Markus Luoto

Cross-Layer Enhanced Mobility Management in Heterogeneous Networks

The criteria used by state-of-the-art mobility protocols in their handover decision-making are very limited. The protocols typically rely on routing advertisements or signal strength measurements in mobility detection but these criteria fail to reflect the actual transmission conditions in the networks. Instead, more extensive information originating from both the mobile nodes local stack and the network should be employed to achieve more informed handover decision-making. This paper introduces a framework and a prototype implementation for improving the handover performance of Mobile IP based on a variety of cross-layer and cross-domain triggers. The paper also presents the first results obtained from testing the prototype that show the usefulness of the approach.

Distributed information service architecture for overlapping multiaccess networks

Multimedia delivery in mobile multiaccess network environments has emerged as a key area within the future Internet research domain. When network heterogeneity is coupled with the proliferation of multiaccess capabilities in mobile handheld devices, one can expect many new avenues for developing novel services and applications. New mechanisms for audio/video delivery over multiaccess networks will define the next generation of major distribution technologies, but will require significantly more information to operate according to their best potential. In this paper we present and evaluate a distributed information service, which can enhance media delivery over such multiaccess networks. We describe the proposed information service, which is built upon the new distributed control and management framework (DCMF) and the mobility management triggering functionality (TRG). We use a testbed which includes 3G/HSPA, WLAN and WiMAX network accesses to evaluate our proposed architecture and present results that demonstrate its value in enhancing video delivery and minimizing service disruption in an involved scenario.

Cognitive Network Management Framework and Approach for Video Streaming Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks

The future Internet will be highly heterogeneous in supporting a multitude of access technologies and networks with overlapping coverages. Optimization of network operations like management of resources, mobility or Quality of Service in order to ensure smooth network operation and high user satisfaction will be very challenging in the future networks. Cognitive network management can provide a solution of managing such complex systems. This paper studies cognitive network management in the context of optimizing video streaming performance in heterogeneous multi-access networks. The paper proposes a network management framework that relies on cognitive decision techniques in the joint optimization of network and video service performance. The proposed solution is also implemented and validated in part in a testbed environment. The results attest the feasibility of the solution as well as the benefits of cognitive decision techniques over non-learning or non-adaptive approaches.

Evaluation of autonomic load balancing in wireless multiaccess environment

The continuously increasing complexity of the communication networks and growing data traffic volume have proven to pose measurable challenges for the network and service management. The Univerself project is facing these challenges by designing a Unified Management Framework (UMF) for enabling widespread and consistent autonomic management of networks and services, while at the same time maintaining operators supervision. This paper introduces our work on wireless access load balancing, being part of the UMF work. First of all, we summarize our approach (Distributed Decision Engine - DDE) for information monitoring, further processing and delivery in the context of autonomic network and service management. We describe our proof-of-concept prototype on multiaccess capable access selection and load balancing, and show the employment of DDE and autonomic decision mechanisms therein. The prototype is evaluated by conducting a set of measurements and outperformance will be proven against a reference system without network or service awareness.

Integrating Adaptive Video Streaming Service with Multi-access Network Management

In the future, mobile Internet access is expected to be over heterogeneous technologies and with support for dynamic adaptation in order to adjust efficiently to the varying network availability and conditions. To remove the burden of multi-access network management from users and operators, cognitive network management mechanisms may be used for obtaining the required automation over several networking functions like access selection and routing. In this paper, we introduce a novel control and signaling architecture employing cognitive mechanisms in optimizing video stream delivery over multi-access networks. We also present a prototype implementation of the proposed system encompassing open source components and supporting Scalable Video Coding (SVC). The initial results obtained from an experimental evaluation show how our solution may be used for optimizing video stream delivery in multi-access networks according to a user or operator defined policy.

Hierarchical management architecture and testbed for mobile video service optimization

There is demand for solutions capable of managing the constantly increasing video traffic loads over wireless networks while ensuring sufficient QoS and QoE for mobile video services. This paper presents a hierarchical network management architecture for optimized mobile video streaming in heterogeneous multi-access networks. The architecture jointly utilizes the access diversity of multi-access networks and video adaptation capabilities in the optimization, and relies on novel cognitive algorithms in implementing the automated decision-making for the management. To facilitate the development of such algorithms as next steps, the paper presents a testbed including the required components. The paper also includes a first-pass experimental evaluation on the testbed and preliminary optimization algorithms.

Preliminary big data in a 5G test network

The Finnish 5G test network (5GTN) is built to support development and analysis of 5G technologies and new services on top of them. 5GTN includes a holistic monitoring and test generation architecture, enabling generation and collection of diverse test and datasets, analyzing the results and using these as basis for developing new technologies, algorithms, services, and optimizations. Both the combined network and service parameters space, as well as data volume, provide us with several big data problems. In this paper, we describe the overall system architecture, the types of data we collect, the initial analysis we have performed on the data, and what we have learned so far. The network is constantly evolving with new services integrated and tested, and new big data analytics being applied as we learn from our tests. As such, these are preliminary results for ongoing work.

Distributed decision engine — An information management architecture for autonomie wireless networking

With wireless networks becoming ever more ubiquitous and the capabilities of the devices connected to them rivalling those of desktop computers, there is an acute need for the communications in these networks to be managed as efficiently and autonomously as possible. Moreover, as the number of connected devices is rapidly increasing, the problem is becoming all the more complex and the amount of up-to-date status information needed for the management is multiplying. In order to meet the needs of future network management in terms of knowledge building and dissemination, this paper presents an architecture for collecting, processing, and disseminating vast amounts of network management information efficiently in wireless networks. The information may originate from the different layers of the networking protocol stack either on the wireless clients or network devices, and the architecture facilitates its signalling within a distributed network management system. Also, as described in this paper with practical examples, the architecture has been validated in a laboratory with real devices in the context of multiple use cases ranging from enhanced multimedia delivery for mobile clients to balancing the workload of network nodes. In addition, this paper evaluates the performance of the Event Cache prototype in terms of its capability of handling event dissemination in a real testbed environment.

Distributed Control and Management Framework for Mobile and Multi-access Communication.

To support roaming, access control, and different optimizations in the network architecture, a new distributed control and management framework, shown in Figure 1, is required. The basis of this framework is a unified signalling architecture that is capable of serving different entities, located either in the network or in the terminals controlled by different players (terminals by the user, network by the service provider). The network side elements that would benefit from such a signalling framework include, for example, policy management, network/operator aided mobility management, and resource management. On the terminal side, mechanisms such as mobility management or transport protocol optimization solutions need access to extensive amount of information related to network access characteristics and roaming.

Multi-interface Streaming of Scalable Video

Scalable Video Coding (SVC) creates new possibilities for video service delivery in heterogeneous multi-access networks as it allows splitting the video into independently streamable layers. Today’s terminal devices often have multiple network interfaces, and with multihoming and mobility capabilities the devices are able to use the interfaces also simultaneously for connecting to networked services. Thus for streaming SVC-encoded video, an interesting new use case is the ability to receive the same video stream over multiple network connections. Such multi-interface streaming capability would benefit situations where, for example, no single access network within the user’s reach is capable of supporting the whole video stream or when the service provider wants to make only the base quality stream available to all users (e.g. via DVB-H) but offers a quality enhancement for paying customers via some other connection (e.g. WLAN). In this paper, we present a prototype implementation for realizing multi-interface streaming for SVC.