Qiang Duan

A Survey on Service-Oriented Network Virtualization Toward Convergence of Networking and Cloud Computing

The crucial role that networking plays in Cloud computing calls for a holistic vision that allows combined control, management, and optimization of both networking and computing resources in a Cloud environment, which leads to a convergence of networking and Cloud computing. Network virtualization is being adopted in both telecommunications and the Internet as a key attribute for the next generation networking. Virtualization, as a potential enabler of profound changes in both communications and computing domains, is expected to bridge the gap between these two fields. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), when applied in network virtualization, enables a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) paradigm that may greatly facilitate the convergence of networking and Cloud computing. Recently the application of SOA in network virtualization has attracted extensive interest from both academia and industry. Although numerous relevant research works have been published, they are currently scattered across multiple fields in the literature, including telecommunications, computer networking, Web services, and Cloud computing. In this article we present a comprehensive survey on the latest developments in service-oriented network virtualization for supporting Cloud computing, particularly from a perspective of network and Cloud convergence through NaaS. Specifically, we first introduce the SOA principle and review recent research progress on applying SOA to support network virtualization in both telecommunications and the Internet. Then we present a framework of network-Cloud convergence based on service-oriented network virtualization and give a survey on key technologies for realizing NaaS, mainly focusing on state of the art of network service description, discovery, and composition. We also discuss the challenges brought in by network-Cloud convergence to these technologies and research opportunities available in these areas, with a hope to arouse the research communitys interest in this emerging interdisciplinary field.

A Novel Deployment Scheme for Green Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been realized as one of the most promising networking paradigms that bridge the gap between the cyber and physical world. Developing green deployment schemes for IoT is a challenging issue since IoT achieves a larger scale and becomes more complex so that most of the current schemes for deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs) cannot be transplanted directly in IoT. This paper addresses this challenging issue by proposing a deployment scheme to achieve green networked IoT. The contributions made in this paper include: 1) a hierarchical system framework for a general IoT deployment, 2) an optimization model on the basis of proposed system framework to realize green IoT, and 3) a minimal energy consumption algorithm for solving the presented optimization model. The numerical results on minimal energy consumption and network lifetime of the system indicate that the deployment scheme proposed in this paper is more flexible and energy efficient compared to typical WSN deployment scheme; thus is applicable to the green IoT deployment.

Modeling and Performance Analysis on Network Virtualization for Composite Network-Cloud Service Provisioning

Computer networks play a crucial role in Cloud service provisioning and network Quality of Service (QoS) has a significant impact on Cloud service performance. Therefore networking and Clouding computing systems should be modeled and analyzed as a composite service provisioning system in order to obtain thorough understanding about the users perception of Cloud service performance. Network virtualization is one of the latest developments in the networking area, which de-couples networking services from network infrastructures. The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) serves as a key enabler in both network virtualization and Cloud computing, thus offering a promising basis for network and Cloud composition. The research work presented in this paper investigates application of SOA in network virtualization for composing network and Cloud services, and analyzes the achievable performance of composite network-Cloud service provisioning. This paper proposes a SOA-based network virtualization paradigm, describes a service-oriented framework for composing network and Cloud services, proposes a new approach to modeling service capabilities of composite network -- Cloud service provisioning systems, and develops analysis techniques for determining the performance that can be offered by composite network -- Cloud services to their end users.

A K-means-based network partition algorithm for controller placement in software defined network

Software Defined Networking (SDN), the novel paradigm of decoupling the control logic from packet forwarding devices, has been drawing considerable attention from both academia and industry. As the latency between a controller and switches is a significant factor for SDN, selecting appropriate locations for controllers to shorten the latency becomes one grand challenge. In this paper, we investigate multi-controller placement problem from the perspective of latency minimization. Distinct from previous works, the network partition technique is introduced to simplify the problem. Specifically, the network partition problem and the controller placement problem are first formulated. An optimized K-means algorithm is then proposed to address the problem. Extensive simulations are conducted and results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can remarkably reduce the maximum latency between centroid and their nodes compared with the standard K-means. Specifically, the maximum latency can reach 2.437 times shorter than the average latency achieved by the standard K-means.

QoS-Aware Service Composition for Converged Network-Cloud Service Provisioning

The crucial role of networking in Cloud computing calls for federated management of both computing and networking resources for end-to-end service provisioning. Application of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in both Cloud computing and networking enables a convergence of network and Cloud service provisioning. One of the key challenges to network -- Cloud convergence lies in QoS-aware composition of network and Cloud services. In this paper, we propose a QoS-aware service composition method to tackle this challenging issue. We first present a system model for network -- Cloud service composition and formulate the service composition problem as a variant of Multi-Constrained Optimal Path (MCOP) problem. We then develop an algorithm to solve the problem and give theoretical analysis on properties of the algorithm to show its effectiveness and efficiency for QoS-aware network-Cloud service composition. Performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through extensive simulation experiments and the obtained results indicate that the proposed method achieves better performance in service composition than the best currently available MCOP approach.

Network-as-a-Service in Software-Defined Networks for end-to-end QoS provisioning

End-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning for supporting diverse application requirements is a challenging problem in the Internet. Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) in the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm offers a promising approach to addressing this challenge. In this paper, the author first presents a framework for applying NaaS in SDN that enables network service orchestration for supporting inter-domain end-to-end QoS. Then a high-level abstraction model for network service capabilities is proposed and a technique for determining required bandwidth in network services to achieve QoS guarantee is developed. Network calculus is employed in the proposed modeling and analysis, which makes the developed techniques general and applicable to networking systems consisting of heterogeneous autonomous domains.

Service provisioning in virtualization-based Cloud computing: Modeling and optimization

Cloud computing is an emerging computing paradigm that may change the way how information services are provisioned. Network virtualization plays a crucial role in a Cloud environment for abstracting and virtualizing various network infrastructures as services. Therefore virtual network services should be integrated with Cloud service to form the composite Cloud service. However, little research has focused on modeling and optimization of network virtualization in Cloud service provisioning to end users. In this paper, we model the Cloud service provisioning feature in virtualization-based Cloud computing, and propose an exact algorithm for QoS-aware service composition to optimize users experiences for Cloud service access. Our theoretical analysis indicates that the proposed algorithm is light-weighted and cost-effective. We also compare the proposed algorithm against a variant of the best-known QoS routing algorithm experimentally. The results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance both in execution time and finding solution. We believe that the modeling technique and the algorithm presented in this paper are general and effective, thus are applicable to practical Cloud computing systems.

Novel End-to-End Quality of Service Provisioning Algorithms for Multimedia Services in Virtualization-Based Future Internet

Network virtualization has been proposed as a key contribution to the future internetworking paradigm and is expected to play a crucial role in the next generation Internet. Although interesting progress has been made towards network virtualization, end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning for multimedia services in network virtualization environments is still an important open topic. In this paper, we tackle this challenging issue by modeling multimedia service delivery in network virtualization and proposing efficient path selection algorithms for virtual networks. The main contributions of this paper are a model for the end-to-end multimedia service delivery in network virtualization environments, proposal of efficient algorithms for selecting paths traversing the network infrastructure for QoS provisioning in virtual networks, and analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the modeling technique and the algorithms proposed in this paper are general and flexible, and therefore applicable to the delivery of multimedia content in various heterogeneous networking systems in the next generation Internet.

A Game-Theoretic Resource Allocation Approach for Intercell Device-to-Device Communications in Cellular Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is a recently emerged disruptive technology for enhancing the performance of current cellular systems. To successfully implement D2D communications underlaying cellular networks, resource allocation to D2D links is a critical issue, which is far from trivial due to the mutual interference between D2D users and cellular users. Most of the existing resource allocation research for D2D communications has primarily focused on the intracell scenario while leaving the intercell settings not considered. In this paper, we investigate the resource allocation issue for intercell scenarios where a D2D link is located in the overlapping area of two neighboring cells. Furthermore, we present three intercell D2D scenarios regarding the resource allocation problem. To address the problem, we develop a repeated game model under these scenarios. Distinct from existing works, we characterize the communication infrastructure, namely, base stations, as players competing resource allocation quota from D2D demand, and we define the utility of each player as the payoff from both cellular and D2D communications using radio resources. We also propose a resource allocation algorithm and protocol based on the Nash equilibrium derivations. Numerical results indicate that the developed model not only significantly enhances the system performance, including sum rate and sum rate gain, but also shed lights on resource configurations for intercell D2D scenarios.

Resource allocation for quality of service provision in buffered crossbar switches

We consider the problem of allocation of resources within a buffered crossbar switch with credit-based flow control to support quality of service for traffic flows in the Internet. Specifically, we assume there is a collection of classes of service, each characterized by a strict delay upper bound that applies across all packets of the class. Flows entering the switch are characterized by arrival curves, and the switch must achieve delay objectives subject to the arrival curves. We develop a technique for determining the amount of bandwidth and the number of credits that must be allocated to a flow in order to guarantee its delay requirements. This technique also provides the basis for analyzing the maximum traffic handling capacity of a switch. We provide numerical examples that illustrate the application of our techniques. Finally, we discuss the performance of buffered crossbar switches having finite buffers with respect to that of output buffered switches under the same class of scheduling regimes.