Marko Luoma

Mobile networks unplugged

Mobile network access has seemingly become ubiquitous in industrialized countries. With data services becoming sufficiently fast, usable, and affordable, demand is growing rapidly, both in the number of users and in capacity -- since most Internet/web resources continue being tailored for fast fixed line access. A lot of engineering has gone into making mobile devices appealing and sufficiently power-conserving to last for at least a day in spite of the many emerging network-driven applications. However, this device-centric view fails to recognize the other side: the mobile access infrastructure. There, too, power consumption raises technical issues (not just) when moving towards faster mobile access and is de-facto an inhibiting factor for cellular expansion: for practical and for cost reasons. In this paper, we seek to raise awareness of the power consumption issues of mobile networks. We argue that mobile access will become, in addition to data centers and PCs, another contributing factor from the ICT sector to greenhouse gas emissions and that current mobile access technologies limit further network expansion in rural areas. Thus, we need to start working on making mobile networks much more energy-efficient than they are today, maybe even fully self-sustainable using renewable energy sources.

MICS messaging platform: Architecture, design and routing

The Multi Interface Communications Software (MICS) is a robust messaging platform for heterogeneous communications equipment. MICS can provide message delivery in networks that lack essentials required by traditional TCP/IP-solutions, like end-to-end connectivity or compatible addressing methods. MICS abstracts the used communications medium, that is the network and link layer, from applications. Applications and network interfaces connect to MICS core using well known and standardized APIs. MICS is a modular software platform, each module has a clear purpose and used modules communicate over D-Bus. Familiar email addresses and APIs are used to interface applications with the MICS system. The high-level operation of MICS resembles Delay Tolerant Networking since we make use of store-and-forward message delivery and multipath message routing together with flooding. This paper concentrates on the overall concept of the MICS system, software architecture, IPC methods, details design choices, message routing and discusses real world deployment scenarios.

Future Internet Is by Ethernet

This is a position paper describing an approach to the creation of the Future Internet. We argue that the new architecture must respond to two key challenges: (1) increase trust among Internet stakeholders and (2) provide cost efficient scaling of the network to new levels of capacity, number of users and applications. We argue that the solution is to redesign the Internet by gradually replacing IP with a carrier grade transport system. In practice such a packet transport system can be created based on Carrier Grade Ethernet. We call the resulting network Internet by Ethernet. We make some fundamental arguments and outline the research agenda that will open based on the premises that we describe.

National mobility in coalition tactical networks

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a rapidly emerging technology that brings new flexibility to networking through the separation of the control and data plane. This paper presents one SDN based framework, among several potential valid approaches, for addressing the mobility of operational nodes within a coalition environment. The operational nodes require mobility to enable roaming, multi-homing, and handover over heterogeneous sub-networks. The paper characterizes these sub-networks as protected core networks.

Estimating KPIs in deployed heterogeneous networks

In tactical missions, seamless and effective communication is crucial for mission success. For future deployed networks, the user experience can be improved with proper resource allocation mechanisms, taking into consideration quality of service characteristics of the traffic. Such a resource allocation method requires knowledge of the key performance indicators of the communication path. In this article, we present a framework for the key performance indicator estimation service for deployed heterogeneous networks. Our proposal utilizes several different approaches for measuring key performance indicators. Several mechanisms are used to improve the accuracy and reliability of the service. We also discuss the lessons learned during the key performance indicator estimation service implementation and the validation process.

Hierarchical link-state routing in disruption-tolerant networks

Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) is the technological tool for operating in networks that while performant are intermittently available and may lack end-to-end connectivity. Routing in DTN networks is an open research problem and there has been interest in tying DTN resiliency to Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) performance. Using the Multi Interface Communications Software (MICS) framework, we explore use of a linkstate routing protocol in DTN environment. We detail the improvements done to the routing protocol to enhance operation in hierarchical network topologies.