Joyce B. Mwangama

Multi-tenancy for Virtualized Network Functions

The proliferation of cloud computing techniques has created a multitude of applications for network services deployments, enabled by the adoption of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigms. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) also have the opportunity to leverage these technologies to enable the delivery of traditional networking functionality making use of cloud technologies. The benefit is cost reduction in the CAPEX and OPEX of the network infrastructure. Furthermore, multiple MNOs could share Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) while maintaining separate logical data and control planes. This work investigates how those VNFs, in particular the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Network Service (NS), can be shared using Virtual Tenant Networks (VTN) techniques. VTN provides a logical separation between data and control plane in virtualized networks. The design, implementation, and preliminary evaluations of such deployments are showcased in this paper, using open-source tools and readily available research playgrounds.

Charging and Billing for Composite Services in a Multi-Service Provider Environment: The IMS Case

In a saturating telecommunications marketplace network operators want to rapidly deploy services with minimum capital investment, while maximizing on revenue from service usage by customers. One way to achieve this is to create interfaces for 3rd party service and content providers to offer their applications and services to users. Composing and bundling of these services will essentially create new services for the user and achieve rapid deployment of enhanced services. Effective accounting of service usage requires mechanisms for billing and charging of these services. Achieving this in an environment where the network operator interacts directly with the 3rd party providers may become complicated. This work defines a framework that would allow for the effective charging and billing of services composed from 3rd party service and content providers. We propose the use of a service composer who mediates between an IMS network operator and the many content providers to create new services that are composed from independent applications; the composer simplifies the technical and business aspects of service provision while ensuring that charging and billing occurs within the network.

TRESCIMO: European union and South African Smart City contextual dimensions

Cities increasingly face challenges related to pollution, efficient use of resources (e.g. water, energy) and ensuring a good quality of life for its citizens. Solutions built on existing and emerging technologies such as Cloud computing, Internet of Things, Machine-to-Machine and data analytics can improve on or create services able to address these challenges. These solutions are seen as contributors in creating a Smart City. In Europe Smart Cities have been implemented, while South Africa has only recently started with Smart City initiatives. Current thinking has been to replicate international Smart City instances in South Africa. However, an open question is raised if this is an optimal strategy as differences in context might impact on the delivery of services. This paper extracts and compares contextual differences between Europe and South Africa, and based on those insights analyse whether full European solutions will deliver on the promise of a South African Smart City. Furthermore the question is raised if insights into a South African Smart City can strengthen European initiatives. A need for inter-continental automated testing facilities such as those developed by TRESCIMO is identified through which integrated experiments can be conducted to provide insight and answers.

Utilizing M2M Technologies for Building Reliable Smart Cities

With a large majority of the worlds population moving towards urban environments in the foreseeable future, the notion of Smart City is emerging globally as an important research topic. The population movement will affect the consumption rate of natural resources i.e. water, soil, and plants. Therefore, innovative management and monitoring systems are required to enhance citizens quality of life. Additionally, the power grid complexity is increasing as more private or enterprise buildings become virtual power generation facilities by deploying clean energy generators based on renewable energy sources (e.g. Photo voltaic cells). By installing small smart and affordable devices in key points around the city, the information about environment status and resources consumption can be collected and transmitted (over different network technologies) to higher level control systems. This will support predictions, decision making, trigger prompt actions at device domain or notifying the consumers about possible actions adapt to the current power grid resources. When the predictions and control over demand behavior and reduction of unnecessary power generation are improving, there will be a positive impact on the costs and CO2 emissions, rendering the entire city smarter. This paper introduces an infrastructure for reliable Smart City, investigates a number of use cases scenario and propose possible solutions. The proposed architecture is based on a Smart City platform and an ETSI M2M/ oneM2M compliant Machine-to-Machine communication framework.

Towards Mobile Federated Network Operators

Mobile Network Operators provide wireless communication services to their customers using their own network infrastructures. For providers, in particular in low income countries, access to latest network functions to offer 4G/5G services can be a large burden as this is directly impacted by financial restrictions of operators. Although some network sharing solutions between operators to reduce the total cost of ownership exist in standards and literature, none address specific requirements of the operating environment of low income countries. In our approach, we are exploiting the raising interest in the cloudification of the related infrastructure, namely Network Function Virtualization (NFV) over Software Defined Networks (SDN), to allow each operator in these countries to offer specific network functions as a service in a federation in order to share them and to increase their revenue. Initial results are presented based on the development of a commercial toolkit (OpenSDNCore) and a federated testbed research project (TRESCIMO). As a result, we define the notion of a Mobile Federated Network Operator (MFNO) and provide an analysis of the underlying requirements for such a use case and potential approaches to address them.

MeerKAT data distribution network

MeerKAT, the 64-dish radio telescope built in the arid Karoo region of South Africa, uses Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) high-speed Ethernet networking equipment to distribute the high volume digitized and processed signal information between computing resources. On MeerKAT, the received analog signals (Horizontal and Vertical polarizations) are digitized at each dish and sent directly to the FX-Correlators data center network in the central processing facility via an extensive underground fiber network. This single data network is also used for data exchange between the correlator components, imager, archive and other instrumentation. MeerKAT welcomes external participation and contribution, and not all instrumentation reflects in-house development. For example, user-supplied equipment is used for pulsar timing, transient searches and even for the search for extraterrestrial life. Here, we describe the data-transfer characteristics of the equipment connected to the network, the network architecture, and the critical role of multicasting in the data distribution. We demonstrate how the flexible nature of the network allows for concurrent processing of the same data streams by different instrumentation and also for multiple, independent observations (subarrays). We conclude with preliminary research into the use of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) for this data network.

Prototyping Smart City applications over large scale M2M testbed

Many cities around the globe are adopting the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as part of a strategy to transform into Smart Cities. These will allow cities in the developing world to cope with the ever increasing demand for services such as an effective electricity supply, healthcare and water management. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication standards play a vital role in enabling the development of Smart Cities by supporting new innovative services. Although Smart City services offer an exciting future, many challenges still have to be addressed in order to allow for mainstream adoption. This work focuses on issues related to prototyping Smart City services that utilize standardised M2M middleware platforms. In addition, the use of an inter-continental testbed for Smart City applications as an enabler for innovative, automated and interactive services is presented. The services developed will use an architecture which is based on the Smart City framework developed as part of the Testbeds for Reliable Smart City Machine-to-Machine Communication (TRESCIMO) project. These services will also serve as means to validate the use of Smart services within an African Citys context. In addition, the architecture is validated by taking into account various real world use cases for Smart City applications.

Past and current IMS testbed initiatives: The UCT IMS and EPC testbed

Over the last 5 years the Communications Research Group at the University of Cape Town has been actively involved in IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) testbed research initiatives. This paper aims to describe the research work that was done within this testbed. The work ranges from work on an IMS client, IMS based services such as IPTV and Advertising, as well as network management work relating to QoS, Policy and Charging Control. The paper also touches on current work that involves the evolution of the mobile core network or more specifically the Evolved Packet Core (EPC). Future work involves the integration of all past research work into this new testbed as well as investigating other areas such as enhanced QoS mechanisms and Mobility control for the EPC, and the Integration of Cognitive radios in EPC / Base Stations for UMTS/LTE.

Evaluation of a charging framework for composite multimedia services using a testbed implementation

In the past, network operators were content with offering simple services such as voice and text messaging. However, they began to notice that these services were generating lower revenues even while the number of subscribers increased. Network operators are now forced to rapidly deploy value added services with minimum capital investment while maximising revenue from service usage by end users. Network operators can achieve this by exposing the network to external content and service providers. They would create interfaces that would allow these 3rd party service and content providers to offer their applications and services to users. This would allow for dynamic service mashups that result in rapid service creation for the network operator. In this paper a framework that would allow for the effective charging of services composed from external service and content providers is presented. The use of a service mediator that forms a gateway between an IMS network operator and the many content providers is proposed. This allows for the creation of new services that are composed from independent applications; the service mediator simplifies the technical and business aspects of service provisioning while ensuring that charging and billing occurs within the network.