
for current mobile networks, especially focusing on the scheduling
and resource allocation (SRA) strategies to maximize the potential benefits
that multicast transmissions imply on the spectral efficiency. Based on that
issue, some contributions have been made to the state of the art in the radio
resource management (RRM) for current and beyond mobile multicast
services.
• In the frame of LTE/LTE-A, the evolved multimedia broadcast and
multicast service (eMBMS) shares the physical layer resources with the
unicast transmission mode (at least up to Release 12). Consequently,
the time allocation to multicast transmission is limited to a maximum
of a 60 percent, and the remaining subframes (at least 40 percent)
are reserved for unicast transmissions. With the aim of achieving the
maximum aggregated data rate (ADR) among the multicast users, we
have implemented several innovative SRA schemes that combine the
allocation of multicast and unicast resources in the LTE/LTE-A frame,
guaranteeing the prescribed quality of service (QoS) requirements for
every user.
• In the specific context of wideband communication systems, the selection
of the multicast MCS has often relied on the use of wideband
channel quality indicators (CQIs), providing rather imprecise information
regarding the potential capacity of the multicast channel. Only
recently has the per-subband CQI been used to improve the spectral
efficiency of the system without compromising the link robustness.
We have proposed novel subband CQI-based multicast SRA strategies
that, relying on the selection of more spectrally efficient transmission
modes, lead to increased data rates while still being able to fulfill
prescribed QoS metrics.
• Mobile broadcast/multicast video services require effective and low complexity
SRA strategies. We have proposed an SRA strategy based
on multicast subgrouping and the scalable video coding (SVC) technique for multicast video delivery. This scheme focuses on reducing
the search space of solutions and optimizes the ADR. The results in
terms of ADR, spectral efficiency, and fairness among multicast users,
along with the low complexity of the algorithm, show that this new
scheme is adequate for real systems.
These contributions are intended to serve as a reference that motivate
ongoing and future investigation in the challenging field of RRM for broadcast/
multicast services in next generation mobile networks.La demanda de servicios de vídeo en las redes móviles ha sufrido un incremento
exponencial en los últimos años, lo que a su vez ha desembocado
en un aumento sin precedentes del tráfico de datos. Se espera que antes
del año 2020, el trafico debido a dispositivos móviles alcance cerca del 70
por ciento del tráfico IP total, mientras que se prevé que los servicios de
vídeo sean prácticamente el 75 por ciento del tráfico de datos en las redes
móviles hacia el 2022. Las transmisiones multicast son una de las tecnologías
clave para conseguir una distribución más eficiente, tanto espectral como
energéticamente, del contenido multimedia en las redes móviles actuales y
futuras. Merece la pena reseñar que el multicast es un mecanismo de entrega
del mismo contenido a muchos usuarios, que no se enfoca exclusivamente
en la distribución de vídeo, sino que también permite la distribución de
otros muchos contenidos, como actualizaciones software, información meteorológica o noticias de última hora.
A pesar de que los servicios multicast ya se encuentran disponibles en
las redes Long Term Evolution (LTE) y LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), la mejora
en algunos ámbitos resulta necesaria para manejar las demandas que se
prevén a corto plazo. Las técnicas de asignación de recursos para los servicios
multicast suponen uno de los mayores desafíos, ya que es necesario
el desarrollo de nuevos esquemas que nos permitan acometer las exigencias
que supone su evolución hacia la próxima generación. La mayor parte de
las técnicas multicast adoptan estrategias conservadoras, seleccionando esquemas
de modulación y codificación (MCS) impuestos por las condiciones de propagación que experimenta el usuario del grupo con peor canal, para
así asegurar que todos los usuarios pertenecientes al grupo multicast sean
capaces de decodificar correctamente los datos recibidos. Como resulta obvio,
la utilización de esquemas tan robustos conlleva el precio de sufrir una
baja eficiencia espectral.
Esta tesis presenta un exhaustivo estudio de la tecnología broadcast/
multicast para las redes móviles actuales, que se centra especialmente en
las estrategias de asignación de recursos (SRA), cuyo objetivo es maximizar
los beneficios que la utilización de transmisiones multicast potencialmente
implica en términos de eficiencia espectral. A partir de dicho estudio, hemos
realizado varias contribuciones al estado del arte en el ámbito de la gestión
de recursos radio (RRM) para los servicios multicast, aplicables en las redes
móviles actuales y futuras.
• En el marco de LTE/LTE-A, el eMBMS comparte los recursos de la
capa física con las transmisiones unicast (al menos hasta la revisión
12). Por lo tanto, la disponibilidad temporal de las transmisiones
multicast está limitada a un máximo del 60 por ciento, reservándose
las subtramas restantes (al menos el 40 por ciento) para las transmisiones
unicast. Con el objetivo de alcanzar la máxima tasa total de
datos (ADR) entre los usuarios multicast, hemos implementado varios
esquemas innovadores de SRA que combinan la asignación de los recursos
multicast y unicast de la trama LTE/LTE-A, garantizando los
requisitos de QoS a cada usuario.
• En los sistemas de comunicaciones de banda ancha, la selección del
MCS para transmisiones multicast se basa habitualmente en la utilización de CQIs de banda ancha, lo que proporciona información bastante
imprecisa acerca de la capacidad potencial del canal multicast.
Recientemente se ha empezado a utilizar el CQI por subbanda para
mejorar la eficiencia espectral del sistema sin comprometer la robustez
de los enlaces. Hemos propuesto nuevas estrategias para SRA multicast
basadas en el CQI por subbanda que, basándose en la selección de los modos de transmisión con mayor eficiencia espectral, conducen
a mejores tasas de datos, a la vez que permiten cumplir los requisitos
de QoS.
• Los servicios móviles de vídeo broadcast/multicast precisan estrategias
eficientes de SRA con baja complejidad. Hemos propuesto una
estrategia de SRA basada en subgrupos multicast y la técnica de
codificación de vídeo escalable (SVC) para la difusión de vídeo multicast,
la cual se centra en reducir el espacio de búsqueda de soluciones
y optimizar el ADR. Los resultados obtenidos en términos de ADR,
eficiencia espectral y equidad entre los usuarios multicast, junto con la
baja complejidad del algoritmo, ponen de manifiesto que el esquema
propuesto es adecuado para su implantación en sistemas reales.
Estas contribuciones pretenden servir de referencia que motive la investigación actual y futura en el interesante ámbito de RRM para los servicios
broadcast/multicast en las redes móviles de próxima generación.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Multimedia y ComunicacionesPresidente: Atilio Manuel Da Silva Gameiro.- Secretario: Víctor Pedro Gil Jiménez.- Vocal: María de Diego Antó
Distribuição de vídeo para grupos de utilizadores em redes móveis heterogéneas19
The evolutions veri ed in mobile devices capabilities (storage capacity, screen
resolution, processor, etc.) over the last years led to a signi cant change
in mobile user behavior, with the consumption and creation of multimedia
content becoming more common, in particular video tra c. Consequently,
mobile operator networks, despite being the target of architectural evolutions
and improvements over several parameters (such as capacity, transmission
and reception performance, amongst others), also increasingly become more
frequently challenged by performance aspects associated to the nature of
video tra c, whether by the demanding requirements associated to that
service, or by its volume increase in such networks.
This Thesis proposes modi cations to the mobile architecture towards a more
e cient video broadcasting, de ning and developing mechanisms applicable
to the network, or to the mobile terminal. Particularly, heterogeneous
networks multicast IP mobility supported scenarios are focused, emphasizing
their application over di erent access technologies. The suggested changes
are applicable to mobile or static user scenarios, whether it performs the role
of receiver or source of the video tra c. Similarly, the de ned mechanisms
propose solutions targeting operators with di erent video broadcasting goals,
or whose networks have di erent characteristics. The pursued methodology
combined an experimental evaluation executed over physical testbeds,
with the mathematical evaluation using network simulation, allowing the
veri cation of its impact on the optimization of video reception in mobile
terminalsA evolução veri cada nas características dos dispositivos moveis (capacidade
de armazenamento, resolução do ecrã, processador, etc.) durante os
últimos anos levou a uma alteração signi cativa nos comportamentos dos
utilizadores, sendo agora comum o consumo e produção de conteúdos
multimédia envolvendo terminais móveis, em particular o tráfego vídeo.
Consequentemente, as redes de operador móvel, embora tendo também sido
alvo constante de evoluções arquitecturais e melhorias em vários parâmetros
(tais como capacidade, ritmo de transmissão/recepção, entre outros), vêemse
cada vez mais frequentemente desa adas por aspectos de desempenho
associados à natureza do tráfego de vídeo, seja pela exigência de requisitos
associados a esse serviço, quer pelo aumento do volume do mesmo nesse
tipo de redes.
Esta Tese propôe alterações à arquitetura móvel para a disseminação de vídeo
mais e ciente, de nindo e desenvolvendo mecanismos aplicáveis à rede, ou
ao utilizador móvel. Em particular, são focados cenários suportados por IP
multicast em redes móveis heterogéneas, isto é, com ênfase na aplicação
destes mecanismos sobre diferentes tecnologias de acesso. As alterações
sugeridas aplicam-se a cenários de utilizador estático ou móvel, sendo este a
fonte ou receptor do tráfego vídeo. Da mesma forma, são propostas soluções
tendo em vista operadores com diferentes objectivos de disseminação de
vídeo, ou cujas redes têm diferentes características. A metodologia utilizada
combinou a avaliação experimental em testbeds físicas com a avaliação
matemática em simulações de redes, e permitiu veri car o impacto sobre
a optimização da recepção de vídeo em terminais móveisPrograma Doutoral em Telecomunicaçõe
Exploiting Caching and Multicast for 5G Wireless Networks
The landscape toward 5G wireless communication is currently unclear, and, despite the efforts of academia and industry in evolving traditional cellular networks, the enabling technology for 5G is still obscure. This paper puts forward a network paradigm toward next-generation cellular networks, targeting to satisfy the explosive demand for mobile data while minimizing energy expenditures. The paradigm builds on two principles; namely caching and multicast. On one hand, caching policies disperse popular content files at the wireless edge, e.g., pico-cells and femto-cells, hence shortening the distance between content and requester. On other hand, due to the broadcast nature of wireless medium, requests for identical files occurring at nearby times are aggregated and served through a common multicast stream. To better exploit the available cache space, caching policies are optimized based on multicast transmissions. We show that the multicast-aware caching problem is NP-hard and develop solutions with performance guarantees using randomized-rounding techniques. Trace-driven numerical results show that in the presence of massive demand for delay tolerant content, combining caching and multicast can indeed reduce energy costs. The gains over existing caching schemes are 19% when users tolerate delay of three minutes, increasing further with the steepness of content access pattern
Towards efficient support for massive Internet of Things over cellular networks
The usage of Internet of Things (IoT) devices over cellular networks is seeing tremendous
growth in recent years, and that growth in only expected to increase in the near
future. While existing 4G and 5G cellular networks offer several desirable features for
this type of applications, their design has historically focused on accommodating traditional
mobile devices (e.g. smartphones). As IoT devices have very different characteristics
and use cases, they create a range of problems to current networks which often
struggle to accommodate them at scale. Although newer cellular network technologies,
such as Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT), were designed to focus on the IoT characteristics,
they were extensively based on 4G and 5G networks to preserve interoperability, and
decrease their deployment cost. As such, several inefficiencies of 4G/5G were also
carried over to the newer technologies.
This thesis focuses on identifying the core issues that hinder the large scale deployment
of IoT over cellular networks, and proposes novel protocols to largely alleviate
them. We find that the most significant challenges arise mainly in three distinct areas:
connection establishment, network resource utilisation and device energy efficiency.
Specifically, we make the following contributions. First, we focus on the connection
establishment process and argue that the current procedures, when used by IoT devices,
result in increased numbers of collisions, network outages and a signalling overhead
that is disproportionate to the size of the data transmitted, and the connection duration
of IoT devices. Therefore, we propose two mechanisms to alleviate these inefficiencies.
Our first mechanism, named ASPIS, focuses on both the number of collisions
and the signalling overhead simultaneously, and provides enhancements to increase the
number of successful IoT connections, without disrupting existing background traffic.
Our second mechanism focuses specifically on the collisions at the connection establishment
process, and used a novel approach with Reinforcement Learning, to decrease
their number and allow a larger number of IoT devices to access the network with fewer
attempts.
Second, we propose a new multicasting mechanism to reduce network resource
utilisation in NB-IoT networks, by delivering common content (e.g. firmware updates)
to multiple similar devices simultaneously. Notably, our mechanism is both more efficient
during multicast data transmission, but also frees up resources that would otherwise
be perpetually reserved for multicast signalling under the existing scheme.
Finally, we focus on energy efficiency and propose novel protocols that are designed
for the unique usage characteristics of NB-IoT devices, in order to reduce the
device power consumption. Towards this end, we perform a detailed energy consumption
analysis, which we use as a basis to develop an energy consumption model for
realistic energy consumption assessment. We then take the insights from our analysis,
and propose optimisations to significantly reduce the energy consumption of IoT
devices, and assess their performance
Délestage de données en D2D : de la modélisation à la mise en oeuvre
Mobile data traffic is expected to reach 24.3 exabytes by 2019. Accommodating this growth in a traditional way would require major investments in the radio access network. In this thesis, we turn our attention to an unconventional solution: mobile data offloading through device-to-device (D2D) communications. Our first contribution is DROiD, an offloading strategy that exploits the availability of the cellular infrastructure as a feedback channel. DROiD adapts the injection strategy to the pace of the dissemination, resulting at the same time reactive and relatively simple, allowing to save a relevant amount of data traffic even in the case of tight delivery delay constraints.Then, we shift the focus to the gains that D2D communications could bring if coupled with multicast wireless networks. We demonstrate that by employing a wise balance of multicast and D2D communications we can improve both the spectral efficiency and the load in cellular networks. In order to let the network adapt to current conditions, we devise a learning strategy based on the multi-armed bandit algorithm to identify the best mix of multicast and D2D communications. Finally, we investigate the cost models for operators wanting to reward users who cooperate in D2D offloading. We propose separating the notion of seeders (users that carry content but do not distribute it) and forwarders (users that are tasked to distribute content). With the aid of the analytic framework based on Pontryagin's Maximum Principle, we develop an optimal offloading strategy. Results provide us with an insight on the interactions between seeders, forwarders, and the evolution of data dissemination.Le trafic mobile global atteindra 24,3 exa-octets en 2019. Accueillir cette croissance dans les réseaux d’accès radio devient un véritable casse-tête. Nous porterons donc toute notre attention sur l'une des solutions à ce problème : le délestage (offloading) grâce à des communications de dispositif à dispositif (D2D). Notre première contribution est DROiD, une stratégie qui exploite la disponibilité de l'infrastructure cellulaire comme un canal de retour afin de suivre l'évolution de la diffusion d’un contenu. DROiD s’adapte au rythme de la diffusion, permettant d'économiser une quantité élevée de données cellulaires, même dans le cas de contraintes de réception très serrées. Ensuite, nous mettons l'accent sur les gains que les communications D2D pourraient apporter si elles étaient couplées avec les transmissions multicast. Par l’utilisation équilibrée d'un mix de multicast, et de communications D2D, nous pouvons améliorer, à la fois, l'efficacité spectrale ainsi que la charge du réseau. Afin de permettre l’adaptation aux conditions réelles, nous élaborons une stratégie d'apprentissage basée sur l'algorithme dit ‘’bandit manchot’’ pour identifier la meilleure combinaison de communications multicast et D2D. Enfin, nous mettrons en avant des modèles de coûts pour les opérateurs, désireux de récompenser les utilisateurs qui coopèrent dans le délestage D2D. Nous proposons, pour cela, de séparer la notion de seeders (utilisateurs qui transportent contenu, mais ne le distribuent pas) et de forwarders (utilisateurs qui sont chargés de distribuer le contenu). Avec l'aide d’un outil analytique basée sur le principe maximal de Pontryagin, nous développons une stratégie optimale de délestage