Global state, local decisions: Decentralized NFV for ISPs via enhanced SDN

The network functions virtualization paradigm is rapidly gaining interest among Internet service providers. However, the transition to this paradigm on ISP networks comes with a unique set of challenges: legacy equipment already in place, heterogeneous traffic from multiple clients, and very large scalability requirements. In this article we thoroughly analyze such challenges and discuss NFV design guidelines that address them efficiently. Particularly, we show that a decentralization of NFV control while maintaining global state improves scalability, offers better per-flow decisions and simplifies the implementation of virtual network functions. Building on top of such principles, we propose a partially decentralized NFV architecture enabled via an enhanced software-defined networking infrastructure. We also perform a qualitative analysis of the architecture to identify advantages and challenges. Finally, we determine the bottleneck component, based on the qualitative analysis, which we implement and benchmark in order to assess the feasibility of the architecture.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Designing a VM-level vertical scalability service in current cloud platforms: A new hope for wearable computers

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Public clouds are becoming ripe for enterprise adoption. Many companies, including large enterprises, are increasingly relying on public clouds as a substitute for, or a supplement to, their own computing infrastructures. On the other hand, cloud storage service has attracted over 625 million users. However, apart from the storage service, other cloud services, such as the computing service, have not yet attracted the end users’ interest for economic and technical reasons. Cloud service providers offers horizontal scalability to make their services scalable and economical for enterprises while it is still not economical for the individual users to use their computing services due to the lack of vertical scalability. Moreover, current virtualization technologies and operating systems, specifically the guest operating systems installed on virtual machines, do not support the concept of vertical scalability. In addition, network remote access protocols are meant to administer remote machines but they are unable to run the non-administrative tasks such as playing heavy games and watching high quality videos remotely in a way that makes the users feel as if they are sitting locally on their personal machines. On the other hand, the industry is yet unable to make efficient wearable computers a reality due to the limited size of the wearable devices, where it is infeasible to place efficient processors and big enough hard disks. This paper aims to highlight the need for the vertical scalability service and design the appropriate cloud, virtualization layer, and operating system services to incorporate vertical scalability in current cloud platforms in a way that will make it economically and technically efficient for the end users to use cloud virtual machines as if they are using their personal laptops. Through these services, the cloud takes wearable computing to the next stage and makes wearable computers a reality

A Low Cost Two-Tier Architecture Model For High Availability Clusters Application Load Balancing

This article proposes a design and implementation of a low cost two-tier architecture model for high availability cluster combined with load-balancing and shared storage technology to achieve desired scale of three-tier architecture for application load balancing e.g. web servers. The research work proposes a design that physically omits Network File System (NFS) server nodes and implements NFS server functionalities within the cluster nodes, through Red Hat Cluster Suite (RHCS) with High Availability (HA) proxy load balancing technologies. In order to achieve a low-cost implementation in terms of investment in hardware and computing solutions, the proposed architecture will be beneficial. This system intends to provide steady service despite any system components fails due to uncertainly such as network system, storage and applications.Comment: Load balancing, high availability cluster, web server cluster

Secure Virtualization and Multicore Platforms State-of-the-Art report

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