Emulating Software-Defined Small-Cell Wireless Mesh Networks Using ns-3 and Mininet

The objective of this thesis was to create a network emulator, suitable for evaluatingsolutions in a small-cell wireless mesh SDN backhaul network environment, by integratingexisting software. The most important efforts in this process have been a transparentintegration of Mininet and ns-3 at both the data and the control plane, with ns-3 servingas the front-end. The goal has been to design the system such that solutions revolvingaround fast failover, resilient routing, and energy efficient small cell management may beevaluated. The constituent components include an augmented ns-3 WiFi module withmillimeter wave communication capabilities; a socket API suitable for remote-controllermanagement, as well as the network emulator Mininet. Mininet in turn integrates OpenvSwitch, virtual hosts in the form of Linux network namespaces, and OpenFlow controllers.The work has also included a brief evaluation of the system, which revealed that the designhas a fundamental flaw.SOCR

Accelerating Transport Layer Multipath Packet Scheduling for 5G-ATSSS

Utilizing multiple access networks such as 5G, 4G, and Wi-Fi simultaneously can lead to increased robustness, resiliency, and capacity for mobile users. However, transparently implementing packet distribution over multiple paths within the core of the network faces multiple challenges including scalability to a large number of customers, low latency, and high-capacity packet processing requirements. In this paper, we offload congestion-aware multipath packet scheduling to a smartNIC. However, such hardware acceleration faces multiple challenges due to programming language and platform limitations. We implement different multipath schedulers in P4 with different complexity in order to cope with dynamically changing path capacities. Using testbed measurements, we show that our CMon scheduler, which monitors path congestion in the data plane and dynamically adjusts scheduling weights for the different paths based on path state information, can process more than 3.5 Mpps packets 25 μs latency

Low-delay cost-aware multipath scheduling over dynamic links for access traffic steering, switching, and splitting

Bundling of multiple access technologies is currently being standardized by 3GPP in the 5G access traffic steering, switching and splitting (ATSSS) framework, with the goal to increase robustness, resiliency and capacity of wireless access. A key part of an ATSSS framework is the packet scheduler, which decides the access network over which each packet is to be transmitted. As wireless channels are highly dynamic, a challenge for any scheduler is to correctly estimate the capacity of each path, and thereby avoid congesting the paths. In this paper, we further develop a recent packet scheduler that exploits cross-layer information from the congestion control state of individual transport layer tunnels when making scheduling decisions. Our aim is to achieve good path utilization while keeping the congestion delay low. Extensive emulations show that our approach reduces the excess delay at the bottleneck to as little as 34%. We furthermore show that our approach improves the performance of end-to-end applications including WebRTC and YouTube compared to state-of-the art.

Fast Wow Effects Boosting SME Business : Final Report

The project Fast Wow Effects Boosting SME Business was carried out in collaboration with Centria and Turku Universities of Applied Sciences. The other partners in the project included about 20 Finnish companies, Ochanomizu University from Tokyo Japan and Arabic partner from Oman and Dubai. The ultimate goal in this project was to focus on digital transformation of value creation. Digitalization can offer new possibilities to synergic combination of different fields,such as game programming, art and new technology. The project was carrying out fast experimentations in versatile applications to study how synergic digital wow effects can be utilized e.g. in product presentations, in marketing and in engineering applications. Virtual and augmented reality together with game programming played key role in many use cases. The idea was to give customers a pleasant surprise and exceed their expectations. Based on our experiences, virtual and game technologies provided effective tools for fast experimentation and co-creation with SMEs. Our collaborating SMEs found the case implementations very beneficial and some of them have already invested themselves in the latest technology, e.g. virtual technology. The extensive collaboration in the project increased the knowledge level and it will progress co-operation with universities and SMEs