Minimizing the Cost of 5G Network Slice Broker

Network slicing is a key enabler of the fifth-generation (5G) of mobile networks. It allows creating multiple logical networks, i.e. network slices, with heterogeneous requirements over a common underlying infrastructure. The underlying infrastructure is composed of heterogeneous resources, such as network and computational resources. These resources are owned and managed by various Infrastructure Providers (InPs). In network slicing, a new actor, called Slice Broker (SB), purchases resources from the various InPs to create the network slices. In this paper, we address the problem of the allocation of network slices. Our target is to minimize the total cost of SB to acquire the resources from the InPs. The contributions are the following: (i) we define the addressed problem; (ii) we propose a heuristic solution to the problem; (iii) we evaluate the behavior of the proposed heuristic in various scenarios, and we compare it with a benchmark solution. The results show that a cost reduction from 60% to 80% is possible in all scenarios investigated.acceptedVersio

Resource allocation for cost minimization of a slice broker in a 5G-MEC scenario

The fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks may offer a custom logical and virtualized network called network slicing. This virtualization opens a new opportunity to share infrastructure resources and encourage cooperation between several Infrastructure Providers (InPs) to offer tailored network slices for the Slice Tenants (STs). The Slice Broker (SB) is emerging as intermediate entity that purchases resources from the InPs and it offers network slices to the STs. The main challenge of the SB is to jointly decide the purchase of heterogeneous (data and network) resources from multiple InPs and create the slices to meet the various requests from the STs. Being an economical entity, the target of the SB is to maximize its profit by minimizing the costs while satisfying all the ST requests. This paper formulated the SB cost minimization problem and used CPLEX to obtain the optimal solution. The problem formulation considers the realistic scenario that the InPs offer the computing, storage and network resources by using predetermined configurations. Therefore, for each of the computing platform and logical connection, the SB may select one of the configurations. The proposed cost-minimization problem is compared with three alternative problems that have three different objectives: computing platform consolidation, network connection consolidation, and both computing-network consolidation. The computing platform and network connection consolidation are currently the most common approaches for decreasing resource costs. However, the result shows that consolidating computing and network resources fails to reach the actual minimal cost. The proposed problem finds the cheapest solution, which can save at least 30% of the total cost of the other approaches in every evaluated scenario. Moreover, consolidating the number of computing platforms can lead to the most expensive solution, up to 40% higher than the optimal solution of our proposed problem.submittedVersio

Availability Model of a 5G-MEC System

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is one of the enabling technologies of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks. MEC enables services with strict latency requirements by bringing computing capabilities close to the users. As with any new technology, the dependability of MEC is one of the aspects that need to be carefully studied. In this paper, we propose a two-level model to compute the availability of a 5G-MEC system. We then use the model to evaluate the availability of a 5G-MEC system under various configurations. The results show that having a single redundancy of the 5G-MEC elements leads an acceptable availability. To reach a high availability, the software failure intensity of the management elements of 5G and MEC should be reduced.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. Accepted to be published at the 32nd International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2023

The Internet of the Future: Quality of Service and Energy Efficiency

Una delle sfide più importanti del ventunesimo secolo nel campo delle reti di telecomunicazioni è la minimizzazione del consumo di energia fornendo congiuntamente una Qualità del Servizio (QoS). Pertanto, di recente la comunità di ricerca ha iniziato a studiare una serie di iniziative miranti a migliorare la QoS e l’efficienza energetica nell’Internet del futuro. In questo scenario, le Service Overlay Network (SON) sono emerse come un modo proficuo per affrontare questi problemi senza modificare l’infrastruttura sottostante. Invece, il Network Power Management (NPM) cerca i metodi che sono in grado di ottenere risparmi energetici sfruttando opportunamentele caratteristiche energetiche dei dispositivi di rete. In questa tesi, viene analizzato il problema della progettazione topologica di una SON dal punto di vista delle prestazioni. Poichè la soluzione analitica del problema è computazionalmente troppo complessa, si confrontano le prestazioni di un insieme limitato di topologie note. Sulla base di euristiche, tre nuove topologie overlay vengono proposte. Attraverso numerose simulazioni, le prestazioni delle topologie overlay candidate vengono valutate in diversi scenari di rete, tenendo conto del carico e del traffico accettato tra i nodi overlay. Inoltre, questa tesi si concentra sul NPM descrivendo quattro problemi di progettazione di rete per ridurre il consumo energetico delle reti attuali e future. I problemi sono risolti per mezzo di risolutori MILP e MINLP, che ottengono delle soluzioni ottimali o approssimate. Dal momento che in scenari di reti di grandi dimensioni questi approcci sono computazionalmente troppo complessi, sono proposte varie euristiche per i diversi metodi di NPM. L’efficacia degli approcci proposti e dell’euristiche viene esplorata in diversi scenari di rete reali, valutando l’impatto di diversi parametri di rete. I risultati mostrano che le topologie SON sono un’ottima scelta perchè mantengono le stesse prestazioni riducendo l’overhead associato. Inoltre, questa tesi mette in luce l’importanza di una buona caratterizzazione del comportamento energetico dei dispositivi di rete. Notevoli risparmi energetici possono essere raggiunti sfruttando le caratteristiche di potenza dei dispositivi. Le euristiche proposte sono in grado di ridurre il tempo di calcolo e di ottenere risparmi energetici comparabili

Resource Allocation in Networking and Computing Systems: A Security and Dependability Perspective

In recent years, there has been a trend to integrate networking and computing systems, whose management is getting increasingly complex. Resource allocation is one of the crucial aspects of managing such systems and is affected by this increased complexity. Resource allocation strategies aim to effectively maximize performance, system utilization, and profit by considering virtualization technologies, heterogeneous resources, context awareness, and other features. In such complex scenario, security and dependability are vital concerns that need to be considered in future computing and networking systems in order to provide the future advanced services, such as mission-critical applications. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of existing literature that considers security and dependability for resource allocation in computing and networking systems. The current research works are categorized by considering the allocated type of resources for different technologies, scenarios, issues, attributes, and solutions. The paper presents the research works on resource allocation that includes security and dependability, both singularly and jointly. The future research directions on resource allocation are also discussed. The paper shows how there are only a few works that, even singularly, consider security and dependability in resource allocation in the future computing and networking systems and highlights the importance of jointly considering security and dependability and the need for intelligent, adaptive and robust solutions. This paper aims to help the researchers effectively consider security and dependability in future networking and computing systems.publishedVersio

A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Architecture for Network Slicing Orchestration

The Network Slicing (NS) paradigm is one of the pillars of the future 5G networks and is gathering great attention from both industry and scientific communities. In a NS scenario, physical and virtual resources are partitioned among multiple logical networks, named slices, with specific characteristics. The challenge consists in finding efficient strategies to dynamically allocate the network resources among the different slices according to the user requirements. In this paper, we tackle the target problem by exploiting a Deep Reinforcement Learning approach. Our framework is based on a distributed architecture, where multiple agents cooperate towards a common goal. The agent training is carried out following the Advantage Actor Critic algorithm, which makes it possible to handle continuous action spaces. By means of extensive simulations, we show that our strategy yields better performance than an efficient empirical algorithm, while ensuring high adaptability to different scenarios without the need for additional training.acceptedVersio

Impact of SDN Controllers Deployment on Network Availability

Software-defined networking (SDN) promises to improve the programmability and flexibility of networks, but it may bring also new challenges that need to be explored. The purpose of this technical report is to assess how the deployment of the SDN controllers affects the overall availability of SDN. For this, we have varied the number, homing and location of SDN controllers. A two-level modelling approach that is used to evaluate the availability of the studied scenarios. Our results show how network operators can use the approach to find the optimal cost implied by the connectivity of the SDN control platform by keeping high levels of availability.Comment: Department of Telematics, NTNU, Tech. Rep., March 201

Experimental comparison of migration strategies for MEC-assisted 5G-V2X applications

The introduction of 5G technology enables new V2X services requiring reliable and extremely low latency communications. To satisfy these requirements computing elements need to be located at the edge of the network, according to the Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm. The user mobility and the MEC approach lead to the need to carefully analysing the procedures for the migration of applications necessary to maintain the service proximity, fundamental to guarantee low latency. The paper provides an experimental comparison of three different migration strategies. The comparison is performed considering three different containerized MEC applications that can be used for developing V2X services. The experimental study is carried out by means of a testbed where the user mobility is emulated by the ETSI MEC Sandbox. The three strategies are compared considering the viability, the observed service downtime, and the amount of state preserved after the migration. The obtained results point out some trade-offs to consider in any migration scenario.acceptedVersio

5G Multi-access Edge Computing: Security, Dependability, and Performance

The main innovation of the Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile networks is the ability to provide novel services with new and stricter requirements. One of the technologies that enable the new 5G services is the Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). MEC is a system composed of multiple devices with computing and storage capabilities that are deployed at the edge of the network, i.e., close to the end users. MEC reduces latency and enables contextual information and real-time awareness of the local environment. MEC also allows cloud offloading and the reduction of traffic congestion. Performance is not the only requirement that the new 5G services have. New mission-critical applications also require high security and dependability. These three aspects (security, dependability, and performance) are rarely addressed together. This survey fills this gap and presents 5G MEC by addressing all these three aspects. First, we overview the background knowledge on MEC by referring to the current standardization efforts. Second, we individually present each aspect by introducing the related taxonomy (important for the not expert on the aspect), the state of the art, and the challenges on 5G MEC. Finally, we discuss the challenges of jointly addressing the three aspects.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, 15 tables. This paper is under review at IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. Copyright IEEE 202