Mechanisms for AAA and QoS Interaction

Proceedings of Third IEEE Workshop on Applications and Services in Wireless Networks, ASWN 2003. Bern, Switzerland, July 2-4, 2003.The interaction between Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) systems and the Quality of Service (QoS) infrastructure is to become a must in the near future. This interaction will allow rich control and management of both users and networks. DIAMETER and DiffServ are likely to turn into the future standards in AAA and QoS systems, but they are not designed to interact with each other. To face this, we propose a new Diameter-Diffserv interaction model and describe the Application Specific Module (ASM) implemented to allow this interaction. The ASM has been implemented and tested in a complete AAA-QoS IPv6 scenario

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version

An identity aware wimax personalization for pervasive computing services

Mobile Internet access is becoming more and more pervasive in the new 4G scenarios, where WiMAX is to play a crucial role. WiMax has advantages when considering both energy consumption and bandwidth, when compared with HSDPA and LTE. However, we have found some limitations in IEEE 802.16 security support, which may limit authentication and authorization mechanisms for ubiquitous service development. In this article we analyze weaknesses and vulnerabilities we have found in WiMAX security. WiMax, with the adequate identity management support, could be invaluable for developing new pervasive computing services. We propose the introduction of identity management in WiMAX, as a pervious step to the definition of identity aware WiMax personalization of pervasive computing servicesProyecto CCG10-UC3M/TIC-4992 de la Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid y la Universidad Carlos III de Madri

Parlay X Web Services for Policy and Charging Control in Multimedia Networks

The paper investigates the capabilities of Parlay X Web Services for Policy and Charging Control (PCC) in managing all Internet-protocol-based multimedia networks (IMSs). PCC is one of the core features of evolved packet networks. It comprises flow-based charging including charging control and online credit control, gating control, and Quality of Service (QoS) control. Based on the analysis of requirements for PCC, the functionality for open access to QoS management and advanced charging is identified. Parlay X Web Services are evaluated for the support of PCC, and some enhancements are suggested. Implementation aspects are discussed, and Parlay X interfaces are mapped onto IMS control protocols. Use cases of Parlay X Web Services for PCC are presented

Evaluation of policy based admission control mechanisms in NGN

The 3GPP consortium proposed in the release 7 of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) a Diameter interface for the resource admission communication process replacing the previous COPS solution. Although both academic and industry communities have deeply debate the advantages and disadvantages of each protocol, its impact in NGN may have not been thoroughly quantified. This paper compares both protocols in terms of messages exchanged between network entities, and of bandwidth requirements during the admission control process. Based on general network operator environment characteristics, we present several exploitation scenarios where it is analyzed the scalability and adequacy of each protocol

Energy efficiency in heterogeneous wireless access networks

In this article, we bring forward the important aspect of energy savings in wireless access networks. We specifically focus on the energy saving opportunities in the recently evolving heterogeneous networks (HetNets), both Single- RAT and Multi-RAT. Issues such as sleep/wakeup cycles and interference management are discussed for co-channel Single-RAT HetNets. In addition to that, a simulation based study for LTE macro-femto HetNets is presented, indicating the need for dynamic energy efficient resource management schemes. Multi-RAT HetNets also come with challenges such as network integration, combined resource management and network selection. Along with a discussion on these challenges, we also investigate the performance of the conventional WLAN-first network selection mechanism in terms of energy efficiency (EE) and suggest that EE can be improved by the application of intelligent call admission control policies

Managing QoS in a NGN using a PBM approach

Next Generation Network (NGN) management represents an enormous challenge due to the large number of managed elements, the variety of roles the managed entities play in the network and the difficulty of orchestrating management actions. Several NGN standardization bodies point toward Policy Based Management as the best approach for NGN network management. This paper describes a management solution for a NGN IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) QoS management scenario based on WBEM technology. The proposal is for a WBEM-based policy server, a graphical policy editor application and instrumentation logic for the NGN QoS Management. The graphical policy editor reduces the learning curve imposed by the policy specification language, allowing the specification of policies through a rich and user-friendly visual interface, hiding the CIM syntax complexity but keeping CIM’s potential