Digital Torque Transformation

The Equipment Installment Plan (EIP) was a game changer in telecom industry and is an integral part of T-Mobile’s Un-carrier strategy. The EIP system is a home-grown system based on Java/J2EE and a combination of client-server and SOA architecture principles. The application runs on Bea Web Logic servers with Oracle DB with multiple batch jobs. As the system grew in size, operational challenges surfaced which includes multiple physical server security updates and maintenance cost. (DTT)” was the answer to address these challenges. The method employed PaaS Pivotal Container Services (PKS). Enterprise PKS uses the latest stable OSS distribution of Kubernetes—with no proprietary extensions. PKS is widely expansible to other applications in T-Mobile ecosystem as PKS can be deployed On-premises as a PaaS

A Hierarchical Core Reference Ontology for New Technology Insertion Design in Long Life Cycle, Complex Mission Critical Systems

Organizations, including government, commercial and others, face numerous challenges in maintaining and upgrading long life-cycle, complex, mission critical systems. Maintaining and upgrading these systems requires the insertion and integration of new technology to avoid obsolescence of hardware software, and human skills, to improve performance, to maintain and improve security, and to extend useful life. This is particularly true of information technology (IT) intensive systems. The lack of a coherent body of knowledge to organize new technology insertion theory and practice is a significant contributor to this difficulty. This research organized the existing design, technology road mapping, obsolescence, and sustainability literature into an ontology of theory and application as the foundation for a technology design and technology insertion design hierarchical core reference ontology and laid the foundation for body of knowledge that better integrates the new technology insertion problem into the technology design architecture

Multi-agent systems for power engineering applications - part 1 : Concepts, approaches and technical challenges

This is the first part of a 2-part paper that has arisen from the work of the IEEE Power Engineering Society's Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Working Group. Part 1 of the paper examines the potential value of MAS technology to the power industry. In terms of contribution, it describes fundamental concepts and approaches within the field of multi-agent systems that are appropriate to power engineering applications. As well as presenting a comprehensive review of the meaningful power engineering applications for which MAS are being investigated, it also defines the technical issues which must be addressed in order to accelerate and facilitate the uptake of the technology within the power and energy sector. Part 2 of the paper explores the decisions inherent in engineering multi-agent systems for applications in the power and energy sector and offers guidance and recommendations on how MAS can be designed and implemented

Migration from Legacy to Reactive Applications in OutSystems

A legacy system is an information system that significantly resists evolution. Through a migration, these systems can be moved to a more modernized environment without having to be redeveloped. OutSystems is a software company with a platform to develop and maintain applications using abstraction to increase productivity. In October 2019, OutSystems launched a new paradigm to allow developers to build reactive web applications. Because of this, the applications implemented in the old web paradigm turned into legacy systems. The OutSystems’ approach to this problem was a manual migration. However, it discards a considerable part of the effort previously made on the legacy system. A well-founded case study took place and allowed us to classify the UI as the most prioritized feature, but coincidently, the major bottleneck in migrations. So, this project had the following objectives: (1) The design and implementation of an automatic migration approach capable of converting UI elements to accelerate the manual migration; (2) The integration of the developed tool in the OutSystems platform. To transform the OutSystems paradigm’s elements, model-driven transformation rules must be set to receive the source UI elements and produce the target equivalent implementation in the new paradigm (each according to their model). However, the trans formations may not be straightforward, and a set of elements may need to be migrated to a different implementation due to Reactive Web’s best practices. Via the creation and search of UI patterns, it is possible to make special transformations for such scenarios. As a result, a migration approach was developed, allowing for the migration of UI (and other) elements. To complement this objective, the developed tool was integrated into the OutSystems platform with an easy to use interaction. Performance and usability tests proved the necessity and impact the final result had on the migration problem. This dissertation’s objectives were fully met and even exceeded, accelerating the man ual migration by providing an automatic UI conversion. This provided a quality increase in the existing process and results, giving OutSystems and its users the possibility of evolving their applications with considerable less effort and investment.Um sistema legado é um sistema de informação que resiste à evolução. Através de uma migração, estes sistemas podem ser movidos para um ambiente modernizado sem necessitar de re-implementação. A OutSystems é uma empresa de software com uma plataforma para desenvolver e manter aplicações usando abstracção para aumentar a produtividade. Em Outubro de 2019, a OutSystems lançou um novo paradigma para desenvolver aplicações reactive web. Assim, as aplicações implementadas no antigo paradigma web tornaram-se sistemas legados. A abordagem da OutSystems ao problema foi uma migração manual, no entanto, esta abordagem desconsidera uma parte significativa do investimento feito no sistema legado. Uma análise permitiu classificar a UI como a característica mais priorizada, mas também como o maior obstáculo em migrações. Assim, este projecto tem como objectivos: (1) O desenho e implementação de uma migração automática capaz de converter os elementos de UI para acelerar a migração manual; (2) A integração da ferramenta desenvolvida na plataforma da OutSystems. Para transformar os elementos dos paradigmas OutSystems, transformações de modelos têm de ser definidas para receber os elementos UI e produzir a implementação equivalente no novo paradigma (de acordo com o seu modelo). No entanto, as transformações podem não ser lineares, e um conjunto de elementos pode necessitar de uma migração para uma implementação diferente devido ao Reactive Web. Com a definição e procura de padrões de UI, é possível fazer transformações especiais para esses cenários. Como resultado, a migração foi desenvolvida, permitindo a conversão de elementos de UI (e não só). Para complementar, a ferramenta desenvolvida foi integrada na plataforma da OutSystems com uma interacção de fácil uso. Testes de desempenho e usabilidade provaram a necessidade e impacto da ferramenta no contexto da migração manual. Os objectivos desta dissertação foram completados na totalidade, acelerando a migração manual com a automação da migração de UI. Isto traz um aumento da qualidade no processo existente e nos seus resultados, dando à OutSystems e aos seus utilizadores a possibilidade de evoluírem as suas aplicações com um esforço e investimento menores

Software Defined Networking Reactive Stateful Firewall

Part 3: Cyber InfrastructureInternational audienceNetwork security is a crucial issue of Software Defined Networking (SDN). It is probably, one of the key features for the success and the future pervasion of the SDN technology. In this perspective, we propose a SDN reactive stateful firewall. Our solution is integrated into the SDN architecture. The application filters TCP communications according to the network security policies. It records and processes the different states of connections and interprets their possible transitions into OpenFlow (OF) rules. The proposition uses a reactive behavior in order to reduce the number of OpenFlow rules in the data plane devices and to mitigate some Denial of Service (DoS) attacks like SYN Flooding. The firewall processes the Finite State Machine of network protocols so as to withdraw useless traffic not corresponding to their transitions' conditions. In terms of cost efficiency, our proposal empowers the behavior of Openflow compatible devices to make them behaving like stateful firewalls. Therefore, organizations do not need to spend money and resources on buying and maintaining conventional firewalls. Furthermore, we propose an orchestrator in order to spread and to reinforce security policies in the whole network with a fine grained strategy. It is thereupon able to secure the network by filtering the traffic related to an application , a node, a subnetwork connected to a data plane device, a sub SDN network connected to a controller, traffic between different links, etc. The deployment of rules of the firewall becomes flexible according to a holistic network view provided by the management plane. In addition, the solution enlarges the security perimeter inside the network by securing accesses between its internal nodes

Progressive Network Deployment, Performance, and Control with Software-defined Networking

The inflexible nature of traditional computer networks has led to tightly-integrated systems that are inherently difficult to manage and secure. New designs move low-level network control into software creating software-defined networks (SDN). Augmenting an existing network with these enhancements can be expensive and complex. This research investigates solutions to these problems. It is hypothesized that an add-on device, or shim could be used to make a traditional switch behave as an OpenFlow SDN switch while maintaining reasonable performance. A design prototype is found to cause approximately 1.5% reduction in throughput for one ow and less than double increase in latency, showing that such a solution may be feasible. It is hypothesized that a new design built on event-loop and reactive programming may yield a controller that is higher-performing and easier to program. The library node-openflow is found to have performance approaching that of professional controllers, however it exhibits higher variability in response rate. The framework rxdn is found to exceed performance of two comparable controllers by at least 33% with statistical significance in latency mode with 16 simulated switches, but is slower than the library node-openflow or professional controllers (e.g., Libfluid, ONOS, and NOX). Collectively, this work enhances the tools available to researchers, enabling experimentation and development toward more sustainable and secure infrastructur