Research Directions in Network Service Chaining

Network Service Chaining (NSC) is a service deployment concept that promises increased flexibility and cost efficiency for future carrier networks. NSC has received considerable attention in the standardization and research communities lately. However, NSC is largely undefined in the peer-reviewed literature. In fact, a literature review reveals that the role of NSC enabling technologies is up for discussion, and so are the key research challenges lying ahead. This paper addresses these topics by motivating our research interest towards advanced dynamic NSC and detailing the main aspects to be considered in the context of carrier-grade telecommunication networks. We present design considerations and system requirements alongside use cases that illustrate the advantages of adopting NSC. We detail prominent research challenges during the typical lifecycle of a network service chain in an operational telecommunications network, including service chain description, programming, deployment, and debugging, and summarize our security considerations. We conclude this paper with an outlook on future work in this are

WEIRD Testbeds with Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Technology for User Applications, Telemedicine and Monitoring of Impervious Areas

Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks based on IEEE 802.16d/e standards are soon to be deployed in several countries. However, there is lack of published literature with results from actual test¬beds. This paper introduces the work done in the EU Sixth Framework Programme Project WEIRD to design and set up WiMAX testbeds in four EU countries. We describe the method¬ology followed, detail our implementation and present results from the testbeds, as deployed in the first phase of WEIRD. The testbeds are used to demonstrate how WiMAX technology can be used to extend the connectivity of the pan-European data com¬munications network (GEANT2) to isolated and impervious ar¬eas and, furthermore, to assure end-to-end quality of service to novel applications

WEIRD Testbeds with Fixed and Mobile WiMAX Technology for User Applications, Telemedicine and Monitoring of Impervious Areas

Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks based on IEEE 802.16d/e standards are soon to be deployed in several countries. However, there is lack of published literature with results from actual test¬beds. This paper introduces the work done in the EU Sixth Framework Programme Project WEIRD to design and set up WiMAX testbeds in four EU countries. We describe the method¬ology followed, detail our implementation and present results from the testbeds, as deployed in the first phase of WEIRD. The testbeds are used to demonstrate how WiMAX technology can be used to extend the connectivity of the pan-European data com¬munications network (GEANT2) to isolated and impervious ar¬eas and, furthermore, to assure end-to-end quality of service to novel applications.SIGARCH, Create-NetPublishedInnsbruck, Austria1.4. TTC - Sorveglianza sismologica delle aree vulcaniche attiveope

Security challenges of small cell as a service in virtualized mobile edge computing environments

Research on next-generation 5G wireless networks is currently attracting a lot of attention in both academia and industry. While 5G development and standardization activities are still at their early stage, it is widely acknowledged that 5G systems are going to extensively rely on dense small cell deployments, which would exploit infrastructure and network functions virtualization (NFV), and push the network intelligence towards network edges by embracing the concept of mobile edge computing (MEC). As security will be a fundamental enabling factor of small cell as a service (SCaaS) in 5G networks, we present the most prominent threats and vulnerabilities against a broad range of targets. As far as the related work is concerned, to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate security challenges at the intersection of SCaaS, NFV, and MEC. It is also the first paper that proposes a set of criteria to facilitate a clear and effective taxonomy of security challenges of main elements of 5G networks. Our analysis can serve as a staring point towards the development of appropriate 5G security solutions. These will have crucial effect on legal and regulatory frameworks as well as on decisions of businesses, governments, and end-users

Energy-efficient vertical handover parameters, classification and solutions over wireless heterogeneous networks: a comprehensive survey

In the last few decades, the popularity of wireless networks has been growing dramatically for both home and business networking. Nowadays, smart mobile devices equipped with various wireless networking interfaces are used to access the Internet, communicate, socialize and handle short or long-term businesses. As these devices rely on their limited batteries, energy-efficiency has become one of the major issues in both academia and industry. Due to terminal mobility, the variety of radio access technologies and the necessity of connecting to the Internet anytime and anywhere, energy-efficient handover process within the wireless heterogeneous networks has sparked remarkable attention in recent years. In this context, this paper first addresses the impact of specific information (local, network-assisted, QoS-related, user preferences, etc.) received remotely or locally on the energy efficiency as well as the impact of vertical handover phases, and methods. It presents energy-centric state-of-the-art vertical handover approaches and their impact on energy efficiency. The paper also discusses the recommendations on possible energy gains at different stages of the vertical handover process

METIS research advances towards the 5G mobile and wireless system definition

[EN] The Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society (METIS) project is laying the foundations of Fifth Generation (5G) mobile and wireless communication system putting together the point of view of vendors, operators, vertical players, and academia. METIS envisions a 5G system concept that efficiently integrates new applications developed in the METIS horizontal topics and evolved versions of existing services and systems. This article provides a first view on the METIS system concept, highlights the main features including architecture, and addresses the challenges while discussing perspectives for the further research work.Part of this work has been performed in the framework of the FP7 project ICT-317669 METIS, which is partly funded by the European Commission. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues in METIS with special thanks to Petar Popovski, Peter Fertl, David Gozalvez-Serrano, Andreas Hoglund, Zexian Li, and Krystian Pawlak. Also thanks to Josef Eichinger and Malte Schellmann for the fruitful discussions during the revision of this article.Monserrat Del Río, JF.; Mange, G.; Braun, V.; Tullberg, H.; Zimmermann, G.; Bulakci, O. (2015). METIS research advances towards the 5G mobile and wireless system definition. 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Finding Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Using Coarse Network Behaviors

Abstract. A user who wants to use a service forbidden by their site’s usage policy can masquerade their packets in order to evade detection. One masquerade technique sends prohibited traffic on TCP ports commonly used by permitted services, such as port 80. Users who hide their traffic in this way pose a special challenge, since filtering by port number risks interfering with legitimate services using the same port. We propose a set of tests for identifying masqueraded peer-to-peer file-sharing based on traffic summaries (flows). Our approach is based on the hypothesis that these applications have observable behavior that can be differentiated without relying on deep packet examination. We develop tests for these behaviors that, when combined, provide an accurate method for identifying these masqueraded services without relying on payload or port number. We test this approach by demonstrating that our integrated detection mechanism can identify BitTorrent with a 72 % true positive rate and virtually no observed false positives in control services (FTP-Data, HTTP, SMTP).