Design and implementation of unified communications as a service based on the OpenStack cloud environment

Cloud Computing, based on early virtual computer concepts and technologies, is now itself a maturing technology in the marketplace and it has revolutionized the IT industry, being the powerful platform that many businesses are choosing to migrate their in-premises IT services onto. Cloud solution has the potential to reduce the capital and operational expenses associated with deploying IT services on their own. In this study, we have implemented our own private cloud solution, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), using the OpenStack platform with high availability and a dynamic resource allocation mechanism. Besides, we have hosted unified communication as a service (UCaaS) in the underlying IaaS and successfully tested voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing, voice mail and instant messaging (IM) with clients located at the remote site. The proposed solution has been developed in order to give advice to bussinesses that want to build their own cloud environment, IaaS and host cloud services and applicatons in the cloud. This paper also aims at providing an alternate option for proprietary cloud solutions for service providers to consider

Design, implementation and evaluation of unified communications on-premises and over the Cloud

Unified Communication (UC) is the integration of two or more real time communication systems into one platform. Integrating core communication systems into one overall enterprise level system delivers more than just cost saving. These real-time interactive communication services and applications over Internet Protocol (IP) have become critical in boosting employee accessibility and efficiency, improving customer support and fostering business agility. However, some small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are far from implementing this solution due to the high cost of initial deployment and ongoing support. Cloud based UC solution, UC as a Service (UCaaS), is now itself a maturing technology in the marketplace and it has revolutionized the IT industry, being the powerful platform that many businesses are choosing to migrate their on-premises UC solution onto. UCaaS solution has the potential to reduce the capital and operational expenses associated with deploying UC on their own. In this paper, we will discuss and demonstrate an open source on-premises UC solution, viz. “Asterisk” for use by businesses, and report on some performance tests using SIPp. This paper also discusses and demonstrates an open source UCaaS solution. The contribution from this research is the provision of technical advice to businesses in deploying UC and UCaaS, which is manageable in terms of cost, ease of deployment and support

Performance analysis of secure unified communications in the VMware-based cloud

Unified communications as a service (UCaaS) can be regarded as a cost-effective model for on-demand delivery of unified communications services in the cloud. However, addressing security concerns has been seen as the biggest challenge to the adoption of IT services in the cloud. This study set up a cloud system via VMware suite to emulate hosting unified communications (UC), the integration of two or more real time communication systems, services in the cloud in a laboratory environment. An Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) gateway was also set up to support network-level security for UCaaS against possible security exposures. This study was aimed at analysis of an implementation of UCaaS over IPSec and evaluation of the latency of encrypted UC traffic while protecting that traffic. Our test results show no latency while IPSec is implemented with a G.711 audio codec. However, the performance of the G.722 audio codec with an IPSec implementation affects the overall performance of the UC server. These results give technical advice and guidance to those involved in security controls in UC security on premises as well as in the cloud

Implementation and evaluation of open source unified communications for SMBs

Unified Communication (UC) is the integration of two or more real time communication systems into one platform. Integrating core communication systems into one overall enterprise level system delivers more than just cost saving. These real-time interactive communication services and applications over Internet Protocol (IP) have become critical in boosting employee accessibility and efficiency, improving customer support and fostering business agility. However, some small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are far from implementing this solution due to the high cost of initial deployment and ongoing support. In this paper, we will discuss and demonstrate an open source UC solution, viz. “Asterisk” for use by SMBs, and report on some performance tests using SIPp. The contribution from this research is the provision of technical advice to SMBs in deploying UC, which is manageable in terms of cost, ease of deployment and support

Network security metrics and performance for healthcare systems management

While enhanced cybersecurity options, mainly based around cryptographic functions, are needed overall speed and performance of a healthcare network may take priority in many circumstances. As such the overall security and performance metrics of those cryptographic functions in their embedded context needs to be understood. Understanding those metrics has been the main aim of this research activity. This research reports on an implementation of one network security technology, Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), to assess security performance. This research simulates sensitive healthcare information being transferred over networks, and then measures data delivery times with selected security parameters for various communication scenarios on Linux-based and Windows-based systems. Based on our test results, this research has revealed a number of network security metrics that need to be considered when designing and managing network security for healthcare-specific or non-healthcare-specific systems from security, performance and manageability perspectives. This research proposes practical recommendations based on the test results for the effective selection of network security controls to achieve an appropriate balance between network security and performanc

Review of Cyber Security for Power Trading and Communication Systems

The trading and communication systems of the wholesale energy market are an essential part of critical national infrastructure. If adversaries were to exploit the vulnerabilities in the wholesale energy trading and communication system, they could disrupt electricity generation and supply nationally, resulting in a devastating chain reaction. In this context, this study provides a review of deployments of security mechanisms for energy market trading and communication systems. This helps to understand the current security controls and challenges better and shines a light on potential research that can be conducted to make trading and communication systems more secure. This review is categorised into four themes: (1) security technologies that can be applied to energy trading and call audit systems, (2) blockchain technology that can be applied to protect energy trading and auditing services, (3) communication technology (voice over IP and video conferencing) that operates in the cloud, and (4) network performance and security management for voice over IP and video conferencing systems. This review investigates the use of blockchain technology that has increasingly emerged in a microgrid (peer-to-peer) energy trading and reveals a gap in using blockchain for macrogrid national energy trading. This study also emphasises the importance of balancing network security and performance when systems are hosted in the cloud.</p

Modeling for performance and security balanced trading communication systems in the cloud

Moving Trading Communication Systems (TCSs) services to the cloud may seem to be a cost-effective choice. However, operating cloud-based TCSs across the Internet does face a number of challenges including availability, quality of service (QoS), performance and security issues. This research examines the feasibility for creation of a usable model to enable assessment of the design and implementation of TCSs in relation to both time-critical performance and appropriate security levels as TCSs are migrated to a public cloud environment. A real-world case study of a company operating a TCS, which is recently scheduled for movement to a public cloud, is used to enable assessment of a simulation system using OPNET. The simulation results show: 1) that the performance of a cloud-based TCS may be inferior to traditional circuit-switched and leased-line-based TCSs, where equivalent services requirements and costs are involved, and; 2) a methodology relevant to how to best manage and control a cloud-based TCS to realize true benefit while maintaining required level of QoS, performance and overall security is possible

Modeling for a QoS-efficient real-time video conferencing system in the cloud

Recently on-premises deployed real-time video conferencing (VC) systems have been facing the growing resource demand from using desktop and mobile devices. To address the cost of upgrading the existing on-promises VC infrastructure, businesses are moving towards cloud-based VC services. However, operating cloud-based VC and maintaining real-time interactive conferencing of audio and video sessions also has a number of challenges including availability, quality of video calls and performance issues. Video conferencing require significant hardware resources and stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements in terms of bandwidth, delay, and jitter. This research proposes a viable model for the design and implementation of a cloud-based VC system that meets time-critical requirements. We provide a numerical simulation evaluation, which shows that a relevant methodology can be used to best manage and control a cloud-based VC system to realize benefits while maintaining required level of QoS and performance