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

This paper addresses two unresolved issues about Web caching. The first issue is whether Web requests from a fixed user community are distributed according to Zipf's (1929) law. The second issue relates to a number of studies on the characteristics of Web proxy traces, which have shown that the hit-ratios and temporal locality of the traces exhibit certain asymptotic properties that are uniform across the different sets of the traces. In particular, the question is whether these properties are inherent to Web accesses or whether they are simply an artifact of the traces. An answer to these unresolved issues will facilitate both Web cache resource planning and cache hierarchy design. We show that the answers to the two questions are related. We first investigate the page request distribution seen by Web proxy caches using traces from a variety of sources. We find that the distribution does not follow Zipf's law precisely, but instead follows a Zipf-like distribution with the exponent varying from trace to trace. Furthermore, we find that there is only (i) a weak correlation between the access frequency of a Web page and its size and (ii) a weak correlation between access frequency and its rate of change. We then consider a simple model where the Web accesses are independent and the reference probability of the documents follows a Zipf-like distribution. We find that the model yields asymptotic behaviour that are consistent with the experimental observations, suggesting that the various observed properties of hit-ratios and temporal locality are indeed inherent to Web accesses observed by proxies. Finally, we revisit Web cache replacement algorithms and show that the algorithm that is suggested by this simple model performs best on real trace data. The results indicate that while page requests do indeed reveal short-term correlations and other structures, a simple model for an independent request stream following a Zipf-like distribution is sufficient to capture certain asymptotic properties observed at Web proxies.

/pdf/web-caching-and-zipf-like-distributions-evidence-and-xw99yfl0w6.pdf

Web caching and Zipf-like distributions: evidence and implications

Aspect] is a simple and practical aspect-oriented extension to Java With just a few new constructs, AspectJ provides support for modular implementation of a range of crosscutting concerns. In AspectJ's dynamic join point model, join points are well-defined points in the execution of the program; pointcuts are collections of join points; advice are special method-like constructs that can be attached to pointcuts; and aspects are modular units of crosscutting implementation, comprising pointcuts, advice, and ordinary Java member declarations. AspectJ code is compiled into standard Java bytecode. Simple extensions to existing Java development environments make it possible to browse the crosscutting structure of aspects in the same kind of way as one browses the inheritance structure of classes. Several examples show that AspectJ is powerful, and that programs written using it are easy to understand.

An overview of AspectJ

Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) are a class of network in which
both the routers and their interconnect are constrained. LLN routers
typically operate with constraints on processing power, memory, and
energy (battery power). Their interconnects are characterized by high
loss rates, low data rates, and instability. LLNs are comprised of
anything from a few dozen to thousands of routers. Supported traffic
flows include point-to-point (between devices inside the LLN), point-
to-multipoint (from a central control point to a subset of devices
inside the LLN), and multipoint-to-point (from devices inside the LLN
towards a central control point). This document specifies the IPv6
Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL), which
provides a mechanism whereby multipoint-to-point traffic from devices
inside the LLN towards a central control point as well as point-to-
multipoint traffic from the central control point to the devices
inside the LLN are supported. Support for point-to-point traffic is
also available. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

/pdf/rpl-ipv6-routing-protocol-for-low-power-and-lossy-networks-59sbz5ta0b.pdf

RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks

https://www.cs.montana.edu/courses/csci566/Ref/WMSN-Survey.pdf

A survey on wireless multimedia sensor networks

This paper presents and evaluates two principles for wireless routing protocols. The first is datapath validation: data traffic quickly discovers and fixes routing inconsistencies. The second is adaptive beaconing: extending the Trickle algorithm to routing control traffic reduces route repair latency and sends fewer beacons.We evaluate datapath validation and adaptive beaconing in CTP Noe, a sensor network tree collection protocol. We use 12 different testbeds ranging in size from 20--310 nodes, comprising seven platforms, and six different link layers, on both interference-free and interference-prone channels. In all cases, CTP Noe delivers > 90% of packets. Many experiments achieve 99.9%. Compared to standard beaconing, CTP Noe sends 73% fewer beacons while reducing topology repair latency by 99.8%. Finally, when using low-power link layers, CTP Noe has duty cycles of 3% while supporting aggregate loads of 30 packets/minute.

/pdf/collection-tree-protocol-selhhlblmq.pdf

Collection tree protocol

Modern Internet systems often combine different applications (e.g., DNS, web, and database), span different administrative domains, and function in the context of network mechanisms like tunnels, VPNs, NATs, and overlays. Diagnosing these complex systems is a daunting challenge. Although many diagnostic tools exist, they are typically designed for a specific layer (e.g., traceroute) or application, and there is currently no tool for reconstructing a comprehensive view of service behavior. In this paper we propose X-Trace, a tracing framework that provides such a comprehensive view for systems that adopt it. We have implemented X-Trace in several protocols and software systems, and we discuss how it works in three deployed scenarios: DNS resolution, a three-tiered photo-hosting website, and a service accessed through an overlay network.

/pdf/x-trace-a-pervasive-network-tracing-framework-2j9x5xvue1.pdf

X-trace: a pervasive network tracing framework

We consider the problem of estimating link quality in an ad-hoc wireless mesh. We argue that estimating links well requires combining information from the network, link, and physical layers. We propose narrow, protocol-independent interfaces for the layers, which in total provide four bits of information: 1 from the physical layer, 1 from the link layer, and 2 from the network layer. We present a link estimator design with these interfaces that reduces packet delivery costs by up to 44% over current approaches and maintains a 99% delivery ratio over large, multihop testbeds.

/pdf/four-bit-wireless-link-estimation-4cer0hpams.pdf

Four-Bit Wireless Link Estimation.

We propose a practical and scalable technique for point-to-point routing in wireless sensornets. This method, called Beacon Vector Routing (BVR), assigns coordinates to nodes based on the vector of hop count distances to a small set of beacons, and then defines a distance metric on these coordinates. BVR routes packets greedily, forwarding to the next hop that is the closest (according to this beacon vector distance metric) to the destination. We evaluate this approach through a combination of high-level simulation to investigate scaling and design tradeoffs, and a prototype implementation over real testbeds as a necessary reality check.

/pdf/beacon-vector-routing-scalable-point-to-point-routing-in-4suoqykrnr.pdf

Beacon vector routing: scalable point-to-point routing in wireless sensornets

Data processing frameworks such as MapReduce [8] and Dryad [11] are used today in business environments where customers expect guaranteed performance. To date, however, these systems are not capable of providing guarantees on job latency because scheduling policies are based on fair-sharing, and operators seek high cluster use through statistical multiplexing and over-subscription. With Jockey, we provide latency SLOs for data parallel jobs written in SCOPE. Jockey precomputes statistics using a simulator that captures the job's complex internal dependencies, accurately and efficiently predicting the remaining run time at different resource allocations and in different stages of the job. Our control policy monitors a job's performance, and dynamically adjusts resource allocation in the shared cluster in order to maximize the job's economic utility while minimizing its impact on the rest of the cluster. In our experiments in Microsoft's production Cosmos clusters, Jockey meets the specified job latency SLOs and responds to changes in cluster conditions.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/EuroSys27122C20Jockey.pdf

Rodrigo Fonseca

Papers

Collection tree protocol

X-trace: a pervasive network tracing framework

Four-Bit Wireless Link Estimation.

Beacon vector routing: scalable point-to-point routing in wireless sensornets

Jockey: guaranteed job latency in data parallel clusters