Experimental SDN Control Solutions for Automatic Operations and Management of 5G Services in a Fixed Mobile Converged Packet-Optical Network

5G networks will impose network operators to accommodate services demanding heterogeneous and stringent requirements in terms of increased bandwidth, reduced latency, higher availability, etc. as well as enabling emerging capabilities such as slicing. Operators will be then forced to make notable investments in their infrastructure but the revenue is not envisaged to be proportional. Thereby, operators are seeking for more cost-effective solutions to keep their competitiveness. An appealing solution is to integrate all (broadband) services including both fixed and mobile in a convergent way. This is referred to as Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). FMC allows seamlessly serving any kind of access service over the same network infrastructure (access, aggregation and core) and relying on common set of control and operation functions. To this end, FMC leverages the benefits provided by Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). First, we discuss some of the explored FMC solutions and technologies, from both structural and functional perspectives Next, focusing on a Multi-Layer (Packet and Optical) Aggregation Network, we report two implemented and experimentally validated SDN/NFV orchestration architectures providing feasibleThis work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry MINECO projects DESTELLO (TEC2015-69256-R) and 5G-REFINE (TEC2017-88373-R), and the EU H2020 5G TRANSFORMER project (grant no. 761536)

Integrated SDN/NFV management and orchestration architecture for dynamic deployment of virtual SDN control instances for virtual tenant networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) have emerged as the most promising candidates for improving network function and protocol programmability and dynamic adjustment of network resources. On the one hand, SDN is responsible for providing an abstraction of network resources through well-defined application programming interfaces. This abstraction enables SDN to perform network virtualization, that is, to slice the physical infrastructure and create multiple coexisting application-specific virtual tenant networks (VTNs) with specific quality-of-service and service-level-agreement requirements, independent of the underlying optical transport technology and network protocols. On the other hand, the notion of NFV relates to deploying network functions that are typically deployed in specialized and dedicated hardware, as software instances [called virtual network functions (VNFs)] running on commodity servers (e.g., in data centers) through software virtualization techniques. Despite all the attention that has been given to virtualizing IP functions (e.g., firewall; authentication, authorization, and accounting) or Long-Term Evolution control functions (e.g., mobility management entity, serving gateway, and packet data network gateway), some transport control functions can also be virtualized and moved to the cloud as a VNF. In this work we propose virtualizing the tenant SDN control functions of a VTN and moving them into the cloud. The control of a VTN is a key requirement associated with network virtualization, since it allows the dynamic programming (i.e., direct control and configuration) of the virtual resources allocated to the VTN. We experimentally assess and evaluate the first SDN/NFV orchestration architecture in a multipartner testbed to dynamically deploy independent SDN controller instances for each instantiated VTN and to provide the required connectivity within minutes

Integrated IT and SDN Orchestration of multi-domain multi-layer transport networks

Telecom operators networks' management and control remains partitioned by technology, equipment supplier and networking layer. In some segments, the network operations are highly costly due to the need of the individual, and even manual, configuration of the network equipment by highly specialized personnel. In multi-vendor networks, expensive and never ending integration processes between Network Management Systems (NMSs) and the rest of systems (OSSs, BSSs) is a common situation, due to lack of adoption of standard interfaces in the management systems of the different equipment suppliers. Moreover, the increasing impact of the new traffic flows introduced by the deployment of massive Data Centers (DCs) is also imposing new challenges that traditional networking is not ready to overcome. The Fifth Generation of Mobile Technology (5G) is also introducing stringent network requirements such as the need of connecting to the network billions of new devices in IoT paradigm, new ultra-low latency applications (i.e., remote surgery) and vehicular communications. All these new services, together with enhanced broadband network access, are supposed to be delivered over the same network infrastructure. In this PhD Thesis, an holistic view of Network and Cloud Computing resources, based on the recent innovations introduced by Software Defined Networking (SDN), is proposed as the solution for designing an end-to-end multi-layer, multi-technology and multi-domain cloud and transport network management architecture, capable to offer end-to-end services from the DC networks to customers access networks and the virtualization of network resources, allowing new ways of slicing the network resources for the forthcoming 5G deployments. The first contribution of this PhD Thesis deals with the design and validation of SDN based network orchestration architectures capable to improve the current solutions for the management and control of multi-layer, multi-domain backbone transport networks. These problems have been assessed and progressively solved by different control and management architectures which has been designed and evaluated in real evaluation environments. One of the major findings of this work has been the need of developed a common information model for transport network's management, capable to describe the resources and services of multilayer networks. In this line, the Control Orchestration Protocol (COP) has been proposed as a first contriution towards an standard management interface based on the main principles driven by SDN. Furthermore, this PhD Thesis introduces a novel architecture capable to coordinate the management of IT computing resources together with inter- and intra-DC networks. The provisioning and migration of virtual machines together with the dynamic reconfiguration of the network has been successfully demonstrated in a feasible timescale. Moreover, a resource optimization engine is introduced in the architecture to introduce optimization algorithms capable to solve allocation problems such the optimal deployment of Virtual Machine Graphs over different DCs locations minimizing the inter-DC network resources allocation. A baseline blocking probability results over different network loads are also presented. The third major contribution is the result of the previous two. With a converged cloud and network infrastructure controlled and operated jointly, the holistic view of the network allows the on-demand provisioning of network slices consisting of dedicated network and cloud resources over a distributed DC infrastructure interconnected by an optical transport network. The last chapters of this thesis discuss the management and orchestration of 5G slices based over the control and management components designed in the previous chapters. The design of one of the first network slicing architectures and the deployment of a 5G network slice in a real Testbed, is one of the major contributions of this PhD Thesis.La gestión y el control de las redes de los operadores de red (Telcos), todavía hoy, está segmentado por tecnología, por proveedor de equipamiento y por capa de red. En algunos segmentos (por ejemplo en IP) la operación de la red es tremendamente costosa, ya que en muchos casos aún se requiere con guración individual, e incluso manual, de los equipos por parte de personal altamente especializado. En redes con múltiples proveedores, los procesos de integración entre los sistemas de gestión de red (NMS) y el resto de sistemas (p. ej., OSS/BSS) son habitualmente largos y extremadamente costosos debido a la falta de adopción de interfaces estándar por parte de los diferentes proveedores de red. Además, el impacto creciente en las redes de transporte de los nuevos flujos de tráfico introducidos por el despliegue masivo de Data Centers (DC), introduce nuevos desafíos que las arquitecturas de gestión y control de las redes tradicionales no están preparadas para afrontar. La quinta generación de tecnología móvil (5G) introduce nuevos requisitos de red, como la necesidad de conectar a la red billones de dispositivos nuevos (Internet de las cosas - IoT), aplicaciones de ultra baja latencia (p. ej., cirugía a distancia) y las comunicaciones vehiculares. Todos estos servicios, junto con un acceso mejorado a la red de banda ancha, deberán ser proporcionados a través de la misma infraestructura de red. Esta tesis doctoral propone una visión holística de los recursos de red y cloud, basada en los principios introducidos por Software Defined Networking (SDN), como la solución para el diseño de una arquitectura de gestión extremo a extremo (E2E) para escenarios de red multi-capa y multi-dominio, capaz de ofrecer servicios de E2E, desde las redes intra-DC hasta las redes de acceso, y ofrecer ademas virtualización de los recursos de la red, permitiendo nuevas formas de segmentación en las redes de transporte y la infrastructura de cloud, para los próximos despliegues de 5G. La primera contribución de esta tesis consiste en la validación de arquitecturas de orquestración de red, basadas en SDN, para la gestión y control de redes de transporte troncales multi-dominio y multi-capa. Estos problemas (gestion de redes multi-capa y multi-dominio), han sido evaluados de manera incremental, mediante el diseño y la evaluación experimental, en entornos de pruebas reales, de diferentes arquitecturas de control y gestión. Uno de los principales hallazgos de este trabajo ha sido la necesidad de un modelo de información común para las interfaces de gestión entre entidades de control SDN. En esta línea, el Protocolo de Control Orchestration (COP) ha sido propuesto como interfaz de gestión de red estándar para redes SDN de transporte multi-capa. Además, en esta tesis presentamos una arquitectura capaz de coordinar la gestión de los recursos IT y red. La provisión y la migración de máquinas virtuales junto con la reconfiguración dinámica de la red, han sido demostradas con éxito en una escala de tiempo factible. Además, la arquitectura incorpora una plataforma para la ejecución de algoritmos de optimización de recursos capaces de resolver diferentes problemas de asignación, como el despliegue óptimo de Grafos de Máquinas Virtuales (VMG) en diferentes DCs que minimizan la asignación de recursos de red. Esta tesis propone una solución para este problema, que ha sido evaluada en terminos de probabilidad de bloqueo para diferentes cargas de red. La tercera contribución es el resultado de las dos anteriores. La arquitectura integrada de red y cloud presentada permite la creación bajo demanda de "network slices", que consisten en sub-conjuntos de recursos de red y cloud dedicados para diferentes clientes sobre una infraestructura común. El diseño de una de las primeras arquitecturas de "network slicing" y el despliegue de un "slice" de red 5G totalmente operativo en un Testbed real, es una de las principales contribuciones de esta tesis.La gestió i el control de les xarxes dels operadors de telecomunicacions (Telcos), encara avui, està segmentat per tecnologia, per proveïdors d’equipament i per capes de xarxa. En alguns segments (Per exemple en IP) l’operació de la xarxa és tremendament costosa, ja que en molts casos encara es requereix de configuració individual, i fins i tot manual, dels equips per part de personal altament especialitzat. En xarxes amb múltiples proveïdors, els processos d’integració entre els Sistemes de gestió de xarxa (NMS) i la resta de sistemes (per exemple, Sistemes de suport d’operacions - OSS i Sistemes de suport de negocis - BSS) són habitualment interminables i extremadament costosos a causa de la falta d’adopció d’interfícies estàndard per part dels diferents proveïdors de xarxa. A més, l’impacte creixent en les xarxes de transport dels nous fluxos de trànsit introduïts pel desplegament massius de Data Centers (DC), introdueix nous desafiaments que les arquitectures de gestió i control de les xarxes tradicionals que no estan llestes per afrontar. Per acabar de descriure el context, la cinquena generació de tecnologia mòbil (5G) també presenta nous requisits de xarxa altament exigents, com la necessitat de connectar a la xarxa milers de milions de dispositius nous, dins el context de l’Internet de les coses (IOT), o les noves aplicacions d’ultra baixa latència (com ara la cirurgia a distància) i les comunicacions vehiculars. Se suposa que tots aquests nous serveis, juntament amb l’accés millorat a la xarxa de banda ampla, es lliuraran a través de la mateixa infraestructura de xarxa. Aquesta tesi doctoral proposa una visió holística dels recursos de xarxa i cloud, basada en els principis introduïts per Software Defined Networking (SDN), com la solució per al disseny de una arquitectura de gestió extrem a extrem per a escenaris de xarxa multi-capa, multi-domini i consistents en múltiples tecnologies de transport. Aquesta arquitectura de gestió i control de xarxes transport i recursos IT, ha de ser capaç d’oferir serveis d’extrem a extrem, des de les xarxes intra-DC fins a les xarxes d’accés dels clients i oferir a més virtualització dels recursos de la xarxa, obrint la porta a noves formes de segmentació a les xarxes de transport i la infrastructura de cloud, pels propers desplegaments de 5G. La primera contribució d’aquesta tesi doctoral consisteix en la validació de diferents arquitectures d’orquestració de xarxa basades en SDN capaces de millorar les solucions existents per a la gestió i control de xarxes de transport troncals multi-domini i multicapa. Aquests problemes (gestió de xarxes multicapa i multi-domini), han estat avaluats de manera incremental, mitjançant el disseny i l’avaluació experimental, en entorns de proves reals, de diferents arquitectures de control i gestió. Un dels principals troballes d’aquest treball ha estat la necessitat de dissenyar un model d’informació comú per a les interfícies de gestió de xarxes, capaç de descriure els recursos i serveis de la xarxes transport multicapa. En aquesta línia, el Protocol de Control Orchestration (COP, en les seves sigles en anglès) ha estat proposat en aquesta Tesi, com una primera contribució cap a una interfície de gestió de xarxa estàndard basada en els principis bàsics de SDN. A més, en aquesta tesi presentem una arquitectura innovadora capaç de coordinar la gestió de els recursos IT juntament amb les xarxes inter i intra-DC. L’aprovisionament i la migració de màquines virtuals juntament amb la reconfiguració dinàmica de la xarxa, ha estat demostrat amb èxit en una escala de temps factible. A més, l’arquitectura incorpora una plataforma per a l’execució d’algorismes d’optimització de recursos, capaços de resoldre diferents problemes d’assignació, com el desplegament òptim de Grafs de Màquines Virtuals (VMG) en diferents ubicacions de DC que minimitzen la assignació de recursos de xarxa entre DC. També es presenta una solució bàsica per a aquest problema, així com els resultats de probabilitat de bloqueig per a diferents càrregues de xarxa. La tercera contribució principal és el resultat dels dos anteriors. Amb una infraestructura de xarxa i cloud convergent, controlada i operada de manera conjunta, la visió holística de la xarxa permet l’aprovisionament sota demanda de "network slices" que consisteixen en subconjunts de recursos d’xarxa i cloud, dedicats per a diferents clients, sobre una infraestructura de Data Centers distribuïda i interconnectada per una xarxa de transport òptica. Els últims capítols d’aquesta tesi tracten sobre la gestió i organització de "network slices" per a xarxes 5G en funció dels components de control i administració dissenyats i desenvolupats en els capítols anteriors. El disseny d’una de les primeres arquitectures de "network slicing" i el desplegament d’un "slice" de xarxa 5G totalment operatiu en un Testbed real, és una de les principals contribucions d’aquesta tesi.Postprint (published version

Optimization of a wifi wireless network that maximizes the level of satisfaction of users and allows the use of new technological trends in higher education institutions

The campus wireless networks have many users, who have different roles and network requirements, ranging from the use of educational platforms, informative consultations, emails, among others. Currently due to the inefficient use of network resources and little wireless planning, caused by the growth of the technological infrastructure (which is often due to daily worries, rather than to a lack of preparation by those in charge of managing the network), There are two essential factors that truncate the requirement of having a stable and robust net-work platform. First, the degradation of the quality of services perceived by users, and second, the congestion caused by the high demand for convergent traffic (video, voice, and data). Both factors imply great challenges on the part of the administrators of the network, which in many occasions are overwhelmed by per-manent incidences of instability, coverage, and congestion, as well as the diffi-culty of maintaining it economically. The present investigation seeks to propose a process of optimization of the infrastructure and parameters of the configuration of a wireless network, that allows maximizing the level of satisfaction of the users in Higher Education Institutions. In the first place, it is expected to determine an adequate methodology to estimate the level of satisfaction of the users (defining a mathematical criterion or algorithm based on the study variables [1], character-ize the environment in which the project will be developed, making a complete study of the wireless conditions and implement optimization strategies with soft-ware-defined networks (SDN). SDN is a concept in computer networks that al-lows network management to be carried out efficiently and flexibly, separating the control plane from the data plane into network devices. SDN architecture consists of an infrastructure layer which is a collection of network devices con-nected to the SDN Controller using protocol (OpenFlow) as a protocol [2]. Also, SDN will study traffic patterns on the network as a basis for optimizing network device usage [3]. The phases of the research will be carried out following the life cycle defined by the Cisco PPDIOO methodology (Prepare, Plan, Design, Imple-ment, Operate, Optimize) [4].Institución Universitaria ITSA, Corporación Universitaria Reformada CUR, Corporación Universitaria Latinoamericana CUL, Universidad de la Costa CUC, Universitaria Minuto de Dios UNIMINUTO, Universidad Libre

Resilient Control Plane Design for Virtualized 6G Core Networks

With the advent of 6G and its mission-critical and tactile Internet applications running in a virtualized environment on the same physical infrastructure, even the shortest service disruptions have severe consequences for thousands of users. Therefore, the network hypervisors, which enable such virtualization, should tolerate failures or be able to adapt to sudden traffic fluctuations instantaneously, i.e., should be well-prepared for such unpredictable environmental changes. In this paper, we propose a latency-aware dual hypervisor placement and control path design method, which protects against single-link and hypervisor failures and is ready for unknown future changes. We prove that finding the minimum number of hypervisors is not only NP-hard, but also hard to approximate. We propose optimal and heuristic algorithms to solve the problem. We conduct thorough simulations to demonstrate the efficiency of our method on real- world optical topologies, and show that with an appropriately selected representative set of possible future requests, we are not only able to approach the maximum possible acceptance ratio but also able to mitigate the need of frequent hypervisor migrations for most realistic latency constraints

Street Smart in 5G : Vehicular Applications, Communication, and Computing

Recent advances in information technology have revolutionized the automotive industry, paving the way for next-generation smart vehicular mobility. Specifically, vehicles, roadside units, and other road users can collaborate to deliver novel services and applications that leverage, for example, big vehicular data and machine learning. Relatedly, fifth-generation cellular networks (5G) are being developed and deployed for low-latency, high-reliability, and high bandwidth communications. While 5G adjacent technologies such as edge computing allow for data offloading and computation at the edge of the network thus ensuring even lower latency and context-awareness. Overall, these developments provide a rich ecosystem for the evolution of vehicular applications, communications, and computing. Therefore in this work, we aim at providing a comprehensive overview of the state of research on vehicular computing in the emerging age of 5G and big data. In particular, this paper highlights several vehicular applications, investigates their requirements, details the enabling communication technologies and computing paradigms, and studies data analytics pipelines and the integration of these enabling technologies in response to application requirements.Peer reviewe

Cognitive-Aware Network Virtualization Hypervisor for Efficient Resource Provisioning in Software Defined Cloud Networks

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonIntegration of different technologies forms an integral part of modern network engineering and 5G technology deployment. Although Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) function well independently, integrating these two technologies present the cooperate advantages to service providers and service users. Operations of cloud computing technologies have been enhanced with the advent of SDN and NFV for efficient solutions deployment and infrastructure management in Software Defined Cloud Datacentre Networks (SDCDCN) where dynamic controllability is indispensable for elastic service provision. The provisioning of joint compute and network resources enabled by SDCN is essential to enforce reasonable Service Level Agreements (SLAs) stating the Quality of Service (QoS) while saving energy consumption and resource wastage. This thesis presents a Cognitive- Aware Network virtualization Hypervisor which was developed from merging the programmable dynamic network control attributes of SDN and the network slicing attributes of NFV to provision joint compute and network resources in SDCDCN for QoS fulfilment and energy efficiency. It focuses on the techniques for allocating Virtual Network Requests on physical hosts and switches considering SLA, QoS, and energy efficiency aspects. The thesis advances the state-of the-art with the following key contributions: A modelling and simulation environment for Software Defined Cloud Datacentre Networks abstracting functionalities and behaviours of virtual and physical network resources. The second is a novel dynamic overbooking algorithm for energy efficiency and SLA enforcement with the migration of virtual machines and network flows. Finally, a performance-aware intelligent overbooking for predicting network resource usage and performance for the next defined time interval considering multiple performance indexes

Dynamic Quality-of-Service Management Under Software-Defined Networking Architectures

The Internet is facing new challenges emerging from new trends in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for example, cloud services, Big Data, increased mobile usage etc. Traditional IP networks rely in two design principles that, despite serving as an effective solution in the last decades, have become deprecated and not well fit for the new challenges. First, the control and data plane are tightly embedded in the networking devices and second, the structure is highly decentralized with no centralized point of management. This static and rigid architecture leaves no space for innovation with a consequence lack of scalability. Also, it leads to high management and operation costs. The SDN paradigm provides a more dynamic, manageable, cost-effective and adaptable architecture that is ready for the dynamic nature of today's applications. The goal of this thesis is a novel SDN-enabled solution that provides dynamic Quality of Service management for real-time and multimedia applications. This solution will be tested and implemented over a real, not-simulated testbed, composed by OpenFlow-enabled devices, the ONOS SDN controller and client terminals that produced/consume data streams. Furthermore, it is also expected to characterize and evaluate the benefits of the SDN-based solution against a traditional usage of the network (non-SDN)