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

QoE-Centric Control and Management of Multimedia Services in Software Defined and Virtualized Networks

Multimedia services consumption has increased tremendously since the deployment of 4G/LTE networks. Mobile video services (e.g., YouTube and Mobile TV) on smart devices are expected to continue to grow with the emergence and evolution of future networks such as 5G. The end user’s demand for services with better quality from service providers has triggered a trend towards Quality of Experience (QoE) - centric network management through efficient utilization of network resources. However, existing network technologies are either unable to adapt to diverse changing network conditions or limited in available resources. This has posed challenges to service providers for provisioning of QoE-centric multimedia services. New networking solutions such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can provide better solutions in terms of QoE control and management of multimedia services in emerging and future networks. The features of SDN, such as adaptability, programmability and cost-effectiveness make it suitable for bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications such as live video streaming, 3D/HD video and video gaming. However, the delivery of multimedia services over SDN/NFV networks to achieve optimized QoE, and the overall QoE-centric network resource management remain an open question especially in the advent development of future softwarized networks. The work in this thesis intends to investigate, design and develop novel approaches for QoE-centric control and management of multimedia services (with a focus on video streaming services) over software defined and virtualized networks. First, a video quality management scheme based on the traffic intensity under Dynamic Adaptive Video Streaming over HTTP (DASH) using SDN is developed. The proposed scheme can mitigate virtual port queue congestion which may cause buffering or stalling events during video streaming, thus, reducing the video quality. A QoE-driven resource allocation mechanism is designed and developed for improving the end user’s QoE for video streaming services. The aim of this approach is to find the best combination of network node functions that can provide an optimized QoE level to end-users through network node cooperation. Furthermore, a novel QoE-centric management scheme is proposed and developed, which utilizes Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and Segment Routing (SR) to enhance QoE for video streaming services over SDN/NFV-based networks. The goal of this strategy is to enable service providers to route network traffic through multiple disjointed bandwidth-satisfying paths and meet specific service QoE guarantees to the end-users. Extensive experiments demonstrated that the proposed schemes in this work improve the video quality significantly compared with the state-of-the- art approaches. The thesis further proposes the path protections and link failure-free MPTCP/SR-based architecture that increases survivability, resilience, availability and robustness of future networks. The proposed path protection and dynamic link recovery scheme achieves a minimum time to recover from a failed link and avoids link congestion in softwarized networks

Software-Defined Networking: A Comprehensive Survey

peer reviewedThe Internet has led to the creation of a digital society, where (almost) everything is connected and is accessible from anywhere. However, despite their widespread adoption, traditional IP networks are complex and very hard to manage. It is both difficult to configure the network according to predefined policies, and to reconfigure it to respond to faults, load, and changes. To make matters even more difficult, current networks are also vertically integrated: the control and data planes are bundled together. Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that promises to change this state of affairs, by breaking vertical integration, separating the network's control logic from the underlying routers and switches, promoting (logical) centralization of network control, and introducing the ability to program the network. The separation of concerns, introduced between the definition of network policies, their implementation in switching hardware, and the forwarding of traffic, is key to the desired flexibility: by breaking the network control problem into tractable pieces, SDN makes it easier to create and introduce new abstractions in networking, simplifying network management and facilitating network evolution. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on SDN. We start by introducing the motivation for SDN, explain its main concepts and how it differs from traditional networking, its roots, and the standardization activities regarding this novel paradigm. Next, we present the key building blocks of an SDN infrastructure using a bottom-up, layered approach. We provide an in-depth analysis of the hardware infrastructure, southbound and northbound application programming interfaces (APIs), network virtualization layers, network operating systems (SDN controllers), network programming languages, and network applications. We also look at cross-layer problems such as debugging and troubleshooting. In an effort to anticipate the future evolution of this - ew paradigm, we discuss the main ongoing research efforts and challenges of SDN. In particular, we address the design of switches and control platforms—with a focus on aspects such as resiliency, scalability, performance, security, and dependability—as well as new opportunities for carrier transport networks and cloud providers. Last but not least, we analyze the position of SDN as a key enabler of a software-defined environment

Towards 6G Through SDN and NFV-Based Solutions for Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks

As societal needs continue to evolve, there has been a marked rise in a wide variety of emerging use cases that cannot be served adequately by existing networks. For example, increasing industrial automation has not only resulted in a massive rise in the number of connected devices, but has also brought forth the need for remote monitoring and reconnaissance at scale, often in remote locations characterized by a lack of connectivity options. Going beyond 5G, which has largely focused on enhancing the quality-of-experience for end devices, the next generation of wireless communications is expected to be centered around the idea of "wireless ubiquity". The concept of wireless ubiquity mandates that the quality of connectivity is not only determined by classical metrics such as throughput, reliability, and latency, but also by the level of coverage offered by the network. In other words, the upcoming sixth generation of wireless communications should be characterized by networks that exhibit high throughput and reliability with low latency, while also providing robust connectivity to a multitude of devices spread across the surface of the Earth, without any geographical constraints. The objective of this PhD thesis is to design novel architectural solutions for the upcoming sixth generation of cellular and space communications systems with a view to enabling wireless ubiquity with software-defined networking and network function virtualization at its core. Towards this goal, this thesis introduces a novel end-to-end system architecture for cellular communications characterized by innovations such as the AirHYPE wireless hypervisor. Furthermore, within the cellular systems domain, solutions for radio access network design with software-defined mobility management, and containerized core network design optimization have also been presented. On the other hand, within the space systems domain, this thesis introduces the concept of the Internet of Space Things (IoST). IoST is a novel cyber-physical system centered on nanosatellites and is capable of delivering ubiquitous connectivity for a wide variety of use cases, ranging from monitoring and reconnaissance to in-space backhauling. In this direction, contributions relating to constellation design, routing, and automatic network slicing form a key aspect of this thesis.Ph.D

QoE management of multimedia streaming services in future networks : a tutorial and survey

No embargo require

A Survey on Data Plane Programming with P4: Fundamentals, Advances, and Applied Research

With traditional networking, users can configure control plane protocols to match the specific network configuration, but without the ability to fundamentally change the underlying algorithms. With SDN, the users may provide their own control plane, that can control network devices through their data plane APIs. Programmable data planes allow users to define their own data plane algorithms for network devices including appropriate data plane APIs which may be leveraged by user-defined SDN control. Thus, programmable data planes and SDN offer great flexibility for network customization, be it for specialized, commercial appliances, e.g., in 5G or data center networks, or for rapid prototyping in industrial and academic research. Programming protocol-independent packet processors (P4) has emerged as the currently most widespread abstraction, programming language, and concept for data plane programming. It is developed and standardized by an open community and it is supported by various software and hardware platforms. In this paper, we survey the literature from 2015 to 2020 on data plane programming with P4. Our survey covers 497 references of which 367 are scientific publications. We organize our work into two parts. In the first part, we give an overview of data plane programming models, the programming language, architectures, compilers, targets, and data plane APIs. We also consider research efforts to advance P4 technology. In the second part, we analyze a large body of literature considering P4-based applied research. We categorize 241 research papers into different application domains, summarize their contributions, and extract prototypes, target platforms, and source code availability.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (COMS) on 2021-01-2

Du placement des services à la surveillance des services dans les réseaux 5G et post-5G

5G and beyond 5G (B5G) networks are expected to accommodate a plethora of network services with diverse requirements using a single physical infrastructure. Hence, the ``one-size fits all'' paradigm that characterized the 4th generation of wireless networks is no longer suitable. By leveraging the last advent of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Network Slicing (NS) is considered as one of the key enablers of this paradigm shift. NS will enable the coexistence of heterogeneous services by partitioning the physical infrastructure into a set of virtual networks ''(the slices)'', each running a particular service. Besides, NS offers more flexibility and agility in business operations.Despite the advantages it brings, NS raises some technical challenges. The placement of network slices is one of them, it is known in the literature as the Virtual Network Embedding Problem (VNEP), and it is an NP-Hard problem. Therefore, the first part of this thesis focuses on unveiling the potential of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to solve the network slice placement problem and overcome the limitations of existing methods. Two approaches are considered: The first one aims to learn automatically how to solve the VNEP. Instead of putting any constraint on the topology of the physical infrastructure or extracting features manually, we formulate the task as a reinforcement problem, and we use a graph convolutional-based neural architecture to learn how to find an optimal solution. Next, instead of training a DRL agent from scratch to find the optimal solution, a process that may result in unsafe training, we train it to reduce the optimality gap of existing heuristics. The motivation behind this contribution is to ensure safety during the training of the DRL agent.The placement of the slices is not the only challenge raised by NS. Once the slices are placed, monitoring the status of network slices becomes a priority for both network slices' tenants and providers in order to ensure that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are not violated. In the second part of this thesis, we propose to leverage machine learning techniques and network tomography to monitor the network slices. Network Tomography (NT) is defined as a set of methods that aim to infer unmeasured network metrics using an end-to-end measurement between monitors.We focus on two main challenges. First, on the inference of slices metrics based on some end-to-end measurements between monitors, as well as on the efficient monitor placement. For the inference, we model the task as a multi-output regression problem, which we solve using neural networks. We propose to train on synthetic data to augment the diversity of the training data and avoid the overfitting issue. Moreover, to deal with the changes that may occur either on the slices we monitor or the topology on top of which they are placed, we use transfer learning techniques.Regarding the monitor's placement problem, we consider a special case where only cycles' probes are allowed. The probing cycle schemes have a significant advantage compared to regular paths since the source probe is actually the destination, which reduces the synchronization problems. We formulate the problem as a variant of the Minimum Set Cover problem. Owing to its complexity, we introduce a standalone solution based on GNNs and genetic algorithms to find a trade-off between the quality of monitors placement and the cost to achieve it.Les réseaux 5G et au-delà sont destinés à servir un large éventail de services réseau aux besoins très disparates tout en utilisant la même infrastructure physique. En scindant l'infrastructure physique en un ensemble de réseaux virtuels, chacun exploitant un service spécifique, le Network Slicing (NS) permettra la coexistence de ces services. En dépit de ses avantages, le NS est complexe d'un point de vue technique puisqu'il s'agit d'un problème NP-hard. La première section de la thèse explore le potentiel de l'apprentissage par renforcement profond (DRL) basé sur des graphes de réseaux neuronaux pour résoudre le problème du placement des tranches de réseau et remédier aux limites des techniques existantes. Deux approches sont proposées : la première consiste à apprendre à résoudre automatiquement le problème du placement. Plutôt que de se limiter à la topologie de l'infrastructure physique ou à extraire manuellement des caractéristiques, le problème est formulé sous la forme d'un processus de décision markovien qui est résolu à l'aide d’un réseau de neurones convolutif à base de graphes pour apprendre à découvrir une solution optimale. Ensuite, plutôt que de former un agent DRL de zéro pour identifier la meilleure solution, ce qui pourrait entraîner un défaut de fiabilité, un agent est présenté pour réduire l'écart d'optimalité des heuristiques existantes. Une fois les tranches placées, la surveillance de l'état des tranches de réseau devient une priorité pour s'assurer que les SLAs sont respectés. Ainsi, dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, il est proposé d'utiliser des techniques d'apprentissage automatique et la tomographie réseau (NT) pour surveiller les tranches de réseau. Il y a deux problèmes majeurs à prendre en compte. Premièrement, les métriques de slices sont déduites sur la base de diverses mesures de bout en bout entre les moniteurs, ainsi que du placement efficace des moniteurs. Des réseaux neuronaux sont utilisés pour traiter l'inférence des métriques. Une approche d'apprentissage par transfert est également utilisée pour faire face aux changements qui peuvent se produire sur les slices surveillés ou sur la topologie physique sur laquelle elles sont placées. Des sondes cycliques sont envisagées pour le problème du placement des moniteurs. Le problème est formulé comme une variante du problème de couverture par ensembles. En raison de sa complexité, il est proposé d'introduire une solution autonome basée sur des réseaux neuronaux à base de graphes (GNN) et des algorithmes génétiques pour trouver un compromis entre la qualité du placement des moniteurs et le coût pour y parvenir

Software Defined Application Delivery Networking

In this thesis we present the architecture, design, and prototype implementation details of AppFabric. AppFabric is a next generation application delivery platform for easily creating, managing and controlling massively distributed and very dynamic application deployments that may span multiple datacenters. Over the last few years, the need for more flexibility, finer control, and automatic management of large (and messy) datacenters has stimulated technologies for virtualizing the infrastructure components and placing them under software-based management and control; generically called Software-defined Infrastructure (SDI). However, current applications are not designed to leverage this dynamism and flexibility offered by SDI and they mostly depend on a mix of different techniques including manual configuration, specialized appliances (middleboxes), and (mostly) proprietary middleware solutions together with a team of extremely conscientious and talented system engineers to get their applications deployed and running. AppFabric, 1) automates the whole control and management stack of application deployment and delivery, 2) allows application architects to define logical workflows consisting of application servers, message-level middleboxes, packet-level middleboxes and network services (both, local and wide-area) composed over application-level routing policies, and 3) provides the abstraction of an application cloud that allows the application to dynamically (and automatically) expand and shrink its distributed footprint across multiple geographically distributed datacenters operated by different cloud providers. The architecture consists of a hierarchical control plane system called Lighthouse and a fully distributed data plane design (with no special hardware components such as service orchestrators, load balancers, message brokers, etc.) called OpenADN . The current implementation (under active development) consists of ~10000 lines of python and C code. AppFabric will allow applications to fully leverage the opportunities provided by modern virtualized Software-Defined Infrastructures. It will serve as the platform for deploying massively distributed, and extremely dynamic next generation application use-cases, including: Internet-of-Things/Cyber-Physical Systems: Through support for managing distributed gather-aggregate topologies common to most Internet-of-Things(IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems(CPS) use-cases. By their very nature, IoT and CPS use cases are massively distributed and have different levels of computation and storage requirements at different locations. Also, they have variable latency requirements for their different distributed sites. Some services, such as device controllers, in an Iot/CPS application workflow may need to gather, process and forward data under near-real time constraints and hence need to be as close to the device as possible. Other services may need more computation to process aggregated data to drive long term business intelligence functions. AppFabric has been designed to provide support for such very dynamic, highly diversified and massively distributed application use-cases. Network Function Virtualization: Through support for heterogeneous workflows, application-aware networking, and network-aware application deployments, AppFabric will enable new partnerships between Application Service Providers (ASPs) and Network Service Providers (NSPs). An application workflow in AppFabric may comprise of application services, packet and message-level middleboxes, and network transport services chained together over an application-level routing substrate. The Application-level routing substrate allows policy-based service chaining where the application may specify policies for routing their application traffic over different services based on application-level content or context. Virtual worlds/multiplayer games: Through support for creating, managing and controlling dynamic and distributed application clouds needed by these applications. AppFabric allows the application to easily specify policies to dynamically grow and shrink the application\u27s footprint over different geographical sites, on-demand. Mobile Apps: Through support for extremely diversified and very dynamic application contexts typical of such applications. Also, AppFabric provides support for automatically managing massively distributed service deployment and controlling application traffic based on application-level policies. This allows mobile applications to provide the best Quality-of-Experience to its users without This thesis is the first to handle and provide a complete solution for such a complex and relevant architectural problem that is expected to touch each of our lives by enabling exciting new application use-cases that are not possible today. Also, AppFabric is a non-proprietary platform that is expected to spawn lots of innovations both in the design of the platform itself and the features it provides to applications. AppFabric still needs many iterations, both in terms of design and implementation maturity. This thesis is not the end of journey for AppFabric but rather just the beginning