Antonio Jorge Gomes Abelém

Control of Multiple Packet Schedulers for Improving QoS on OpenFlow/SDN Networking

Packet scheduling is essential to properly support applications on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) model. However, on OpenFlow/SDN, QoS is only performed with bandwidth guarantees and by a well-known FIFO scheduling. Facing this limitation, this paper presents the QoSFlow proposal, which controls multiple packet schedulers of Linux kernel and improve the flexibility of QoS control. The paper assesses QoSFlow performance, by analysing response time of packet scheduler operations running on datapath level, maximum bandwidth capacity, hardware resource utilization rate, bandwidth isolation and QoE. Our outcomes show an increase more than 48% on PSNR value of QoE by using SFQ scheduling.

Video quality estimator for wireless mesh networks

As Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have been increasingly deployed, where users can share, create and access videos with different characteristics, the need for new quality estimator mechanisms has become important because operators want to control the quality of video delivery and optimize their network resources, while increasing the user satisfaction. However, the development of in-service Quality of Experience (QoE) estimation schemes for Internet videos (e.g., real-time streaming and gaming) with different complexities, motions, Group of Picture (GoP) sizes and contents remains a significant challenge and is crucial for the success of wireless multimedia systems. To address this challenge, we propose a real-time quality estimator approach, HyQoE, for real-time multimedia applications. The performance evaluation in a WMN scenario demonstrates the high accuracy of HyQoE in estimating the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). Moreover, the results highlight the lack of performance of the well-known objective methods and the Pseudo-Subjective Quality Assessment (PSQA) approach.

Using fuzzy link cost and dynamic choice of link quality metrics to achieve QoS and QoE in wireless mesh networks

The growth of multimedia applications and wireless systems requires a new behavior of routing protocols for wireless mesh networks (WMNs). It is necessary to provide not only the minimum requirements for quality of service (QoS), but also to assure the quality of experience (QoE) support for multimedia applications. In this context, the usage of only one link quality metric for routing different types of packets within the network is not enough to ensure applications with suitable QoS and QoE levels. This paper presents a variation of the WMN routing protocol optimized link state routing (OLSR), to achieve QoS and QoE requirements for multimedia applications. It is based on the dynamic choice of metrics and in a fuzzy link cost (FLC) to determine the best routes for multimedia packets. The proposed FLC metric is based on a fuzzy system that uses two link quality metrics, namely expected transmission count (ETX) and minimum delay (MD), to define a new metric. Simulations were performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed metric compared to the ones present in the original OLSR and other current versions of this protocol. For comparison purposes, it was considered different performance evaluation QoS metrics and the quality of videos received by the user in a higher competition scenario.

A proposal management of the legacy network environment using OpenFlow control plane

The Future Internet will arise from the convergence of new network concepts and combine technologies, services, media and content. It will offer flexibility and diversity with scalable content and services that are accessible through a wide range of interfaces and devices. However, the biggest challenge now is how to enable and test the proposed approaches so that they can be validated without sacrificing the current production infrastructure. The OpenFlow protocol allows production networking environments such as campus networks, metropolitan networks or R&D networks, to be used as experimental infrastructure hosting, future Internet architectures, software and protocols, in parallel with the production traffic. During rollout, there is a practical problem that arises with Legacy networks that do not support OpenFlow and need to be replaced/upgraded or refined by means of costly network re-engineering. This paper proposes a new OpenFlow architecture with new components, capable of managing Legacy-non-OpenFlow elements by offering a new solution that facilitates the management of Legacy technologies and allows them to be employed in FI experimentation environment and increase the number of experiment with the Legacy Network Environment using OpenFlow control.

A qoe fuzzy routing protocol for wireless mesh networks

Nowadays wireless systems changing our life experience, allowing ubiquitous communications, attracting new users, and supporting new applications, such as video streaming, VoIP, Mobile TV and other kind of multimedia applications. The combination of wireless networks and multimedia content distribution requires a new behavior of routing protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). Hence, new protocols must be developed to increase the user perception and optimize the usage of network resources. This paper presents a variation of the WMN routing protocol Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR), to achieve QoS and QoE requirements for multimedia applications. It is based on the dynamic choice of metrics and in a Fuzzy Link Cost (FLC) to determine the best routes for multimedia packets. Simulations were carried out to show the benefits of the proposed metric regarding user experience compared to existing versions of OLSR.

FIBRE Project: Brazil and Europe Unite Forces and Testbeds for the Internet of the Future

In October 2011 a new, ambitious project was launched, named FIBRE (Future Internet testbeds experimentation between Brazil and Europe). Its main goal is to create common space between Brazil and EU for Future Internet experimental research into network infrastructure and distributed applications, by building and operating a federated EU-Brazil Future Internet experimental facility. Apart from bridging partners from two continents, the project brings together different technologies, including OpenFlow, wireless and optical communications. To demonstrate the public utility of the facility, FIBRE will design and implement a set of pilot applications ranging from seamless wireless connectivity to high-definition content delivery. The poster to be presented describes FIBRE’s goals, its testbed facilities and a schema of the envisioned architecture embracing the functionalities of the individual testbeds, as well as their federation. This schema has resulted from the collaborative work of the partners in order to define the functional requirements related to such an architecture. Our ambition with this poster is to attract new users for the facility from the experimental research community, but also to stimulate interest for FIBRE’s activities among the conference’s attendees.

LatinCon14 - Providing QoE and QoS in Wireless Mesh Networks Through Dynamic Choice of Routing Metrics

The increasing demand of multimedia applications requires a new behavior of routing protocols for wireless mesh networks (WMNs). It is necessary to support the minimum requirements for quality of service (QoS), but WMNs also need to support the minimum requirements for quality of experience (QoE). This paper is an additional analysis of the proposed routing protocol OLSR-DC, from a perspective of the network (QoS) and from a perspective of the user (QoE). The simulations were performed to demonstrate the performance of OLSR-DC compared against original OLSR and its ETX and MD versions considering different performance evaluation metrics and the quality of the video received by the user.

Filling the gap between Software Defined Networking and Wireless Mesh Networks

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has emerged as a new paradigm that highly increase the network management flexibility through simple but powerful abstractions. The key idea is decoupling the control plane, which makes the forward decisions, from the data plane, which effectively makes the forward. However, the OpenFlow, the main SDN enabler, is designed mainly by wired networks characteristics. As consequence, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) is not suitable for operating as control plane and many wireless networks features are neglected in the OpenFlow, e.g.: power control and network ID. In addition, there are few effort research to extend SDN to wireless networks and these existing works focus on very specific issues of this integration. In this paper, we propose an architecture to extent the OpenFlow functionalities in order to proper deal with wireless networks, including an approach for transporting the control plane over wireless multihop networks. The extensions include new rules, actions, and commands, which bring the network management flexibility to the wireless context. We validated our proposal by implementing and testing some extensions in a small real world testbed. As a proof of concept, we illustrate the OpenFlow capability of isolation between research and production traffics in a wireless backhaul.

QoE-based packet dropper controllers for multimedia streaming in WiMAX networks

The proliferation of broadband wireless facilities, together with the demand for multimedia applications, are creating a wireless multimedia era. In this scenario, the key requirement is the delivery of multimedia content with Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) support for thousands of users (and access networks) in broadband in the wireless systems of the next generation.. This paper sets out new QoE-aware packet controller mechanisms to keep video streaming applications at an acceptable level of quality in Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks. In periods of congestion, intelligent packet dropper mechanisms for IEEE 802.16 systems are triggered to drop packets in accordance with their impact on user perception, intra-frame dependence, Group of Pictures (GoP) and available wireless resources in service classes. The simulation results show that the proposed solutions reduce the impact of multimedia flows on the users experience and optimize wireless network resources in periods of congestion.. The benefits of the proposed schemes were evaluted in a simulated WiMAX QoS/QoE environment, by using the following well-known QoE metrics: Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Video Quality Metric (VQM), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and Mean Option Score (MOS).

CIM-SDN: A Common Information Model extension for Software-Defined Networking

The increase in complexity of computer networks and their services have boosted the development of standardizations, models, and solutions for network management over the years. Lately, the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) defined the Common Information Model (CIM) for describing computational entities and businesses on the Internet. This paper proposes an extension of the CIM for Software-Defined Networking (SDN) by adding new elements (Controllers, Apps, Slices and others) to improve the system management performance. Furthermore, we define a metamodel to help the process of creating and understanding the proposed model. The proposal was validated by creating a script that generates the FlowVisor configuration file using the network model as input and using Object Constraint Language (OCL) to find inconsistencies in the network.