Chiho Kitahara

A policy-based management architecture for active and programmable networks

Next generation networks must be capable of supporting a multitude of service providers that exploit an environment in which services are dynamically deployed and quickly adapted over a common heterogeneous physical infrastructure, according to varying and sometimes conflicting customer requirements. In this context, network management must become more flexible in order to cope with these emerging conditions. More specifically, new management architectures must offer service providers the freedom to manage their services according to their own policies and seamlessly extend management functionality as the only way to react to the introduction of new services. Based on a new business model that describes such an environment, we propose a policy-based management architecture that is extensible and operates in an active and programmable network. This management architecture is part of a new network architecture that was developed in the FAIN European Union research and development IST project.

Dynamic Deployment and Configuration of Differentiated Services Using Active Networks

This paper presents the detailed components of the Future Active IP Networks (FAIN) [1] [2] [3] active node framework based on the novel Virtual Environment (VE) concept. It also presents the dynamic and autonomic deployment of differentiated services and the configuration capabilities thereof enabled. The FAIN node supports the dynamic deployment and instantiation of multiple active VEs, each one of them capable of hosting multiple Execution Environments (EE) and supporting communication among different EEs in the same node. The EEs may, in turn, be deployed and instantiated on demand thereby introducing new features and functionality in the node according to new requirements and arising needs. We tested the FAIN active network by developing and dynamically deploying a control EE, which was designed and tested for the QoS configuration of the Diffserv-enabled pan-European FAIN testbed [4]. The work presented in this paper was performed in the European Union research and development project under the Information Society Technologies programme.

The FAIN Management Framework: a management approach for active network environments

The FAIN Management Framework of active and programmable networks is an innovative distributed policy based management framework that copes with the specific management requirements of active networks, dynamically adapting to heterogeneous network technologies and functionalities. Also, it supports a flexible delegation approach with co-existence of different management strategies allowing actors to best customise the management architecture to their business needs. This results in reduction of redundant traffic and information processing, and dynamic fine-grained management tailoring. The paper focuses on how policy-based management is applicable to the active network and how these technologies can merge in an evolutionary management framework. The concepts presented here have been developed within the framework of the FAIN project.