Network function virtualization (NFV) has drawn significant attention from both industry and academia as an important shift in telecommunication service provisioning. By decoupling network functions (NFs) from the physical devices on which they run, NFV has the potential to lead to significant reductions in operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenses (CAPEX) and facilitate the deployment of new services with increased agility and faster time-to-value. The NFV paradigm is still in its infancy and there is a large spectrum of opportunities for the research community to develop new architectures, systems and applications, and to evaluate alternatives and trade-offs in developing technologies for its successful deployment. In this paper, after discussing NFV and its relationship with complementary fields of software defined networking (SDN) and cloud computing, we survey the state-of-the-art in NFV, and identify promising research directions in this area. We also overview key NFV projects, standardization efforts, early implementations, use cases, and commercial products.

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Network Function Virtualization: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges

To support bursty traffic on the Internet (and especially WWW) efficiently, optical burst switching (OBS) is proposed as a way to streamline both protocols and hardware in building the future gener...

Optical burst switching (OBS) - a new paradigm for an optical Internet

This work presents an estimation of the global electricity usage that can be ascribed to Communication Technology (CT) between 2010 and 2030. The scope is three scenarios for use and production of consumer devices, communication networks and data centers. Three different scenarios, best, expected, and worst, are set up, which include annual numbers of sold devices, data traffic and electricity intensities/efficiencies. The most significant trend, regardless of scenario, is that the proportion of use-stage electricity by consumer devices will decrease and will be transferred to the networks and data centers. Still, it seems like wireless access networks will not be the main driver for electricity use. The analysis shows that for the worst-case scenario, CT could use as much as 51% of global electricity in 2030. This will happen if not enough improvement in electricity efficiency of wireless access networks and fixed access networks/data centers is possible. However, until 2030, globally-generated renewable electricity is likely to exceed the electricity demand of all networks and data centers. Nevertheless, the present investigation suggests, for the worst-case scenario, that CT electricity usage could contribute up to 23% of the globally released greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.

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On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, was first delivered to congress in 1996 and consisted of just two Titles. It was designed to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families while between jobs. It establishes standards for electronic health care transactions and addresses the issues of privacy and security when dealing with Protected Health Information (PHI). HIPAA is applicable only in the United States of America.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a modulation technology that has been widely adopted in many new and emerging broadband wireless and wireline communication systems. Due to its capability to transmit a high-speed data stream using multiple spectral-overlapped lower-speed subcarriers, OFDM technology offers superior advantages of high spectrum efficiency, robustness against inter-carrier and inter-symbol interference, adaptability to server channel conditions, etc. In recent years, there have been intensive studies on optical OFDM (O-OFDM) transmission technologies, and it is considered a promising technology for future ultra-high-speed optical transmission. Based on O-OFDM technology, a novel elastic optical network architecture with immense flexibility and scalability in spectrum allocation and data rate accommodation could be built to support diverse services and the rapid growth of Internet traffic in the future. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on OFDM-based elastic optical network technologies, including basic principles of OFDM, O-OFDM technologies, the architectures of OFDM-based elastic core optical networks, and related key enabling technologies. The main advantages and issues of OFDM-based elastic core optical networks that are under research are also discussed.

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A Survey on OFDM-Based Elastic Core Optical Networking

Although information and communication technology (ICT) has been playing an important role in the development of business and society for more than thirty years, its potential benefits and risks for the environment are still not sufficiently explored. This is mainly because of the complex interdependencies between ICT and different other areas of business and society that together build a very complex ecosystem. In this paper, we present a holistic approach that treats ICT as a part of the global ecosystem. This approach combines datacentric methods that are typically used to analyze communication networks with widely applicable thermodynamic tools. The proposed approach is well suited to investigate complex heterogeneous systems and assess their environmental sustainability. In particular, we briefly present and discuss the application of such an approach on an exemplary model of cloud computing use in Austria.

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_228306.pdf

Exergy consumption of cloud computing: A case study

The presented paper is a techno-economic feasibility study to use solar energy as a renewable energy to power the Passive Optical Network (PON). This discussion focuses on the requirements and sources of power for the active components of optical access networks. To ensure continuous reduction of the carbon footprint while advancing towards purely passive optical networks, we have emphasized the need for alternative, renewable and greener sources to supply the required power. Solar power would be used as the default power source while mains are used as backup or a standby source. This is because solar power can be harvested and stored with less carbon footprint.

Techno-economic feasibility studies for Solar powered Passive Optical Network

Network function virtualization (NFV) and multi- layer software-defined networking (SDN) will enable an automated control, management and orchestration of network resources across several network layers and areas. They may also open new possibilities for communication service providers (CSP) to expand their business and offer cloud services w ith carrier- level service-level agreements (SLA). In this paper, we briefly review technological, legal and business aspects of NFV and carrier clouds. Network function virtualization (NFV) is a current trend in the telecommunications industry that transforms tra ditional software and hardware components, i.e., functions f rom physical to virtual in order to enable cloud-like v irtualization and orchestration of network resources. NFV goes ha nd in hand with the software defined networking (SDN), which is a paradigm that provides for separation between the c ontrol and the data (switching or forwarding) planes. Both app roaches promise cost reduction and a rapid service delivery , i.e. an improved service agility and a revenue growth for n etwork operators. Recently, ETSI Industry Specification Gr oup for Network Functions Virtualization created several do cuments defining the architectural framework and requirements for NFV and addressing use cases for various network functions. Many component and system vendors already offer solutions that integrate SDN at different levels of implement ation and various network layers. Network operators already s how an increased interest in integrating SDN and NFV in th eir networks. Use cases include the virtualization of m obile networks (base stations, mobile core - EPC, IMS), c ontent delivery networks (CDNs), wired access networks as well as home/enterprise networks. The virtualization of net work resources opens new ways for network operators, i.e ., communication service providers (CSPs) to extend their business by integrating small and medium-scale data centers into their network infrastructure, thereby building carrier clouds and offering conventional and new cloud services with carrier-grade service level agreement (SLA). In this paper, we briefly review recent development s in NFV and SDN and indicate the main benefits and challenges of network virtualization and carrier clouds from t he technological, performance and legal aspects. II. CARRIER CLOUDS

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Network Virtualization: Paving the Way to Carrier Clouds (invited)

Integration of QKD in telecom infrastructures raises noise issues not present in systems using dedicated fibers. Experiments on a 3-node metro network indicate that integration is possible when allocating broadband quantum channels in the O-band.

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Impairment evaluation toward QKD integration in a conventional 20-channel metro network

A novel optical switch architecture comprising internal ring-like fiber interconnections is presented and discussed in this paper. The architecture allows optical packet and burst switching as well as multicasting directly in the optical domain by copying and forwarding of packets and bursts without wavelength conversion. We expect a reduction of packet/burst discard probability due to the ability of storing contending packets or bursts in optical delay lines and fiber interconnecting rings for a short time before they are forwarded to the desired output port. Two different internal interconnection methods are presented and analyzed in terms of their impact on the main switch parameters. Additionally, scalability of the proposed switch architecture is determined by using numerical simulations and taking into account all relevant transmission effects.

Slavisa Aleksic

Papers

Exergy consumption of cloud computing: A case study

Techno-economic feasibility studies for Solar powered Passive Optical Network

Network Virtualization: Paving the Way to Carrier Clouds (invited)

Impairment evaluation toward QKD integration in a conventional 20-channel metro network

A Novel Optical Packet/Burst Switch Architecture Comprising Internal Fiber Rings