Abolghasem (Hamid) Asgari

Provisioning for interdomain quality of service: the MESCAL approach

This article presents an architecture for supporting interdomain QoS across the multi-provider global Internet. While most research to date has focused on supporting QoS within a single administrative domain, mature solutions are not yet available for the provision of QoS across multiple domains administered by different organizations. The architecture described in this article encompasses the full set of functions required in the management (service and resource), control and data planes for the provision of end-to-end QoS-based IP connectivity services. We use the concept of QoS classes and show how these can be cascaded using service level specifications (SLSs) agreed between BGP peer domains to construct a defined end-to-end QoS. We illustrate the architecture by describing a typical operational scenario.

End-to-end quality of service provisioning through inter-provider traffic engineering

This paper addresses the issue of delivering solutions that will enable the incremental implementation of inter-domain quality of service (QoS) in the multi-provider commercial Internet. The paper first introduces a holistic architecture that describes the key functions required to support inter-domain QoS, and then proceeds to present results from two major components of the architecture. A genetic algorithm for QoS-aware offline inter-domain traffic engineering is first presented, and it is shown through simulation studies how this can optimise the apportionment of QoS provisioning between adjacent domains. Secondly, QoS enhancements to BGP are proposed and the results of a testbed implementation are described, demonstrating how this QoS-enhanced BGP can deliver inter-domain QoS routing.

Web Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks for Facilities Management

The cornerstone of building and overall facilities management is accurate and up-to-date monitoring of the context of the enterprise building environment and its surroundings, usually performed by sensors dispersed throughout the premises. Currently, the majority of building management systems is tightly coupled with the sensors that they utilize, restricting their extensibility. The emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has brought significant benefits as far as monitoring is concerned, since they are more cost-efficient, due to the lack of wiring installations, compared to wired sensor solutions and allow for flexible positioning of the sensors, especially when building retrofitting is concerned. In line with the established move towards integration of enterprise level services, it is beneficial to consider the WSNs within that scope. In this paper, we propose to exploit a service oriented architecture for developing an enterprise networking environment that is used for integrating facilities management applications and building management systems with other operational enterprise functions for the purpose of information sharing and monitoring, controlling, and managing the enterprise environment. The WSN is viewed as an information service provider not only to building management systems but also to wider applications in the enterprise infrastructure. We provide specification and implementation details of the proposed architecture and discuss evaluation planning.

Scalable monitoring support for resource management and service assurance

Continuous monitoring of network status and its resources are necessary to ensure proper network operation. Deployment of QoS-based value-added services in IP networks necessitates the employment of resource management techniques and specifically the use of traffic engineering. The latter typically relies on monitoring data for both offline proactive and dynamic reactive solutions. The variety of data to be collected and analyzed using different measurement methods and tools, and the extent of monitoring information to use demand a proper QoS monitoring infrastructure. A monitoring system should be scalable in terms of network size, speed, and number of customers subscribed to value-added services. This article investigates the requirements of scalable monitoring system architectures, proposes principles for designing such systems, and validates them through the design and implementation of a scalable monitoring system for QoS delivery in IP differentiated services networks. Experimental assessment results prove the accuracy and scalability of the proposed monitoring system.

Interdomain routing through QoS-class planes [Quality-of-Service-Based Routing Algorithms for Heterogeneous Networks]

This article presents an approach to delivering qualitative end-to-end quality of service (QoS) guarantees across the multiprovider Internet. We propose that bilateral agreements between a number of autonomous systems (ASs) result in the establishment of QoS-class planes that potentially extend across the global Internet. The deployment of a QoS-enhanced border gateway protocol (BGP) with different QoS-based route selection policies in each of the planes allows a range of interdomain QoS capabilities to coexist on the same network infrastructure. The article presents simulation results showing the benefits of the approach and discusses aspects of the performance of QoS-enhanced BGP

A scalable real-time monitoring system for supporting traffic engineering

Quality of service based value-added services in IP networks necessitate the use of traffic engineering. The latter relies typically on monitoring data for both offline, proactive and dynamic, reactive solutions. A monitoring system should be scalable in terms of network size, speed and number of customers subscribed to value-added services. The article investigates the requirements of scalable monitoring system architectures, proposes principles for designing such systems and validates them through the design and implementation of a scalable monitoring system for QoS delivery in IP differentiated services (DiffServ) networks. Experimental assessment results are also presented.

Service-driven traffic engineering for intradomain quality of service management

Quality of service delivery in IP networks is an important area for service providers, pointing to new business opportunities for premium quality traffic. While there has been relevant research on traffic engineering for QoS management, the problem has never been addressed through a holistic approach that brings together service management and traffic engineering. We present an integrated approach to intradomain QoS management that brings together two-level service management and traffic engineering approaches, coupled through the concept of the resource provisioning cycle. We present validation results for MPLS-based traffic engineering through both testbed experimentation and simulation; we also present validation results for monitoring through testbed experimentation. The article updates, enhances, and validates the top-level view of this integrated architecture presented in our earlier paper (see Trimintzios, P. et al., IEEE Commun. Mag., vol.39 no.5, 2001).

A service‐oriented architecture for building services integration

Purpose – Traditional administration of building services regards them as having confined scope, operating in isolation or tightly coupled and providing minimal support for overall coordination and holistic management hindering the provisioning of advanced services. This approach inherently bears weaknesses related to complex services management, results in increased costs, and formulates rigid architectural design that restricts flexibility and extensibility. Taking into consideration this set of drawbacks, the purpose of this paper is to propose exploiting a service‐oriented architecture that will allow for dynamic, coordinated and distributed building services management.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents the design of an enterprise‐based networking architecture for building services and systems and specifies its functional components.Findings – The proposed architecture is compliant with established practices in the building automation field and focuses on catering for a wide spectrum of...

End-to-end quality of service provisioning through an integrated management system for multimedia content delivery

Next generation networks will be complex, interconnecting different technologies, and architectures (IP, DVB-T/S, UMTS, GSM/GPRS, etc.) across a multitude of software and hardware platforms for offering a large number of value-added services including multimedia, audio-visual, etc. One of the major requirements for the successful and wide deployment of such services is the efficient transmission of performance sensitive digital items (i.e., audio, video, and image) over a broad range of bandwidth-constrained wired/wireless access/core/distribution networks. This paper presents an approach to the management and provisioning of end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) in next generation networks (IP and non-IP networks) that is being developed in the IST ENTHRONE project. The primary goal of this project is to provide a solution for seamless access to multimedia content with end-to-end QoS support through integrated management of content, networks and terminals. The adopted methodology in providing end-to-end QoS is through an integrated management in the context of MPEG-21 framework for managing services at both customer and provider levels using Service Level Agreements (SLA) concept and provisioning network resources for satisfying the customer QoS demands as well as meeting the QoS requirements of multimedia contents.

Building Quality-of-Service Monitoring Systems for Traffic Engineering and Service Management

Deployment of quality-of-service (QoS) based value-added services in IP networks necessitates the use of traffic engineering. Traffic engineering allows service providers to use the network resources efficiently, according to the different quality levels associated with the range of services they offer. Traffic engineering relies typically on monitoring data for both “offline proactive” and “dynamic reactive” approaches. Monitoring data may be used for network provisioning, dynamic resource allocation, route management, and in-service performance verification for value-added IP services. A monitoring system should scale with the network size, the network speed, and the number of customers subscribed to use value-added IP services. This paper investigates the requirements of scalable monitoring system architectures, proposes principles for designing such systems and validates these principles through the design and implementation of a scalable monitoring system for traffic engineering and QoS delivery in IP Differentiated Services networks. Methods for assessing the relative merits of such monitoring systems are proposed. Experimental assessment results prove the scalability, accuracy, and also demonstrate the benefits of the proposed monitoring system.