Alexandru Vulpe

Big Data, Internet of Things and Cloud Convergence --- An Architecture for Secure E-Health Applications

Big data storage and processing are considered as one of the main applications for cloud computing systems. Furthermore, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has advanced the research on Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and enabled novel tele-monitoring architectures for E-Health applications. However, there is a need for converging current decentralized cloud systems, general software for processing big data and IoT systems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze existing components and methods of securely integrating big data processing with cloud M2M systems based on Remote Telemetry Units (RTUs) and to propose a converged E-Health architecture built on Exalead CloudView, a search based application. Finally, we discuss the main findings of the proposed implementation and future directions.

M2M remote telemetry and cloud IoT big data processing in viticulture

Current M2M communication platforms are being integrated in cloud IoT applications for providing remote sensing and actuating. Nevertheless, requirements for energy efficiency and resilience in severe operating environments are driving the development of new algorithms and infrastructures. This paper presents a survey of the measurement results for the winegrowing season 2014, as it was seen by an M2M remote telemetry station in cooperation with a big data processing platform and several sensors. We demonstrate the use of recent technologies such as Cloud IoT systems and Big Data processing in order to implement disease prediction and alerting application for viticulture. Finally, the extension of the proposed system for other agriculture applications is discussed.

QualNet implementation for mobility management in a MIH enabled system

The heterogeneous wireless access technologies available on mobile terminals can be used by the operators to improve the quality of service offered to the users and to better manage the network resources. To take advantage of these opportunities support for seamless handover between the heterogeneous technologies available at terminal must be introduced. Media Independent Handover (MIH) standard is designed to optimize handover between heterogeneous IEEE 802 networks and facilitate handover between IEEE 802 networks and cellular networks. In this paper, we present an architecture built on the Media Independent Handover framework, and some aspects related to the implementation of the architecture modules in QualNet simulator. We will focus on this paper on the MIH Protocol implementation and how it is used to facilitate the vertical handover.

A simulation testbed for a MIH enabled system

Interoperability between heterogeneous wireless access networks will help the operators to improve the quality of service offered to the users and the networks resource utilization. Media Independent Handover (MIH) standard is designed by IEEE to optimize the handover between heterogeneous networks. This paper presents a solution for mobility management in heterogeneous networks which is based on the MIH framework. It is presented the architecture and the simulation testbed used for system validation. QualNet simulator was chose to implement the proposed solution.

Small Cells in Cellular Networks: Challenges of Future HetNets

Due to their low cost and easy deployment, small cells provide a viable and cost-effective way of improving the cellular coverage and capacity both for homes and enterprises, both in metropolitan and rural areas. Stimulated by their attractive features and advantages, the ongoing development and deployment of small cells by manufacturers and mobile network operators have seen a surge in recent years. Together with macro-cells, they form, what are called Heterogeneous Networks or HetNets. However, the successful rollout and operation of small cells are still facing significan issues. In this paper the need for, challenges and solutions of small cell deployments are analyzed. This analysis is conducted with respect to self-organizing features, interference coordination, energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency. The analysis is complemented with numerical results based on system simulations in Macro-only and HetNet scenarios and also on real measurements performed on an mobile operator network. Results show the clear improvement that a HetNet brings in term of user throughput and also the amunt of spectrum waste that is present in nowadays’ operator networks.

Big data fusion for eHealth and Ambient Assisted Living Cloud Applications

Senior citizens may suffer from a number of diseases, including but not limited to mild dementia and cognitive disabilities, which require either the institutionalization or the constant support from care-givers. To successfully help the senior citizens, usually a monitoring system is needed that can gather and process data from various sensors about the healthcare condition of the user and environment parameters (noise level, light, humidity and temperature). In this paper we describe a cloud-based approach for monitoring the healthcare condition of senior citizens and the fusion of big data from heterogeneous information flows coming from the sensors. Furthermore, because context understanding is not easily done with a single source of metadata, we analyze metadata available from various online sources, aiming to understand the context of its users, in order to offer them personalized eHealth services.

A study of mobility management using IEEE 802.21

The evolution of mobile technologies had a major impact over the mobile services. The requests for multimedia services on portable devices are increasing continuously and they are becoming one of the main engines for the telecommunications industry. The heterogeneous wireless access technologies available on the mobile devices are an opportunity for the Mobile Network Operators to improve the quality for the services they provide. To take advantage of these opportunities IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover (MIH) standard was introduced to optimize handover between heterogeneous IEEE 802 networks, and facilitate handover between IEEE 802 networks and cellular networks. In this paper an architecture built on the Media Independent Handover framework is presented, along with some aspects related to the implementation of the architecture modules in QualNet simulator. The paper focuses on the system functionalities evaluation based on experiments performed on a simulated MIH-enabled platform implemented in QualNet.

Default values mediator used for a wireless transport SDN Proof of Concept

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a recent paradigm that emerged in the networking community, as a need for mitigating the limitations proven by traditional networks. It was introduced, in the beginning, in campus networks and then in data centers, but the trend is to encapsulate SDN in all the aspects of the network, from optical transport to wireless transport and even Internet exchange points. This paper presents part of the work that was done for the second Proof of Concept (PoC) of SDN for the Wireless Transport, namely the Default Values Mediator (DVM). The PoC gathered several entities, that form the Wireless Transport Project inside the Open Networking Foundation, such as microwave equipment vendors, integrators and application providers and operators, which developed and executed the PoC in order to prove the utility of a common information model to be used for management and configuration of microwave devices in the networks, in the context of SDN. The DVM is an open-source software tool, based on the OpenYuma framework, that emulated a microwave device, and was used for developing and testing the SDN applications proposed in the use cases of the PoC.

A comparison between several Software Defined Networking controllers

The networking industry faces nowadays with the emergence of a somewhat revolutionary paradigm that is intended to rethink network architectures, with the intention to mitigate the limitations that appeared in the traditional networks: Software Defined Networking (SDN). This paper illustrates differences between some SDN controllers, which represent the “brains” of the network. POX, Ryu, ONOS and OpenDaylight are the SDN controllers for which a comparison between their performances is made, using the mininet simulation environment.

A MIH-enabled emulated network for streaming applications

This paper describes a method to emulate a MIH network i.e. to evaluate the real-life behaviour of a MIH network without the need for still not commercially available MIH equipments. The paper focuses on network-wide performance evaluation in the context of a WiFi-WiMAX vertical handover. The EXata Network Emulation tool is used to emulate the MIH network.