Valerio Martini

Application-Driven Control of Network Resources in Multiservice Optical Networks

Network architectures whose resources are open to control by user applications require the design of a service platform that performs resource virtualization and service abstraction. While a few commercial architectures for packet networks already exist, service platforms for connection-oriented networks (e.g., optical) are currently under investigation. After introducing the service concept in the optical network scenario, the paper proposes and experimentally validates a service platform for application-driven resource management in a GMPLS-controlled optical network. Specifically, upon a service request issued by an application, the proposed service platform performs admission control and enforces proper traffic policies to ensure the quality of service (QoS) required by the application data flow. This enables QoS control on a per-application basis while preserving scalability and timing of application signaling. The experimental results show that service setup is realized in a time of the order of a few seconds. Scalability remarks show that this order of magnitude can also be guaranteed for networks of larger size.

Service-Oriented Multigranular Optical Network Architecture for Clouds

This paper presents a novel service-oriented network architecture to bridge the informational gap between user applications and optical networks providing technology-agnostic multigranular optical network services for clouds. A mediation layer (service plane) between user applications and network control is proposed to facilitate a mapping process between user application requests and the network services. At the network level, a multigranular optical network (MGON) is proposed and implemented to support dynamic wavelength and subwavelength granularities with different transport formats [optical burst switched (OBS), optical burst transport (OBT)], reservation protocols (one-way, two-way), and different quality-of-service (QoS) levels per service type. The service-oriented multigranular optical network has been designed, implemented, and demonstrated on an experimental testbed. The testbed consists of service and network resource provisioning, service abstraction, and network resource virtualization. The service-to-network interoperation is provided by means of a gateway that maps service requests to technology-specific parameters and a common signaling channel for both service and network resource provisioning.

A distributed signaling for the provisioning of on-demand VPN services in transport networks

Applications such as grid computing, storage or video-on-demand may need the provisioning by a transport network of ad-hoc secure end-to-end connections with guaranteed bandwidth, latency and resilience. The service plane (SP) is a functional layer, proposed by the authors, that enhances the automatically switched transport network (ASTN) for the provisioning of network services with a level of abstraction suitable for being invoked by applications. This paper details the distributed signaling running in the SP that implements the SP service abstraction and network resources virtualization capabilities. In particular, it focuses on the design of the signaling architecture among the centralized and distributed entities of the SP for the provisioning of on-demand Layer 3 (L3) virtual private network (VPN). A specific SP implementation is also presented and it is demonstrated by a testbed in which a video client application requests an L3 VPN in order to be connected with a video server across an MPLS-based transport network.

Service-oriented multi-granular optical network testbed

This paper presents a service-oriented multi-granular multi-format network demonstrator. Service-oriented wavelength and sub-wavelengthnetwork connection establishment is being demonstrated by utilising SOON-JIT protocols to support VoD HD and Quad-HD multi-media applications.

Supporting control plane-enabled transport networks within ITU-T Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture

Next generation network (NGN) Release 1 is the ITU- T architecture for packet-switched networks that supports the provisioning of broadband and QoS-guaranteed multimedia services, such as Video on Demand and TV streaming, independently of the underlying network transport technologies. Control plane (CP)-enabled transport networks might be a candidate to support NGN services in the Metro/Core segment since are able to setup automatically connections. Typically, these networks are based on automatically switched optical network (ASON) architecture and/or on generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) protocol suite. This work presents a snapshot of the current status of standardization reached by the NGN architecture and proposes an NGN enhancement to include CP-enable transport networks among the NGN supported transport technologies. An NGN prototype implementing the proposed architectural enhancement is also presented as a proof of concept. The prototype highlights how set-up multimedia over IP (MoIP) services using GMPLS-controlled transport objects.

Data-plane architectures for multi-granular OBS network

This paper presents multi-granular OBS node architectures able to manage multiservice traffic according to the required Quality-of-Service (QoS). These nodes exploit fast and slow switching devices to obtain scalable and cost-effective network.

Extending next generation network (NGN) architecture for connection-oriented transport

Next Generation Network (NGN) is the architecture of the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T in short) supporting the provisioning of Quality of Service (QoS)-guaranteed services over different packet transport technologies. Such capability derives from the effectiveness of a dynamic resource control performed by the Resource Admission Control Function (RACF) at service set-up. Control Plane (CP)-enabled connection-oriented transport networks can guarantee the QoS support for new bandwidth-greedy NGN services across the optical transport segment thanks to the ability of automatic path set-up and traffic segregation. But the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard for the CP in transport networks, i.e., the Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) is not yet included within the NGN supported transport technologies. In this work, we outline architectural guidelines and design strategies for ITU-T RACF employment across GMPLS-controlled networks while providing a viable solution for dynamic resource control that takes into account operational issues for the integration of GMPLS capabilities within NGN architecture (i.e., supported interfaces, actual node capabilities). An NGN prototype implementing the proposed architectural enhancement is also presented as a proof of concept. The prototype highlights how the extended ITU-T NGN can set-up Multimedia over IP (MoIP) services using GMPLS-controlled transport objects.

SIP-based service platform for on-demand optical network services

This paper reports the experimental validation of a SIP-based service platform for optical transport networks. The platform enables applications to trigger network resource reservation during the session signaling thanks to a consistent network node configuration.

ITU-T RACF implementation for application-driven QoS control in MPLS networks

Within the ITU-T Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture, the Resource Admission Control Function (RACF) has been designated to perform the application-driven QoS control across both access and core networks. However, an actual RACF implementation acting on MPLS metro-core networks does not exist since RACF lacks of the capability to configure QoS policies on MPLS network nodes. This prevents an effective end-to-end QoS control in a metro-core scenario on a per-application basis. This work presents a specific implementation of RACF operating over an MPLS network domain. This RACF implementation is applied to a testbed where a Video Client application requests a real-time video data transfer from a Video Server through an MPLS network. The admission control is performed upon service request based on video requirements and network resource availability. The differentiated traffic treatment on per-flow basis is realized through setting of MPLS DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (TE) capabilities using the NETCONF protocol. Effective traffic differentiation is achieved in a multi-service network scenario and thus it validates NETCONF as candidate protocol for policy provisioning in MPLS networks.

Dynamic QoS control based on VPLS in service oriented transport networks

The virtual private line service (VPLS) represents an attractive solution for enterprise customers requiring ldquotransparent LAN servicerdquo among remote sites and across a MPLS core network. In this context, the QoS enforcement is a challenge due to the high expectation of customers that require the same guarantees as a private network. This paper describes the implementation of a dynamic QoS control in VPLS scenario realized using a service-oriented network architecture for MPLS transport network, named SOON (service oriented optical network). A SOON prototype has been realized on a real metro-access testbed to experimentally validate the dynamic and self-consistent configuration of QoS-enabled VPLS and to verify QoS performances for different level of services in case of traffic congestion.