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

The term ‘‘Internet-of-Things’’ is used as an umbrella keyword for covering various aspects related to the extension of the Internet and the Web into the physical realm, by means of the widespread deployment of spatially distributed devices with embedded identification, sensing and/or actuation capabilities. Internet-of-Things envisions a future in which digital and physical entities can be linked, by means of appropriate information and communication technologies, to enable a whole new class of applications and services. In this article, we present a survey of technologies, applications and research challenges for Internetof-Things.

/pdf/internet-of-things-vision-applications-and-research-4xfstaiv80.pdf

Internet of things: Vision, applications and research challenges

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.

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.

/pdf/network-function-virtualization-state-of-the-art-and-29gg3feprt.pdf

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

Software systems dealing with distributed applications in changing environments normally require human supervision to continue operation in all conditions. These (re-)configuring, troubleshooting, and in general maintenance tasks lead to costly and time-consuming procedures during the operating phase. These problems are primarily due to the open-loop structure often followed in software development. Therefore, there is a high demand for management complexity reduction, management automation, robustness, and achieving all of the desired quality requirements within a reasonable cost and time range during operation. Self-adaptive software is a response to these demands; it is a closed-loop system with a feedback loop aiming to adjust itself to changes during its operation. These changes may stem from the software system's self (internal causes, e.g., failure) or context (external events, e.g., increasing requests from users). Such a system is required to monitor itself and its context, detect significant changes, decide how to react, and act to execute such decisions. These processes depend on adaptation properties (called self-a properties), domain characteristics (context information or models), and preferences of stakeholders. Noting these requirements, it is widely believed that new models and frameworks are needed to design self-adaptive software. This survey article presents a taxonomy, based on concerns of adaptation, that is, how, what, when and where, towards providing a unified view of this emerging area. Moreover, as adaptive systems are encountered in many disciplines, it is imperative to learn from the theories and models developed in these other areas. This survey article presents a landscape of research in self-adaptive software by highlighting relevant disciplines and some prominent research projects. This landscape helps to identify the underlying research gaps and elaborates on the corresponding challenges.

/pdf/self-adaptive-software-landscape-and-research-challenges-4rt6vhdmq2.pdf

Self-adaptive software: Landscape and research challenges

Autonomic communications seek to improve the ability of network and services to cope with unpredicted change, including changes in topology, load, task, the physical and logical characteristics of the networks that can be accessed, and so forth. Broad-ranging autonomic solutions require designers to account for a range of end-to-end issues affecting programming models, network and contextual modeling and reasoning, decentralised algorithms, trust acquisition and maintenance---issues whose solutions may draw on approaches and results from a surprisingly broad range of disciplines. We survey the current state of autonomic communications research and identify significant emerging trends and techniques.

A survey of autonomic communications

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) refers to a new approach for network
programmability, that is, the capacity to initialize, control, change,
and manage network behavior dynamically via open interfaces. SDN
emphasizes the role of software in running networks through the
introduction of an abstraction for the data forwarding plane and, by
doing so, separates it from the control plane. This separation allows
faster innovation cycles at both planes as experience has already
shown. However, there is increasing confusion as to what exactly SDN
is, what the layer structure is in an SDN architecture, and how layers
interface with each other. This document, a product of the IRTF
Software-Defined Networking Research Group (SDNRG), addresses these
questions and provides a concise reference for the SDN research
community based on relevant peer-reviewed literature, the RFC series,
and relevant documents by other standards organizations.

/pdf/software-defined-networking-sdn-layers-and-architecture-1m0vviv871.pdf

Software-Defined Networking (SDN): Layers and Architecture Terminology

The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to the current state of the art and the future challenges of programmable networks as an enabling step towards rapid, autonomic and flexible service deployment, and to present a novel programmable network and management approach.

Programmable Networks for IP Service Deployment

Recent advances in networking, namely the reemergence of network programmability with a new name, that of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) have paved the way for a new approach to network datapath configuration. SDN provides an abstraction model of the forwarding plane and separates it from the control plane using open APIs. On the other hand, regarding network infrastructure, motivated by the advances of virtualization, major operators created the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) group, as an Industry Specification Group at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. NFV's goal is to define how network functions such as firewalls and load-balancers or any other data or control plane functionality in the mobile and fixed network, can be virtualized and run as software on high-volume servers instead of using specialized hardware. We argue that both SDN and NFV are part of a bigger networking picture, that of the complete lifecycle of the network devices and therefore could take advantage of the definition of a common abstraction model, both for the forwarding model and for the network functions. Such a model will allow interoperability and homogeneity, as well as one protocol, for control, management and orchestration of the network datapath and the network functions respectively. This paper proposes, defines and designs a reference Network Abstraction Model based on a building block approach and demonstrates an initial proof-of-concept implementation.

Towards a Network Abstraction Model for SDN

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000. This paper presents the main concepts of the IST Project FAIN “Future Active IP Networks” [10], a three-year collaborative research project, whose main task is to develop and validate an open, flexible, programmable and dependable network architecture based on a novel active node approach. This generic architecture for active networks is an innovative integration of active networking, distributed object and mobile agent technology. Starting from the definition of a business model that underlines the FAIN architecture, we identify three key working areas for contribution: the active node platform layer, the service programming environment and a built-in management system. The active node platform layer of the FAIN Active Node is comprised of the kernel Operating System, a node resource access control framework, and active components for management, security and service pro-H. vision. These elements provide the foundations for Execution Environments so that they can operate in an independent manner. A novel service programming environment is envisaged to enable the dynamic creation or update and to secure deployment and operation of protocols. Such an environment supports various role-specific ways of deployment, e.g. application-specific signalling or operator-governed network control signalling.

Spyros Denazis

Papers

A survey of autonomic communications

Software-Defined Networking (SDN): Layers and Architecture Terminology

Programmable Networks for IP Service Deployment

Towards a Network Abstraction Model for SDN

A flexible IP active networks architecture