Alex Galis

The reservoir model and architecture for open federated cloud computing

The emerging cloud-computing paradigm is rapidly gaining momentum as an alternative to traditional IT (information technology). However, contemporary cloud-computing offerings are primarily targeted for Web 2.0-style applications. Only recently have they begun to address the requirements of enterprise solutions, such as support for infrastructure service-level agreements. To address the challenges and deficiencies in the current state of the art, we propose a modular, extensible cloud architecture with intrinsic support for business service management and the federation of clouds. The goal is to facilitate an open, service-based online economy in which resources and services are transparently provisioned and managed across clouds on an ondemand basis at competitive costs with high-quality service. The Reservoir project is motivated by the vision of implementing an architecture that would enable providers of cloud infrastructure to dynamically partner with each other to create a seemingly infinite pool of IT resources while fully preserving their individual autonomy in making technological and business management decisions. To this end, Reservoir could leverage and extend the advantages of virtualization and embed autonomous management in the infrastructure. At the same time, the Reservoir approach aims to achieve a very ambitious goal: creating a foundation for next-generation enterprise-grade cloud computing.

The dynamic placement of virtual network functions

This paper addresses the problem of managing highly dynamic network and service environments, where virtual nodes and virtual links are created and destroyed depending on traffic volumes, service requests, or high-level goals such as reduction in energy consumption. This problem will be one of the main technical challenges to be faced in the evolution towards Future Networks (FN). Emerging paradigms such as Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NfV) are concrete steps towards infrastructures where network functions and services will be executed as applications in ensembles of virtual machines (VMs) hosted in pervasive standard hardware resources located across a network. The paper argues that in order to manage these virtual infrastructures there is a need to introduce high-level systems orchestration. The paper describes an architecture based on an orchestrater that ensures the automatic placement of the virtual nodes and the allocation of network services on them, supported by a monitoring system that collects and reports on the behaviour of the resources. The orchestrater manages the creation and removal of the virtual nodes, as well as configuring, monitoring, running and stopping software on them. As a proof of these concepts, a distributed orchestrater prototype has been designed, implemented and tested with the results of different placement algorithms presented.

The Future Internet

Irrespective of whether we use economic or societal metrics, the Internet is one of the most important technical infrastructures in existence today. It will be a catalyst for much of our innovation and prosperity in the future. A competitive Europe will require Internet connectivity and services beyond the capabilities offered by current technologies. Future Internet research is therefore a must. This book is published in full compliance with the Open Access publishing initiative; it is based on the research carried out within the Future Internet Assembly (FIA). It contains a sample of representative results from the recent FIA meetings spanning a broad range of topics, all being of crucial importance for the future Internet. The book includes 32 contributions and has been structured into the following sections, each of which is preceded by a short introduction: Foundations: architectural issues; socio-economic issues; security and trust; and experiments and experimental design. Future Internet Areas: networks, services, and content; and applications.

Monitoring virtual networks with Lattice

The use of the Lattice monitoring framework as a fundamental part of a overlay management system for virtual networks is presented. Lattice has been specially designed for monitoring resources and services in virtualized environments, including virtual networks. Monitoring of virtualized resources and services has many criteria which are not relevant for monitoring systems that are used for traditional fixed resources. We present the main aspects of the framework together with details of measurement transmission and meta-data encoding. Finally, the use of the Lattice framework for monitoring virtual machines executing under hypervisor control is presented.

Scalable service deployment on software-defined networks

It is widely accepted that the network of the future will require a greater degree of service awareness and optimal use of network resources. This article presents an architectural design for an open software-defined network infrastructure that enables the composition of fast and guaranteed services in an efficient manner and the execution of these services in an adaptive way, taking into account better shared network resources provided by network virtualization. Validation results are provided with special emphasis on service deployment scalability over virtualized network infrastructures.

QoS-Aware Service Selection Algorithms for Pervasive Service Composition in Mobile Wireless Environments

The successful application of pervasive services running in mobile wireless networks and devices relies on its ability to provide efficient and cost-effective QoS (Quality of Service) support. This paper proposes a comprehensive QoS model specifically for pervasive services. It considers not only user-perceived factors but also mobile wireless network characteristics. The corresponding formula to calculate each QoS criterion is also devised. In particular, this paper formulates the QoS-aware service selection problem for pervasive service composition and proposes some solutions to the problem, i.e., global-search-based LOSSA (local optimal service selection algorithm) and limited broadcast based LOSSA-k. The evaluation results of the algorithms have shown the effectiveness of the QoS model and the efficiency of the proposed LOSSAs.

Towards efficient resource on-demand in Grid Computing

The essence of Grid Computing is to provide efficient Resource on Demand (RoD). This paper addresses this challenge from the perspective of network, the living platform of Grid, by providing effective Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms (both IntServ and DiffServ) inside the Grid networking environment. Specifically, the efficiency of this QoS mechanism is maximized by policy-based management taking care of the flexible control of QoS parameters/components and active networks technology looking after the fast delivery of various QoS configurations. The first experiment exemplified the current implementation status.

Service and Network Management Middleware for Cooperative Information Systems through Policies and Mobile Agents

As cooperative information systems (CIS) grow to cover large-scaled CIS that involves many cooperative sub-systems distributed geographically, management technologies that support them gain in importance. This paper focuses on the underlying technologies that are key to the success of cooperative information system, i.e., service management and network management, which are in the form of middleware, to assure inter-domain cooperation within a big CIS in a flexible, automated and secure way. This flexibility and automation is guaranteed by the use of Policy-based Network Management integrated with Mobile Agent Technology. Extending the mobile agent supporting environment, Grasshopper, to support more secure facilities, largely enhances the security. As a case study, IP Virtual Private Network tunnel between two geographically separated domains within a large-scaled CIS is set up and configured automatically and securely using the service and network management middleware, which shows that service and network management enhanced CIS can operate with more flexibility, automation, security and in a larger information system.

Network engineering towards efficient resource on-demand in grid computing

The essence of grid computing is to provide efficient resource on demand (RoD). This paper addresses this challenge from the perspective of network, the living platform of grid, by providing effective quality of service (QoS) mechanisms (both IntServ and DiffServ) inside the grid networking environment. Particularly, the efficiency of this QoS mechanism is maximized by policy-based management taking care of flexible control of QoS parameters/components and active networks technology looking after the fast delivery of various QoS configurations. An early experiment exemplified the current implementation status.

RESERVOIR: Management technologies and requirements for next generation Service Oriented Infrastructures

RESERVOIR project [16] is developing an advanced system and service management approach that will serve as the infrastructure for Cloud Computing and Communications and Future Internet of Services by creative coupling of service virtualization, grid computing, networking and service management techniques. This paper presents work in progress for the integration and management of such systems into a new generation of Managed Service Infrastructure.