The Internet has led to the creation of a digital society, where (almost) everything is connected and is accessible from anywhere. However, despite their widespread adoption, traditional IP networks are complex and very hard to manage. It is both difficult to configure the network according to predefined policies, and to reconfigure it to respond to faults, load, and changes. To make matters even more difficult, current networks are also vertically integrated: the control and data planes are bundled together. Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that promises to change this state of affairs, by breaking vertical integration, separating the network's control logic from the underlying routers and switches, promoting (logical) centralization of network control, and introducing the ability to program the network. The separation of concerns, introduced between the definition of network policies, their implementation in switching hardware, and the forwarding of traffic, is key to the desired flexibility: by breaking the network control problem into tractable pieces, SDN makes it easier to create and introduce new abstractions in networking, simplifying network management and facilitating network evolution. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on SDN. We start by introducing the motivation for SDN, explain its main concepts and how it differs from traditional networking, its roots, and the standardization activities regarding this novel paradigm. Next, we present the key building blocks of an SDN infrastructure using a bottom-up, layered approach. We provide an in-depth analysis of the hardware infrastructure, southbound and northbound application programming interfaces (APIs), network virtualization layers, network operating systems (SDN controllers), network programming languages, and network applications. We also look at cross-layer problems such as debugging and troubleshooting. In an effort to anticipate the future evolution of this new paradigm, we discuss the main ongoing research efforts and challenges of SDN. In particular, we address the design of switches and control platforms—with a focus on aspects such as resiliency, scalability, performance, security, and dependability—as well as new opportunities for carrier transport networks and cloud providers. Last but not least, we analyze the position of SDN as a key enabler of a software-defined environment.

https://publications.uni.lu/bitstream/10993/20596/1/survey_on_SDN.pdf

Software-Defined Networking: A Comprehensive Survey

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that promises to change this state of affairs, by breaking vertical integration, separating the network's control logic from the underlying routers and switches, promoting (logical) centralization of network control, and introducing the ability to program the network. The separation of concerns introduced between the definition of network policies, their implementation in switching hardware, and the forwarding of traffic, is key to the desired flexibility: by breaking the network control problem into tractable pieces, SDN makes it easier to create and introduce new abstractions in networking, simplifying network management and facilitating network evolution. In this paper we present a comprehensive survey on SDN. We start by introducing the motivation for SDN, explain its main concepts and how it differs from traditional networking, its roots, and the standardization activities regarding this novel paradigm. Next, we present the key building blocks of an SDN infrastructure using a bottom-up, layered approach. We provide an in-depth analysis of the hardware infrastructure, southbound and northbound APIs, network virtualization layers, network operating systems (SDN controllers), network programming languages, and network applications. We also look at cross-layer problems such as debugging and troubleshooting. In an effort to anticipate the future evolution of this new paradigm, we discuss the main ongoing research efforts and challenges of SDN. In particular, we address the design of switches and control platforms -- with a focus on aspects such as resiliency, scalability, performance, security and dependability -- as well as new opportunities for carrier transport networks and cloud providers. Last but not least, we analyze the position of SDN as a key enabler of a software-defined environment.

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is a novel mobile network architecture which can address a number of challenges the operators face while trying to support growing end-user's needs. The main idea behind C-RAN is to pool the Baseband Units (BBUs) from multiple base stations into centralized BBU Pool for statistical multiplexing gain, while shifting the burden to the high-speed wireline transmission of In-phase and Quadrature (IQ) data. C-RAN enables energy efficient network operation and possible cost savings on baseband resources. Furthermore, it improves network capacity by performing load balancing and cooperative processing of signals originating from several base stations. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art literature on C-RAN. It can serve as a starting point for anyone willing to understand C-RAN architecture and advance the research on C-RAN.

/pdf/cloud-ran-for-mobile-networks-a-technology-overview-1t5y44pa7z.pdf

Cloud RAN for Mobile Networks—A Technology Overview

The IoT paradigm holds the promise to revolutionize the way we live and work by means of a wealth of new services, based on seamless interactions between a large amount of heterogeneous devices. After decades of conceptual inception of the IoT, in recent years a large variety of communication technologies has gradually emerged, reflecting a large diversity of application domains and of communication requirements. Such heterogeneity and fragmentation of the connectivity landscape is currently hampering the full realization of the IoT vision, by posing several complex integration challenges. In this context, the advent of 5G cellular systems, with the availability of a connectivity technology, which is at once truly ubiquitous, reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient, is considered as a potentially key driver for the yet-to emerge global IoT. In the present paper, we analyze in detail the potential of 5G technologies for the IoT, by considering both the technological and standardization aspects. We review the present-day IoT connectivity landscape, as well as the main 5G enablers for the IoT. Last but not least, we illustrate the massive business shifts that a tight link between IoT and 5G may cause in the operator and vendors ecosystem.

/pdf/internet-of-things-in-the-5g-era-enablers-architecture-and-4vjccjwnie.pdf

Internet of Things in the 5G Era: Enablers, Architecture, and Business Models

The exponential growth and availability of data in all forms is the main booster to the continuing evolution in the communications industry. The popularization of traffic-intensive applications including high definition video, 3-D visualization, augmented reality, wearable devices, and cloud computing defines a new era of mobile communications. The immense amount of traffic generated by today’s customers requires a paradigm shift in all aspects of mobile networks. Ultradense network (UDN) is one of the leading ideas in this racetrack. In UDNs, the access nodes and/or the number of communication links per unit area are densified. In this paper, we provide a survey-style introduction to dense small cell networks. Moreover, we summarize and compare some of the recent achievements and research findings. We discuss the modeling techniques and the performance metrics widely used to model problems in UDN. Also, we present the enabling technologies for network densification in order to understand the state-of-the-art. We consider many research directions in this survey, namely, user association, interference management, energy efficiency, spectrum sharing, resource management, scheduling, backhauling, propagation modeling, and the economics of UDN deployment. Finally, we discuss the challenges and open problems to the researchers in the field or newcomers who aim to conduct research in this interesting and active area of research.

Ultra-Dense Networks: A Survey

Network emulations are widely used for testing novel network protocols and routing algorithms in realistic scenarios. Up to now, there is no emulation tool that is able to emulate large software-defined data center networks that consist of several thousand nodes. Mininet is the most common tool to emulate Software-Defined Networks of several hundred nodes. We extend Mininet to span an emulated network over several physical machines, making it possible to emulate networks of several thousand nodes on just a handful of physical machines. This enables us to emulate, e.g., large data center networks. To test this approach, we additionally introduce a traffic generator for data center traffic. Since there are no data center traffic traces publicly available we use the results of two recent traffic studies to create synthetic traffic. We show the design and discuss some challenges we had in building our traffic generator. As a showcase for our work we emulated a data center consisting of 3200 hosts on a cluster of only 12 physical machines. We show the resulting workloads and the trade-offs involved.

MaxiNet: Distributed emulation of software-defined networks

Traffic demands in mobile networks are expected to grow substantially in the next years, both in terms of total traffic volume and of bit-rate required by individual users. It is generally agreed that the only possible solution to overcome the current limitations is to deploy very dense and heterogeneous wireless networks, which we call DenseNets. However, simply scaling down existing networks by orders of magnitude, as required to fulfill traffic forecasts, is not possible because of the following constraints: i) the bottleneck would shift from the Radio Access Network (RAN) to the backhaul, ii) control overhead, especially related to mobility management, would make the network collapse, iii) operational costs of the network would be unbearable due to energy consumption and maintenance/optimisation. In this paper, Software Defined Network (SDN) for mobile networks is claimed as the paradigm shift necessary to tackle adequately the above challenges. A novel architecture is proposed, which supports DenseNets made of overlapping LTE and WLAN cells connected to the core network via a reconfigurable backhaul.

CROWD: An SDN Approach for DenseNets

Architectures for information-centric networks (ICNs), like CCN, propose simple on-path caching with LRU cache management for caching of data items in the network. We propose alternative strategies, based on off-path caching, which try to avoid redundant caching of data items to use cache space more efficiently. Based on a mathematical model for LRU and LFU cache management and a simulation, we analyze these strategies with respect to hit efficiency, delay, and power consumption and provide a competitive evaluation to asses the potential increase of energy efficiency with off-path caching.

Efficiency of On-Path and Off-Path Caching Strategies in Information Centric Networks

Today's video delivery solutions for mobile terminals often use the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol, which has two interesting features: firstly, the video is divided into playable segments of a certain length, which allows to download and buffer segments before they are required for playback. And secondly, those segments can be available in different quality levels, which can be selected according to the available transmission capacity. Combining these features with scheduling and channel capacity prediction of wireless transmissions into a cross-layer scheduling approach could improve the QoE for users by reducing playback interruptions and by providing the best possible video quality depending on the user's wireless channel capacity. In this paper we propose a mixed integer quadratically constrained program (MIQCP) to implement the aforementioned cross-layer scheduling approach. We evaluate its performance compared to greedy strategies to assess the potential for a future polynomial time implementation.

Cross-layer scheduling for multi-quality video streaming in cellular wireless networks

Traffic in wireless access networks has been growing substantially in the recent years, both in terms of total volume and data rate required by individual users. The commonly agreed solution to overcome the current limitations of wireless access networks is to deploy very dense and heterogeneous wireless networks, the so-called DenseNets. Simply scaling existing networks by orders of magnitude, as required to fulfill traffic forecasts, would bring along several problems because of the limited backhaul capacity, the increased energy consumption, and the explosion of signalling. Hence, the FP7 project CROWD proposes a novel architecture for DenseNets as a solution to tame the density of wireless networks. Within this architecture, flexible flow processing-aware controller placement supported by dynamic backhaul reconfiguration is the crucial component to both (i) maximize the amount of users that can be served simultaneously under high load, and (ii) minimize energy consumption and reduce costs for service providers. We present both approaches in detail and outline how they are integrated into the overall CROWD architecture.

Martin Draxler

Papers

MaxiNet: Distributed emulation of software-defined networks

CROWD: An SDN Approach for DenseNets

Efficiency of On-Path and Off-Path Caching Strategies in Information Centric Networks

Cross-layer scheduling for multi-quality video streaming in cellular wireless networks

Dynamic network reconfiguration in wireless DenseNets with the CROWD SDN architecture