MeDICINE: Rapid Prototyping of Production-Ready Network Services in Multi-PoP Environments

Virtualized network services consisting of multiple individual network functions are already today deployed across multiple sites, so called multi-PoP (points of presence) environ- ments. This allows to improve service performance by optimizing its placement in the network. But prototyping and testing of these complex distributed software systems becomes extremely challenging. The reason is that not only the network service as such has to be tested but also its integration with management and orchestration systems. Existing solutions, like simulators, basic network emulators, or local cloud testbeds, do not support all aspects of these tasks. To this end, we introduce MeDICINE, a novel NFV prototyping platform that is able to execute production-ready network func- tions, provided as software containers, in an emulated multi-PoP environment. These network functions can be controlled by any third-party management and orchestration system that connects to our platform through standard interfaces. Based on this, a developer can use our platform to prototype and test complex network services in a realistic environment running on his laptop.Comment: 6 pages, pre-prin

The development of metrica

Examining performance data over time can help operators identify underlying trends that would go unnoticed if the data was merely looked at in real time, then discarded. Network performance reporting management can lead to a more proactive style of network management. Metrica/NPR is a Network Performance Reporting application that provides network operators an integrated view of the performance of telecommunications networks for various technology including wireless, wireline and Internet Protocol (IP). Metrica/NPR helps operators improve their understanding of network behavior by managing, analyzing and reporting, performance statistics generated by the network. Metrica/NPR 3.3 is the latest release of Metrica/NPR product line produced by ADC in order to adopt the challenge of a continuously changing network environment. It is a significant release, which is for the first time being developed from ADC research and development (R&D) center in Kuala Lumpur. ADC Software Systems is an ISO9001:2000 certified company since June 1998 for its management system in product development and deployment. Quality management system, now called as business management system (BMS), is the primary process reference in product development. The development of Metrica/NPR 3.3 explores the internal part of ADC development process involved in producing a great software product, focusing on coding and testing, based on BMS. Besides the requirement of high set of programming technique and deep exploration on different operating system environment, this technical report explains the details aspect of the software development activities such as coding, testing, project management and configuration management

Develop a FTTH network management system using visual basic

This paper proposed an efficient network management software tool named Smart Access Network _ Testing,Analyzing and Database (SANTAD) for remote control, inservice transmission surveillance, centralized monitoring, and fault detection for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) using Visual Basic programming. A virtual network is setup to operate the software tool from central office (CO) or remote point.This program is able to prevent and detect the occurrence of fault in network system through event identification against optical signal level, attenuation, and losses.SANTAD enable each status of transmission link to be displayed a single screen with capability to configure the attenuation and detect the failure simultaneously

USER-CENTRED METHODS IN THE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF SOFTWARE TOOLS TO SUPPORT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS

The aim of the present work was to investigate the development of improved software tools for management consultants, and to investigate the effectiveness of augmented user-centred methods in this development, and thereby consider the more general use of augmented user-centred methods to develop software tools that support creative human activity systems. The research method used draws from and integrates aspects of user-centred design, soft systems methods, structured systems analysis and design, and software engineering. This includes using user literature, 'thinking aloud' role play observations, and interviews to develop a user model of the management consultancy process; using literature of related disciplines (qualitative data analysis and social network analysis), literature of existing computer assisted management consultant software tools, and formative iterative prototyping, empirical user testing and heuristic evaluation to synthesise a general design rationale of software tools for management consultants; and using empirical user testing and a subjective user acceptability interview to holistically evaluate the impact of the use of such software tools on the management consultancy process. The results provide evidence that the use of such software tools will provide significant benefits to management consultants, and that the overall impact can be summarised by delayed payback: although the use of the software draws out the early stages of an assignment it speeds up later stages, and although it may take a couple of assignments to realise its ftill potential, it leads to a deeper and more rigorous understanding of the client organisation. This leads to an original contribution to knowledge in the conclusions that integrated qualitative data analysis and social network analysis software tools can be useful to management consultants, and user-centred methods are important in the development of software tools for creative human activity systems

Monitoring wild animal communities with arrays of motion sensitive camera traps

Studying animal movement and distribution is of critical importance to addressing environmental challenges including invasive species, infectious diseases, climate and land-use change. Motion sensitive camera traps offer a visual sensor to record the presence of a broad range of species providing location -specific information on movement and behavior. Modern digital camera traps that record video present new analytical opportunities, but also new data management challenges. This paper describes our experience with a terrestrial animal monitoring system at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Our camera network captured the spatio-temporal dynamics of terrestrial bird and mammal activity at the site - data relevant to immediate science questions, and long-term conservation issues. We believe that the experience gained and lessons learned during our year long deployment and testing of the camera traps as well as the developed solutions are applicable to broader sensor network applications and are valuable for the advancement of the sensor network research. We suggest that the continued development of these hardware, software, and analytical tools, in concert, offer an exciting sensor-network solution to monitoring of animal populations which could realistically scale over larger areas and time spans

Consistent SDNs through Network State Fuzzing

The conventional wisdom is that a software-defined network (SDN) operates under the premise that the logically centralized control plane has an accurate representation of the actual data plane state. Unfortunately, bugs, misconfigurations, faults or attacks can introduce inconsistencies that undermine correct operation. Previous work in this area, however, lacks a holistic methodology to tackle this problem and thus, addresses only certain parts of the problem. Yet, the consistency of the overall system is only as good as its least consistent part. Motivated by an analogy of network consistency checking with program testing, we propose to add active probe-based network state fuzzing to our consistency check repertoire. Hereby, our system, PAZZ, combines production traffic with active probes to periodically test if the actual forwarding path and decision elements (on the data plane) correspond to the expected ones (on the control plane). Our insight is that active traffic covers the inconsistency cases beyond the ones identified by passive traffic. PAZZ prototype was built and evaluated on topologies of varying scale and complexity. Our results show that PAZZ requires minimal network resources to detect persistent data plane faults through fuzzing and localize them quickly while outperforming baseline approaches.Comment: Added three extra relevant references, the arXiv later was accepted in IEEE Transactions of Network and Service Management (TNSM), 2019 with the title "Towards Consistent SDNs: A Case for Network State Fuzzing

Developmental Flight Test Lessons Learned from Open Architecture Software in the Mission Computer of the U.S. Navy E-2C Group II Aircraft

The Naval Air Systems Command commissioned the E-2C Hawkeye Group II Mission Computer Replacement Program and tasked Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two-Zero and the E-2C Integrated Test Team to evaluate the integration of the form, fit, and function of the OL-698/ASQ Mission Computer Replacement (MCR) for replacement of the Litton L-304 Mission Computer in the E-2C Group II configured aircraft. As part of the life cycle support of the E-2C aircraft, the MCR configuration fields a new, more reliable Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) hardware system and preserves the original software investment by emulating the existing Litton Instructional Set Architecture (LISA) legacy code. Incorporating Northrop Grumman Space Technology’s Reconfigurable Processor for Legacy Applications Code Execution (RePLACE) software re-hosting technique, the investment in the LISA software is maintained. Conducting developmental test of robust software systems, such as the MCR and its associated software, provided dramatically different challenges than traditional developmental testing. A series of lessons were learned through particular discrepancies and deficiencies discovered through the six month flight test period. Specific deficiencies illustrate where proper planning could ease the difficulties encountered in software testing. Keys to successful developmental software tests include having the appropriate personnel on the test team with the proper equipment and capability. Equally important, inadequate configuration management creates more problems than fixes. Software re-programming can provide faster fixes than traditional developmental test. The flexibility of software programming makes configuration management a challenge as multiple versions become available in a short amount of time. Multiple versions of software heighten the risk of configuration management breakdown during limited amount of available flight tests. Each re-programmed version potentially fixes targeted deficiencies, but can also cause new issues in functional areas already tested. Inherently, regression testing impacts the schedule. Software testing requires a realistic schedule that the author believes should compensate for anticipated problems. Data collection, reduction, and analysis always prove to be valuable in developmental testing. A solid instrumentation plan for data collection from all parties involved in flight tests, especially data link network tests, are critical for trouble shooting discovered deficiencies. Software testing is relatively new to the developmental test world and can be seen as the way of the future. Software upgrades lure program managers into a potentially cost effective option in the face of aging avionics systems. With realistic planning and configuration management, the cost and performance effectiveness of software upgrades and development is more likely to become realized

An automated calibration laboratory for flight research instrumentation: Requirements and a proposed design approach

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility (Ames-Dryden), operates a diverse fleet of research aircraft which are heavily instrumented to provide both real time data for in-flight monitoring and recorded data for postflight analysis. Ames-Dryden's existing automated calibration (AUTOCAL) laboratory is a computerized facility which tests aircraft sensors to certify accuracy for anticipated harsh flight environments. Recently, a major AUTOCAL lab upgrade was initiated; the goal of this modernization is to enhance productivity and improve configuration management for both software and test data. The new system will have multiple testing stations employing distributed processing linked by a local area network to a centralized database. The baseline requirements for the new AUTOCAL lab and the design approach being taken for its mechanization are described

Lightweight testbed for machine learning evaluation in 5G networks

The adoption of Software Define Networking, Network Function Virtualization and Machine Learning will play a key role in the control and management of fifth-generation (5G) networks in order to meet the specific requirements of vertical industries and the stringent requirements of 5G. Machine learning could be applied in 5G networks to deal with issues such as traffic prediction, routing optimization and resource management. To evaluate the adoption of machine learning in 5G networks, an adequate testing environment is required. In this paper, we introduce a lightweight testbed, which utilizes the benefits of container lightweight virtualization technology to create machine learning network functions over the well-known Mininet network emulator. As a use case of this testbed, we present an experimental real-time bandwidth prediction using the Long Short Term Memory recurrent neural network.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version