Aristi Galani

Core functional and network empower mechanisms of an operator-driven, framework for unifying autonomic network and service management

Future Internet (FI) constitutes a complex and dynamic environment, the requirements of which cannot be adrressed by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of autonomic network and service management. In this context, the UniverSelf research project proposes a promising solution, called Unified Management Framework (UMF), which targets the unification of autonomic network and service management. UMF addresses FI challenges by exploiting governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, unification of diverse autonomic solutions, and adaptation to rapidly changing environment with respect to managed system properties and service and users requirements. Accordingly, this paper presents the UMF core blocks, namely Governance, Coordination and Knowledge blocks, including a description of their underlying mechanisms. The paper also describes the Network Empowerment Mechanisms (NEM) that empower networks with autonomic algorithms/solutions and can be embedded into existing and future systems in a “plug and play” way.

A survey of autonomic networking architectures: towards a Unified Management Framework

SUMMARY Academic and industrial research initiatives have sought to make fully autonomic networks a reality. Some of these initiatives pursued a holistic approach, while others focused on setting up functionalities for specific networking domains. These efforts did not succeed in being extensively deployed, because the goals of network operators were not satisfactorily met. These goals include unification of management operations, enablement of end-to-end management and enhancement of the overall system performance in a trusted way, while reducing management cost. In this paper, we analyse a set of existing autonomic management architectures and frameworks with respect to a selected set of criteria. We then identify missing parts and challenges and propose a framework to unify the most promising attributes towards a novel approach of realization of autonomic networking management. We call this proposal Unified Management Framework (UMF). Copyright

Identifying standardization opportunities of an operator-driven, framework for unifying autonomic network and service management

The increasing dynamism, complexity and challenges of networks and services cannot be handled by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of autonomic network and service management. In this context, the UniverSelf research project proposes a promising solution, called Unified Management Framework (UMF) with the goal to unify and establish autonomics in the management of networks and services. UMF provides the processes, tools and methods for achieving unification of diverse autonomic solutions, governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, and “plug and play” of autonomic solutions within existing and future management ecosystems. Despite the soundness of UMF vision from the research point of view, careful and well planned roadmap towards standardization is required in order to boost its deployability and operator adoption. Accordingly, this paper first describes the approach followed for the design of UMF and the set of functional blocks derived as an outcome of this approach. Based on the elaboration and evolution of these functional blocks, the focus is then placed on three components namely, governance, knowledge, coordination, which comprise the so called UMF core and will monopolize the effort towards deriving the upcoming releases of UMF. The standardization opportunities of UMF can be actually indentified while looking into these components and their associated interfaces.

Evaluation of signalling loads in a cognitive network management architecture

Future networks will need to accommodate a significantly augmented user demand, mainly stemming from the wireless and mobile domains. In general, the emerging radio landscape will comprise multiple, collaborating radio access networks (RANs) able to operate a plethora of diverse radio access technologies (RATs), variant types of mobile terminals (MTs), with the ability to choose among various supported RANs/RATs and, in addition, both devices and networks with dynamic spectrum access capabilities that allow the sharing and/or optimization of spectrum usage among different systems. The above will stress network operators for developing mechanisms to confront the challenges and to leverage the opportunities posed by such a versatile radio environment. In particular, the situation calls for adaptive and flexible management paradigms that are able to dynamically manage network elements and terminals, thus ensuring the great availability and efficient usage of spectrum and other radio resources. Framed within the above, this paper considers a cognitive network management architecture, which is destined for optimized management of future wireless networks operating in versatile radio environments, and presents a performance evaluation methodology, which was set up for measuring the signalling loads that the operation of the architecture will bring to the managed network. The methodology is analytically described, and useful results with respect to the signalling load produced for management signalling purposes in an indicative scenario are presented and analysed. Copyright

Information Flow for Optimized Management of Spectrum and Radio Resources in Cognitive B3G Wireless Networks

The Beyond 3G (B3G) radio landscape will consist of cognitive heterogeneous wireless networks, operating in the framework of diverse co-operative associations among different classes of operators and providers, for the accommodation of the demands of users with multimode and/or multihoming enabled terminals. In this context, the optimized spectrum and radio resource utilization will be key factor for accomplishment of the purposes of both users and operators/providers, namely the satisfaction of user’s needs and the augmentation of profit, respectively. In this paper, we focus on an architecture for the management and optimization of spectrum and radio resource utilization in such composite wireless environments, and we analytically present the respective information flow among and from/to the functional entities involved in this architecture. The proposed management architecture can operate in the framework of different business scenarios and is based on related work that has been conducted within the IEEE 1900.4 standard.

A policy based framework for governing Future networks

Future Internet will constitute a complex and dynamic environment, the requirements of which cannot be handled by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of autonomic service and network management, which targets at guidance and orchestration of the behavior of autonomic and contemporary network entities based on specific service requirements and business goals. In this context, policies can constitute a means for accomplishing the desired high level control in autonomic management. In order to achieve this objective, an advanced policy framework, confronting the challenges of the highly miscellaneous, decentralized and dynamic Future Internet, is needed. To this effect, this paper presents the main challenges of policy-based management in the context of governing the autonomic Future Internet, and based on their elaboration, the focus is placed on existing concepts that can constitute the basis for the design of a proper policy management framework. The paper also describes the functional specification of the policy management framework, deriving from the presented challenges, and instantiation of the policy framework on an illustrative scenario.

Signaling Load Evaluations for Policy-Driven Cognitive Management Architectures

Future networks will need to accommodate a significantly augmented user demand, mainly stemming from the wireless and mobile domains. This will stress network operators for developing mechanisms to confront the challenges and to leverage the opportunities posed by such a versatile radio environment. In particular, the situation calls for adaptive and flexible management paradigms that are able to dynamically manage network elements and terminals thus ensuring the great availability and efficient usage of spectrum and other radio resources. Framed within the above, this paper considers a cognitive management architecture, which is destined to the optimized management of future wireless networks and terminals operating in versatile radio environments and presents a performance evaluation methodology, which was set up for measuring the signaling loads that the operation of the architecture will bring in to the managed network.