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.

Traditional standalone embedded system is limited in their functionality, flexibility, and scalability. Fog computing platform, characterized by pushing the cloud services to the network edge, is a promising solution to support and strengthen traditional embedded system. Resource management is always a critical issue to the system performance. In this paper, we consider a fog computing supported software-defined embedded system, where task images lay in the storage server while computations can be conducted on either embedded device or a computation server. It is significant to design an efficient task scheduling and resource management strategy with minimized task completion time for promoting the user experience. To this end, three issues are investigated in this paper: 1) how to balance the workload on a client device and computation servers, i.e., task scheduling, 2) how to place task images on storage servers, i.e., resource management, and 3) how to balance the I/O interrupt requests among the storage servers. They are jointly considered and formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. To deal with its high computation complexity, a computation-efficient solution is proposed based on our formulation and validated by extensive simulation based studies.

Joint Optimization of Task Scheduling and Image Placement in Fog Computing Supported Software-Defined Embedded System

In embodiments, methods and systems for controlling access to custom objects are provided. These techniques for controlling access to custom objects can enable embodiments to utilize a key for the protection of the security of data that is to remain private while not compromising efficiency of a query. The key for a requested custom object is identified and then used so that only an appropriate portion of a custom entity share table is searched to locate access information. It is then determined whether the user can access at least a portion of the custom object, and the appropriate and allowed data is sent to the user.

Methods and systems for controlling access to custom objects in a database

A system and method for identifying infection of unwanted software on an electronic device is disclosed. A software agent configured to generate a bait and is installed on the electronic device. The bait can simulate a situation in which the user performs a login session and submits personal information or it may just contain artificial sensitive information. Parameters may be inserted into the bait such as the identity of the electronic device that the bait is installed upon. The output of the electronic device is monitored and analyzed for attempts of transmitting the bait. The output is analyzed by correlating the output with the bait and can be done by comparing information about the bait with the traffic over a computer network in order to decide about the existence and the location of unwanted software. Furthermore, it is possible to store information about the bait in a database and then compare information about a user with the information in the database in order to determine if the electronic device that transmitted the bait contains unwanted software.

Method and system for protection against information stealing software

A method, system and computer program product for dynamically building a set of compute nodes to host a user's workload. An administrative server receives workload definitions that include the types of workloads that are to be run in a cloud group as well as a number of instances of each workload the cloud group should support. These workload definitions are used to determine the virtual machine demands that the cloud group will place on the cloud environment. The administrative server further receives the demand constraints, placement constraints and license enforcement policies. The administrative server identifies a set of compute nodes to host the user's workload based on the virtual machines demands, the demand constraints, the placement constraints and the license enforcement policies. In this manner, a set of compute nodes is dynamically built for consideration in forming a cloud group without the user requiring knowledge of the cloud's composition.

Dynamically building a set of compute nodes to host the user's workload

A composable software bundle is created by retrieving a semantic representation of a set of software modules. A functional representation of a set of operations is retrieved. Each operation in the set of operations is to be performed on the set of software modules during at least one virtual image life-cycle phase in a set of virtual image life-cycle phases. A set of artifacts including a set of executable instructions associated with the set of operations is identified. The semantic representation, the functional representation, and the set of artifacts, are stored in a composable software bundle.

Semantically rich composable software image bundles

During the past few years, enterprises have been increasingly aggressive in moving mission-critical and performance-sensitive applications to the cloud, while at the same time many new mobile, social, and analytics applications are directly developed and operated on cloud computing platforms. These two movements are encouraging the shift of the value proposition of cloud computing from cost reduction to simultaneous agility and optimization. These requirements (agility and optimization) are driving the recent disruptive trend of software defined computing, for which the entire computing infrastructure--compute, storage and network--is becoming software defined and dynamically programmable. The key elements within software defined environments include capability-based resource abstraction, goal-based and policy-based workload definition, and outcome-based continuous mapping of the workload to the available resources. Furthermore, software defined environments provide the tooling and capabilities to compose workloads from existing components that are then continuously and autonomously mapped onto the underlying programmable infrastructure. These elements enable software defined environments to achieve agility, efficiency, and continuous outcome-optimized provisioning and management, plus continuous assurance for resiliency and security. This paper provides an overview and introduction to the key elements and challenges of software defined environments.

/pdf/software-defined-environments-an-introduction-3jj19sr6bi.pdf

Software defined environments: an introduction

Thread pools in a multithreaded server are programmatically adjusted, based on observed statistics from the server's inbound workload. In a multithreaded server environment, response time to end users is improved while increasing the efficiency of software execution and resource usage. Execution time and wait/queued time are tracked, for various types of requests being serviced by a server. Multiple logical pools of threads are used to service these requests, and inbound requests are directed to a selected one of these pools such that requests of similar execution-time requirements are serviced by the threads in that pool. The number and size of thread pools may be adjusted programmatically, and the distribution calculation (i.e., determining which inbound requests should be assigned to which pools) is a programmatic determination. In preferred embodiments, only one of these variables is adjusted at a time, and the results are monitored to determine whether the effect was positive or negative. The disclosed techniques also apply to tracking and classifying requests by method name (and, optionally, parameters).

Dynamic thread pool tuning techniques

Workload is programmatically distributed across a set of execution resources In a multithreaded server environment, response time to end users is improved while increasing the efficiency of software execution and resource usage Execution time and wait/queued time are tracked, for various types of requests being serviced by a server Multiple logical pools of threads are used to service these requests, and inbound requests are directed to a selected one of these pools such that requests of similar execution-time requirements are serviced by the threads in that pool The number and size of thread pools may be adjusted programmatically, and the distribution calculation (ie, determining which inbound requests should be assigned to which pools) is a programmatic determination In preferred embodiments, only one of these variables is adjusted at a time, and the results are monitored to determine whether the effect was positive or negative The disclosed techniques also apply to tracking and classifying requests by method name (and, optionally, parameters)

Matt R. Hogstrom

Papers

Dynamically building a set of compute nodes to host the user's workload

Semantically rich composable software image bundles

Software defined environments: an introduction

Dynamic thread pool tuning techniques

Programmatic response-time based workload distribution techniques