NETQOS policy management architecture for flexible QOS provisioning in Future Internet

This paper is focussed on the NETQOS architecture for automated QoS policy provisioning, which can be used in Future Internet scenarios by the different actors (i.e. network operators, service providers, and users) for flexible QoS configuration over combinations of mobile, fixed, sensor and broadcast networks. The NETQOS policy management architecture opens the possibility to specify QoS policies on a "business" level using ontology descriptions and policy management interfaces, which are specific to the actors. The business level policy specifications are translated by the NETQOS system into intermediate and operational QoS policies for automated QoS configuration at the managed heterogeneous network and transport entities. NETQOS allows QoS policy specification and dependency analysis considering Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between the actors, as well as automated policy provisioning and adaptation. The interaction of the NETQOS components is based on a common po licy repository. The particular focus of the paper is aimed to discuss ontology and actor oriented QoS policy specification and configuration for heterogeneous networks, as well as NETQOS QoS policy management interfaces at business level and automated translation of business QoS policies to intermediate and operational policy level

Policy-based QoS management framework for software-defined networks

With the emerging trends of virtualization of cloud computing and big data applications, network management has become a challenging problem for optimizing the network state while satisfying the applications’ Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper proposes a policy-based management framework over Software-Defined Networks (SDN) for QoS provisioning. The proposed approach monitors the QoS parameters of the active flows and dynamically enforces new decisions on the underlying SDN switches to adapt the network state to the current demanded high-level policies. Moreover, the proposed solution makes use of Neural Networks to identify the violating flows causing the network congestion. Upon detection of a policy violation two route management techniques are implemented, such as: rerouting and rate limiting. The proposed framework was implemented and evaluated within an experimental test bed setup. The results indicate that the proposed PBNM-based SDN framework enables QoS provisioning and outperforms the default SDN in terms of throughput, packet loss rate and latency

Service Level Agreements for Communication Networks: A Survey

Abstract. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is being provided to the variety of endusers demands, thereby providing a better and improved management of services is crucial. Therefore, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are essential and play a key role to manage the provided services among the network entities. This survey identifies the state of the art covering concepts, approaches and open problems of the SLAs establishment, deployment and management. This paper is organised in a way that the reader can access a variety of proposed SLA methods and models addressed and provides an overview of the SLA actors and elements. It also describes SLAs’ characteristics and objectives. SLAs’ existing methodologies are explained and categorised followed by the Service Quality Categories (SQD) and Quality-Based Service Descriptions (QSD). SLA modelling and architectures are discussed, and open research problems and future research directions are introduced. The establishment of a reliable, safe and QoE-aware computer networking needs a group of services that goes beyond pure networking services. Therefore, within the paper this broader set of services are taken into consideration and for each Service Level Objective (SLO) the related services domains will be indicated. The purpose of this survey is to identify existing research gaps in utilising SLA elements to develop a generic methodology, considering all quality parameters beyond the Quality of Service (QoS) and what must or can be taken into account to define, establish and deploy an SLA. This study is still an active research on how to specify and develop an SLA to achieve the win-win agreements among all actors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Policy-based QoS management framework for software-defined networks

With the emerging trends of virtualization of cloud computing and big data applications, network management has become a challenging problem for optimizing the network state while satisfying the applications’ Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper proposes a policy-based management framework over Software-Defined Networks (SDN) for QoS provisioning. The proposed approach monitors the QoS parameters of the active flows and dynamically enforces new decisions on the underlying SDN switches to adapt the network state to the current demanded high-level policies. Moreover, the proposed solution makes use of Neural Networks to identify the violating flows causing the network congestion. Upon detection of a policy violation two route management techniques are implemented, such as: rerouting and rate limiting. The proposed framework was implemented and evaluated within an experimental test bed setup. The results indicate that the proposed PBNM-based SDN framework enables QoS provisioning and outperforms the default SDN in terms of throughput, packet loss rate and latency

Service Level Agreements for Communication Networks: A Survey

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is being provided to the variety of end-users demands, thereby providing a better and improved management of services is crucial. Therefore, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are essential and play a key role to manage the provided services among the network entities. This survey identifies the state of the art covering concepts, approaches and open problems of the SLAs establishment, deployment and management. This paper is organised in a way that the reader can access a variety of proposed SLA methods and models addressed and provides an overview of the SLA actors and elements. It also describes SLAs' characteristics and objectives. SLAs' existing methodologies are explained and categorised followed by the Service Quality Categories (SQD) and Quality-Based Service Descriptions (QSD). SLA modelling and architectures are discussed, and open research problems and future research directions are introduced. The establishment of a reliable, safe and QoE-aware computer networking needs a group of services that goes beyond pure networking services. Therefore, within the paper this broader set of services are taken into consideration and for each Service Level Objective (SLO) the related services domains will be indicated. The purpose of this survey is to identify existing research gaps in utilising SLA elements to develop a generic methodology, considering all quality parameters beyond the Quality of Service (QoS) and what must or can be taken into account to define, establish and deploy an SLA. This study is still an active research on how to specify and develop an SLA to achieve the win-win agreements among all actors.Comment: 25 Pages, 4 Figure

A goal-based approach to policy refinement

As the interest in using policy-based approaches for systems management grows, it is becoming increasingly important to develop methods for performing analysis and refinement of policy specifications. Although this is an area that researchers have devoted some attention to, none of the proposed solutions address the issue of deriving implementable policies from high-level goals. A key part of the solution to this problem is having the ability to identify the operations, available on the underlying system, which can achieve a given goal. This paper presents an approach by which a formal representation of a system, based on the Event Calculus, can be used in conjunction with abductive reasoning techniques to derive the sequence of operations that will allow a given system to achieve a desired goal. Additionally it outlines how this technique might be used for providing tool support and partial automation for policy refinement. Building on previous work on using formal techniques for policy analysis, the approach presented here applies a transformation of both policy and system behaviour specifications into a formal notation that is based on Event Calculus. Finally, it shows how the overall process could be used in conjunction with UML modelling and illustrates this by means of an example. 1

System architecture and deployment scenarios for SESAME: small cEllS coordinAtion for Multi-tenancy and Edge services

The surge of the Internet traffic with exabytes of data flowing over operators’ mobile networks has created the need to rethink the paradigms behind the design of the mobile network architecture. The inadequacy of the 4G UMTS Long term Evolution (LTE) and even of its advanced version LTE-A is evident, considering that the traffic will be extremely heterogeneous in the near future and ranging from 4K resolution TV to machine-type communications. To keep up with these changes, academia, industries and EU institutions have now engaged in the quest for new 5G technology. In this paper we present the innovative system design, concepts and visions developed by the 5G PPP H2020 project SESAME (Small cEllS coordinAtion for Multi-tenancy and Edge services). The innovation of SESAME is manifold: i) combine the key 5G small cells with cloud technology, ii) promote and develop the concept of Small Cells-as-a-Service (SCaaS), iii) bring computing and storage power at the mobile network edge through the development of non-x86 ARM technology enabled micro-servers, and iv) address a large number of scenarios and use cases applying mobile edge computing

Business-driven policy optimization for service management

The performance of services offered by network operators has a direct impact on its reputation, on its revenue due to new customer subscriptions, and also on penalties that can apply when services are not provided to an acceptable quality level. Previous research on business-oriented network and service optimization has mainly focused on optimizing individual business indicators, such as profit and revenue, in isolation without analyzing the effect on network configurations and the subsequent impact on other indicators. Given that different business objectives are usually incompatible, a single network configuration cannot optimize them simultaneously. Determining the configuration and the associated trade-offs that satisfy multiple objectives is a complex task. This paper addresses this gap and presents a framework that derives policy configurations that optimize the business value of the network infrastructure. We describe a methodology to quantify business functions considering the dynamics of network events, the dynamics of end-user service usage, the nature of the business indicators, and their relationships with the underlying control methods. The proposed approach addresses the complexity of the target problem through a surrogate-based optimization approach properly tailored to match our application domain needs. We evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach through experimentation in a simulation environment we developed over OPNET