Emmanuel Marilly

Service level agreements: a main challenge for next generation networks

Service level agreement (SLA) specification and management becomes a key differentiator in a service providers offerings. SLA management allows a service provider to offer different levels of service guarantees and to differentiate itself from its competitors. It improves the service providers ability to satisfy customer expectations, as the customer knows exactly what to expect in terms of quality of service. SLAs are also a key requirement for the deployment of multimedia over the Internet, i.e. for next generation networks. The Internet today is, however, a best-effort network, without the need for such strict contractual guarantees. Therefore, numerous initiatives are currently being undertaken to specify SLAs and to identify the new challenges for the providers service and network management. The aim of this paper is to present a high-level overview of the main SLA-related issues: the actors involved in SLA negotiations, the technical specification of SLAs and the mapping of SLAs to service classes. We give an overview of ongoing SLA-related initiatives in the industrial world, standardisation bodies and the research community.

Requirements for service level agreement management

The aim of the paper is to introduce and present the main drivers and basic concepts for SLA management. We discuss the business requirements according to two viewpoints: the customers and the service providers. We go into more detail on the technical requirements for both the SLA contract itself and the SLA management system. Finally, we give an overview of SLA management open issues in the industrial and research community.

Alarm correlation for complex telecommunication networks using neural networks and signal processing

The aim of this paper is to investigate new tracks to tackle the open issues of alarm correlation for complex networks (e.g. IP/SDH or IP/WDM). The suggested approach consist of transforming, by means of a neural network the equipment alarm messages into a signal, and then, to use signal-processing methods in order to extract the relevant information for diagnosis.

Rich Media Service Creation for Interactive Mobile TV

In the context of interactive mobile TV services, and more precisely the creation and deployment of interactive mobile TV services, this paper presents the different issues existing in the choice of the rich media format permitting to render interactivity. A solution allowing an easy creation of interactive services for mobile TV will be proposed. This solution will take into account the low integration cost required by the service creator to create and deploy such services on different service platforms or technologies supported by networks and terminals.

Do-it-yourself creation of pervasive, tangible applications

As technology advances and becomes more pervasive, the DiY (Do-it-Yourself) paradigm that emerged on the furniture & home decoration market in the 70s is now experiencing a second birth in the digital realm. Continuing from the prosumer paradigm, where people are allowed not only to surf a network obtaining content and information, but also (co-)create such elements themselves, the user-centered participation is expected to further increase beyond the Web 2.0 as we know it. In line with the supporting ITEA2 DiY Smart Experiences (DiYSE) project, this studio aims to offer participants the opportunity to create, design and share pervasive applications within the smart space ecosystem provided by the DiYSE framework and its development methodology.