The dynamics of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations introduce frequent and unpredictable Line-of-Sight (LoS) interruptions that challenge conventional handover procedures in Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs). Previous analytical work has established that, once the residual LoS interval becomes shorter than the end-to-end control-plane delay, network-assisted preparation loses feasibility and the decision logic must shift toward the terminal. Building on this premise, this paper introduces a learning-based reactive handover model representing a UE-centric continuity mechanism under LoS-limited conditions. The proposed framework employs a lightweight Q-learning agent that selects target satellites based on locally observable indicators such as relative elevation and received signal level. Within a deterministic geometric environment, the agent converges toward stable switching behaviour and reproduces the qualitative trade-offs predicted by the analytical model of reactive continuity. The achieved 25-30% alignment improvement over a geometry-only baseline demonstrates that even simplified reinforcement learning can capture timing dependencies essential to NTN handover robustness. While not intended as a deployment result, the study provides a reproducible benchmark and a methodological foundation for future deep- or federated-learning extensions operating within realistic NTN channel and protocol constraints.

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Traditional rule-based or static management approaches struggle to cope with the dynamic, multi-layered nature of 5G/6G networks, creating a strong motivation for AI-native solutions – management systems built from the ground up with artificial intelligence – to enable autonomous, real-time network control. In this work, we introduce GNN-ATIVE, an AI-native orchestration framework that leverages Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) and knowledge graphs (KGs) in a unified graph-based paradigm for network management. GNN-ATIVE uses a semantic knowledge graph to represent the network’s state and context, employing standard ontologies to ensure consistency and interoperability. Building on this foundation, we design Knowledge Graph enabled Generative Pretrained Transformer (KG-GPT), a novel graph-to-graph Transformer model that performs knowledge-driven reasoning on the KG. KG ingests the structured network state (nodes, links, and attributes) and infers optimal configurations or management actions, serving as a high-level decision engine for the orchestrator. We implement and evaluate GNN-ATIVE on an Optical Transport Network (OTN) testbed using real network components. The results demonstrate that GNN-ATIVE can effectively manage OTN resources and adapt to network changes while achieving low-latency inference for decision making.

Improved RAN scheduling algorithms and the integration of edge functionality tackle low-latency requirements by reducing end-to-end communication delays. Despite these innovations, key architectural limitations remain, specifically the requirement to route user plane traffic through the core network's User Plane Functions (UPFs). This constraint is relevant in the case of traffic between two User Equipment devices (UEs) served by the same gNodeB (gNB), which is a common scenario in factory floor or campus network deployments where a large amount of the traffic would be between UEs in a small area. To address this limitation, an intra-gNB user plane shortcut mechanism is proposed. This shortcut mechanism involves a gNB directly routing user plane traffic between UEs connected to it, bypassing the UPF and some upper-layer user plane processing on the gNB. Considering the current 5G specifications, the proposed mechanism is investigated, and the necessary extensions are discussed. A proof of concept of this mechanism is also introduced and evaluated, built within the 5G RAN implementation of srsRAN. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates latency reduction, supported by prototype measurements conducted in a simulated environment, illustrating promising results for the shortcut concept in reducing end-to-end latency.

Fraunhofer FOKUS' Open6GCore is the first practical implementation of a 6G core network. It challenges the traditional view of network functions as rigidly connected components, by embracing a highly modular software-driven approach that offers significant adaptability and reduced complexity. The flexibility of Open6GCore allows dynamic adaptation to requirements, whether as a 5G core network, simplified microservices, microcore, or a distributed large-scale core network. By implementing 3GPP standards with modern IT methodologies, Open6GCore achieves scalability and resilience and simplifies the addition of experimental features. Thus, it is particularly well-suited for research environments, facilitating rapid prototyping and seamless integration of new functionalities. Initial functional validation demonstrates successful deployment, interoperability with 5G User Equipment and Radio Access Networks, and efficient core network operations. These results demonstrate Open6GCore's readiness as a platform for 5G and 6G testbeds, trials, and innovation. This paper highlights the architecture, development, validation, and integration techniques of Open6GCore, offering insight into its role as a foundational platform for next-generation networks.

As the requirement for flexibility in networks grows, new mechanisms are needed to enable extreme adaptability to diverse environments and the ability to react to unknown situations. The rise of AI provides a significant opportunity to enhance network efficiency, scalability, and resilience beyond what is possible with traditional policy-based approaches. However, current network architectures rely on predefined rules and event-triggered responses, insufficient to dynamically address unpredictable and diverse conditions. This paper introduces a new perspective on AI-driven autonomous network agents, capable of continuous perception, proactive decision-making, and adaptive optimization across multiple network layers. These agents automate deployment-phase tasks, optimize runtime operations, and enhance cross-layer coordination, addressing critical challenges like mobility management, resource scheduling, and dynamic service adaptation. Unlike traditional static policies, these agents learn from operational feedback, enabling networks to adjust and refine their behavior over time. With their self-learning and intent-driven automation, AI-driven agents integrated into future network architectures, including beyond 5G and 6G systems, can enable greater autonomy, adaptive optimization, and improved robustness, effectively responding to evolving communication requirements.

The growth of telecommunication networks towards 6 G, owing to the complexity and heterogeneity, mandates a paradigm shift in network management. Due to the nature of the traditional Policy-based Management and Control (PBMC), aspects of network management have to be well thought out during the design phase making the system inflexible. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to augment PBMC by introducing run-time flexibility and adaptability. The use of AI becomes more pressing, when 6 G systems are considered to host more diverse technologies catering to specific use cases thus increasing the burden on operators. This article presents “GraphGPT”, a transformer-based Knowledge Graph (KG) reasoning model prepared using light-weight and tailored datasets for 6 G. The implementation and evaluation details present the first look of the model.

Network management systems for beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G networks today require efficient approaches for handling increased heterogeneity, network-function dis-aggregation, performance requirements, and optimizing networks to support highly diverse use cases. While the Open-Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) frameworks efficiently manage RAN and cloud infrastructure, the fragmentation of management platforms across RAN, Core Network (CN), and Transport Network (TN) introduces operational inefficiencies, particularly in Non-Public Networks (NPNs) deployments. This paper proposes a novel extension to the O-RAN SMO architecture, integrating CN and TN management functionalities into a unified control framework. By exploiting AI/ML-driven$\mathrm{x} / \text{rApps}$and a converged data analytics pipeline, the proposed architecture enhances SMO's fault management, resource optimization, and service continuity capabilities. Our implementation validates the feasibility of the proposed SMO extension, demonstrating subscriber-specific QoS assurance through O-RAN-based mobility management mechanisms. The proposed approach successfully shows how RAN-/Core-converged SMOs enable significant enhancements to O-RAN's x/rApps, allowing for subscriber-specific as well as application-specific differentiated QoS assurance.

To enable seamless 5G service continuity for mobile ground users traversing infrastructure-limited or obstructed regions, the integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks based on Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations is being actively pursued. However, the mobility dynamics of ground terminals frequently result in sudden Line-of-Sight loss, which undermines the feasibility of conventional handover preparation involving context transfer, synchronization, and identity continuity. Without pre-coordination, such transitions lead to uplink blindness, session interruption, and degraded performance. This paper addresses the handover problem under Non-Terrestrial Network-specific constraints by (i) defining a structured taxonomy of service continuity mechanisms suited for impaired Line-of-Sight conditions, (ii) introducing an analytical model that captures handover delay, authentication feasibility, and buffer dimensioning under varying visibility regimes, and (iii) quantitatively evaluating these mechanisms in a high-mobility highway scenario. The results underline that while context mirroring ensures superior continuity under full coordination, handover with reactive preparation emerges as the most practical and resilient fallback under constrained Non-Terrestrial-Networks conditions.

In 5th Generation networks, the User Plane Function forwards the data of the different users in the Radio Access Networks to the destination networks. To improve the throughput of this component, we used the software acceleration technique eXpress Data Path (XDP) in previous work to shift the processing of GTP-U tunnel connections in the kernel. The developed solution for an XDP Receive Side Scaling (RSS) in the uplink direction distributes the encapsulated traffic across the CPUs, but the measured throughput was significantly lower than in the downlink direction. In this work, we investigate the impact of multiple connections in the downlink direction with RSS by Network Interface Card (NIC). For leveraging this NIC feature in the uplink direction, we propose a sender-side source port variation in combination with XDP enhancements. In RFC2544 frame loss tests, we evaluate the performance with an increasing number of GTP-U tunnels.

The continuously increasing amount of sensors in cyber-physical systems requires efficient edge computing architectures which follow the paradigm to process data where it emerges. Encapsulated software functions enable the unrestricted allocation of software functions to the edge, but lack real-time execution semantics and a real-time scheduling algorithm. In general, the allocation and scheduling of multiple constraint tasks in a distributed execution environment is classified as NP-complete. Nevertheless, by using prior knowledge, we are able to set up an optimal scheduling algorithm which leads to a highly reduced time complexity. Thus, our efficient approach enables modularity even for safety-critical real-time systems.

This article presents a new interpolation algorithm for received signal strength in mobile networks. The algorithm aims to fill in the missing values in a network environment by creating a full signal strength map. It is based on the deep learning Generative Adversary Network (GAN), which has previously been used successfully only for fixing pixels in image repairs. The algorithm was trained and tested using publicly available data on outdoor mobile network signal strength under 6GHz, and the results were evaluated using two performance metrics: accuracy of measurement and size of predicted values. The results show that the accuracy of the algorithm depends heavily on the characteristics of the input data. When the interpolating points are evenly distributed, the accuracy is high and the number of predicted values is satisfactory. Our algorithm reduces the number of manual measurements required to obtain a complete signal strength map, simplifying network planning and quality assurance processes.

With the accelerating development and deployment of 5G Non-Public Networks (NPNs), many customized and private networks, providing services to local users and devices, are being installed across the world. To fully use the capacity of these networks, their services should also be reachable from other locations outside their limited coverage area. The only solution provided by 5G and beyond-5G 3GPP standardization at the current moment is based on roaming interfaces, which presumes that the NPN operator makes costly and complex peering roaming agreements with many different large scale and NPN operators. This article proposes an alternative to the roaming mechanism based on an Over-The-Top (OTT) peering approach. Similar to the non-3GPP integration, the connectivity in the visited network is transparently used to establish a binding with the home domain. Furthermore, the proposed architecture is implemented and evaluated in a basic form using Fraunhofer 5G Playground, a comprehensive 5G testbed network using commercial base stations and the Fraunhofer Open5GCore in conjunction with standard Android OS devices. Showing that such a solution represents a cost-effective, reduced functionality and relatively easy to implement solution outperforming the roaming approach in both dynamicity and ease of management.

Standardisation, research and development efforts for the fifth generation (5G) of mobile telecommunication networks are well under way. Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) are two of the key enabling technologies, considered in these efforts. The need for a flexible, high performant and efficient architecture is well established. Network slicing, which combines SDN and NFV, can contribute to such an architecture. It allows the parallel deployment of differing network stacks on top of any physical infrastructure. SDN's separation of control and data plane components allows for flexible deployments. How can SDN's flexibility be leveraged in a sliced, 5G network infrastructure? There needs to be an efficient way to integrate SDN into 5G networks. In this paper, we posit a way of integration, which allows decoupling the data plane components from any particular control plane. This can improve flexibility, utilisation and extensibility. We envision utilising an SDN switch implementation as the User Plane Function (UPF), and introducing an SDN controller between Session Management Function (SMF) and UPF, to effectively decouple the two. Based on this decoupling, control and data plane components can be deployed in separatelyand new slice orchestration opportunities can be developed. Furthermore, we can leverage deep data plane programmability, to enhance the system in terms of function and flexibility.

The Cloud Computing paradigm promoted the outsourcing of IT infrastructure and enterprise applications paving the way to save costs of building and maintaining computing infrastructures on-premise. In this environment, scale up of applications to attend demands in high peaks become easier and highly automated. Virtualization was a key technology to enable these characteristics. Nowadays, Container technology became popular as an alternative to Virtual Machines, and is being widely applied, as a consequence, Orchestration tools are being extensively applied in the Cloud environment. Despite its success, when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing falls short to meet several requirements. Fog Computing appear as a complimentary technology to the Cloud to deliver the missing requirements in the IoT scene. Managing services deployed in a Fog Environment is a complex task and infrastructure management and orchestration tools can make it seamless. In this paper, we evaluate how Containers can affect the overall performance of applications in Fog Nodes. We analyze different Container Orchestration tools and how they meet Fog requirements to run applications. We also propose a Container Orchestration Framework for Fog Computing infrastructures.

With the increasing acceptance of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, a radical transformation is currently occurring inside network providers infrastructures. The trend of Software-based networks foreseen with the 5th Generation of Mobile Network (5G) is drastically changing requirements in terms of how networks are deployed and managed. One of the major changes requires the transaction towards a distributed infrastructure, in which nodes are built with standard commodity hardware. This rapid deployment of datacenters is paving the way towards a different type of environment in which the computational resources are deployed up to the edge of the network, referred to as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) nodes. However, MEC nodes do not usually provide enough resources for executing standard virtualization technologies typically used in large datacenters. For this reason, software containerization represents a lightweight and viable virtualization alternative for such scenarios. This paper presents an architecture based on the Open Baton Management and Orchestration (MANO) framework combining different infrastructural technologies supporting the deployment of container-based network services even at the edge of the network.

Service Function Chaining (SFC) serves the traffic of a specific service along an ordered set of Service Functions (SFs). SFC uses Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies to reach the deployment and removal of SFC in an appropriate time with minimal costs. However, during the life time of deployed SFCs, the SFs are exposed to the risk of overloading, which results in an end-to-end packets drop and high delay at the application level. This paper presents the concept of a Scalable SFC Orchestrator capable of deploying SF Chains following the ETSI NFV architectural model, as well as orchestrating the runtime phase by rerouting the traffic to a different path in case of overload of certain SF instances. Moreover, a selection algorithm is presented to build the updated paths after scaling. The Scalable Orchestration feature is implemented and added as a main feature to an SFC Orchestrator. Furthermore, it is integrated into a current NFV architecture and evaluated in an NFV environment making use of the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open Baton toolkit in an OpenStack and Open Daylight based environment.

To pave the way towards using adapted wide scale telco technologies within dedicated networks environment, there is a dire need to increase the reliability of the end-to-end communication beyond what is currently offered to individual subscribers towards the levels previously available in operations technology. This can be achieved by adding a new dynamic Software Defined Networks (SDN) routing overlay on top of the existing point-to-point forwarding technologies. This article introduces an SDN-based solution for dedicated industrial environments, aiming at providing a new level of flexibility and adaptability in case of network or service failure. A gap analysis of the existing infrastructures gives the basis for the network evolution, especially addressing the control of the routing within the given deployment. Furthermore, a new set of functional features are proposed to be added to the existing wired and to the emerging wireless infrastructure in order to further increase the network flexibility and reliability from network availability and optimal data paths perspective. The different features are then exemplified as existing and further to be implemented extensions of the Fraunhofer FOKUS OpenSDNCore toolkit, assessing the effectiveness of the approach for different deployments and use cases.

Service Function Chaining (SFC) supports services/applications through linking an ordered list of service functions (such as firewalls, deep packet inspections and load balancers) in the network. Using Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) provides a simpler and shorter SFC process. In order to provide high-availability on a multi-site SFC, it is required a flexible algorithm able to properly select Service Function instances while creating the Service Function Path (SFP). This paper presents a new service function selection algorithm providing a flexible tradeoff between the SFP distance and the loads per service function instances at the deployment stage. The flexible tradeoff provided in the algorithm can be adjusted by a parameter. This parameter value can differ among different types of SFCs based on the service/application (real time or non-real time) dedicated for its SFC. Matlab has been utilized for validating it with different scenarios. It is also compared to other existing algorithms such as, load balancing and shortest path. The results showed that the proposed algorithm could provide the best SFP end-to-end distance performance as the shortest path algorithm for the real time services/applications, and that will result a good Quality of Service (QoS) performance for real time services/applications. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm provides an acceptable load distribution over the available service functions instances better than shortest path algorithm and not far from and load balancing algorithms.

Technical and economic opportunities of cloud computing become the focus for Internet applications and at the same time also for telco support infrastructures and network services. In fact, many telco providers are consolidating their service infrastructures towards converged and all-IP next generation networks providing typical telco services within LTE (and soon 5G) and also fixed network environments, e.g., often still adopting IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture solutions. This telco service infrastructure evolution requires a significant upfront investment in the necessary hardware and software, thereby slowing down the adoption process significantly more than any other Internet application. Cloud computing applied to telco infrastructures can allow pay-per-use business models and significantly lower investment risks by providing telco infrastructure functionality as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) on top of a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) platform. For this purpose we propose a quality audit and resource brokering framework that is fully NFV-compliant. Its current and reported implementation specifically targets IMS services because of the still relevant role played by IMS in converged provisioning and the wide availability of IMS deployment testbeds to validate the proposal. In particular, the proposed solution can monitor the quality offered by VNFs and scale in/out depending on dynamic requirements; it is fully based on industrial standards and open-source reference implementations, thus enabling rapid adoption in real industrial environments.

Considerable efforts have been spent on designing architectures to manage heterogeneous resources across multiple administrative domains. Specific fields of application are federated cloud computing (Intercloud) approaches and distributed testbeds, among others. An important interoperability challenge that arises in this context is the exchange of information about the provided resources and their dependencies. Existing work usually rests upon schematic data models, which impede the discovery and management of heterogeneous resources between autonomous sites. One way of addressing this issue is to exchange semantic information models. In this paper, we exploit such approaches to formally define federations, including their infrastructures and the life-cycle of the offered resources and services. The requirements of this work have been derived from several research projects and the results are in process of being standardized by an international body. The main contribution of this work is a higher level (upper) ontology and initial integration concepts for it. These contributions form a basis for further work in the general context of distributed semantic resource management.

Networking and software design principles converge currently under the notions of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). This means that network services are not anymore static and manually configured, but they become flexible and in the end virtualized components. This convergence enables to dynamically orchestrate the network, to move network functions to the cloud and to direct and prioritize traffic intelligently. Applying cloud principles to network services, configuration and management requires mechanisms for automation, virtualization and elasticity. Ultimately, network services may improve the customer experience for the end users requiring on-demand network resources. The Cross-Layer Orchestrator (CLO) presented in this paper, establishes a tie between the Application and the Network Layers. Through the proposed Cross Layer API, the CLO provides an interface for client and server side applications to reserve, alter and release network resources. Our solution makes the network more dynamic by extending the orchestration functionalities not only to provide on-demand provisioning of network services, but also network flows. In this way the network should be able to adapt accordingly to the requirements of the applications.

The Internet of Things (IoT) could be seen as an umbrella term for interconnected technologies, devices, objects and services. It is not a single technology, rather it is a concept in which many physical objects are interconnected and enabled with intelligent technologies. The fact that interconnected objects represent activities related to all-day applications (e.g., health care, energy management, etc.), imposes different challenges to manage the heterogeneity of interchanged content and underlying technologies. In this paper, we introduce a mechanism to select the proper communication technology based on the exchanging Machine-to-Machine (M2M) traffic pattern from sensors/devices and gateways to an M2M server platform.

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.

The maturity reached by virtualisation technology enabled great innovation for efficient applications and services development and delivery, independent of the underlying hardware equipment, especially with the large deployment of off-the-shelf hardware based cloud infrastructures. In order to take advantage of this technology, the existing network functions have to be developed and adapted to the new paradigm. However, traditional telecom services are still implemented on dedicated hardware resulting in high deployment and maintenance costs compared to the other already cloudified services. ETSI Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) aims to fill this gap by applying to telecom the virtualisation technologies. This paper introduces a set of three software architectures for efficient virtualisation of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) in different operator environments responding to the high level requirements of the ETSI NFV use case for virtualizing operator core network functions. Additionally, a management architecture for simplifying the deployment and runtime orchestration of such a virtual service on top of a cloud infrastructure is presented. Furthermore, one of the IMS software architectures was implemented based on the Fraunhofer FOKUS Open IMS Core, measured and evaluated on top of an OpenStack cloud.

Today's Next Generation Mobile Network architecture is challenged by several limitations in regard to the performance and flexibility. Recent investigations and proposals on core network architecture improvements through applying the Software Defined Network (SDN) concepts have been published, but no implementation has been presented yet. The main contribution of this paper is the design, implementation and validation of a Carrier Grade Software Defined Telecommunication system consisting of an OpenFlow Controller (OFC), Switch (OFS) and Protocol (OFP) according to latest OpenFlow (OF) standards and optimized for an 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC). This paper first presents related work, positions contributions of this paper against the State of the Art and identifies important requirements for a new telecommunication network architecture. Secondly as a main contribution, the specifications of Software Defined Telecommunication OFC, OFS and OFP are presented as an architectural extension for the Evolved Packet Core (EPC). A section on the implementation of the presented specifications highlights the most relevant software technical design decisions. An extensive evaluation validates and evaluates the prototype within an existing Evolved Packet Core implementation. A summary concludes all finding of the authors and presents planned Future Work finally.

The global trend of Future Internet related experimentally driven research has gained a strong momentum. In this context sustainability and the best use of developed infrastructures are highly critical. While many facilities have reached a level of maturity that allows them to be opened up to a wider use, mainly the academic sectors have been targeted. The Fanning out Testbeds-as-a-Service for the EIT ICT1 (FanTaaStic) project explores best practices, has performed a gap analysis, investigates applicable business models and works out a concept for the operation of a self-sustainable commercial testbed service offering. For defining the operational model, an analysis of available tools and frameworks from past and current Future Internet testbed projects is being carried out, based on a standard framework that defines the required processes and applications for the carrier grade operation of telecommunication infrastructures and provisioning of services. The business model is defined as a gradually growing service offering, based on categories of a framework for IT Service Management in federated e-infrastructures. The applicability of both, the developed business and operational model for such a sustainable federation will initially be implemented and evaluated in 2014.

Recent Internet of Things (IoT) research has been aiming at interoperability of devices and the integration of sensor networks. The Future Internet - Private Public Partnership (FI-PPP) has created a whole array of different purpose-oriented modules with defined specifications, better known as Generic Enablers. This article gives an overview of legal, ethical and technical norms and standards to be considered when planning, developing and implementing modular medical architectures, integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and Generic Enablers (GEs) in cutting edge, latest generation medical data networks.

Large scale telecommunication network deployment and its management requires huge Operational Expenditure (OPEX) and Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) from the network operator. Network virtualization, Software Defined Networks (SDN) concepts and Cloud principles enable innovative approaches for introducing elasticity in the network for reducing OPEX. The activation and de-activation of network elements and their efficient interconnection is known as Network Design enabling up- and downscaling of the parts of the entire network on demand based on the traffic situation. Adaptive Flow Placement through SDN controller functionalities introduces novel mechanisms to influence service data flows within the network actively with the goal to distribute the network load equally, increase reliability and reduce cost through deactivation of unused network parts. This paper introduces a novel cost saving approach for on demand elastic Network Design and active Flow Placement in SDN environments. The underlying Network Design problem is being solved using a State of the Art Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) Solver and a sophisticated MIP formulation. A summary concludes this paper.

This article presents the architecture design and experimental evaluation of a QoE-aware flexible-QoS-control next-generation IPTV network. The architecture extends the IMS service control functionality by providing an efficient application-specific service control approach based on user satisfaction on the connectivity. The validation NGN testbed uses OpenFlow network virtualization between individual components.

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication technologies is emerging as one of the major trends shaping the development of services in the Future Internet sector. Additionally, cloud computing technologies have been utilized in building large-scale M2M systems, as they could potentially offer more advance solutions for managing data monitoring and service elasticity to support the needs of different consumers. Today, service providers are building a new eco-system with partner vendors to offer new innovative services for Smart Cities. From the users/applications perspective, three concepts aim to deliver Smart service: M2M communication, ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence. In this paper we identify the requirements for centric service enablers to support the development of desired Smart Cities systems. Also the paper reviews the ongoing work in standardization organizations in this field. Providing standard interfaces to M2M platforms in a network independent way will allow applications deployment by 3rd party developers across variety of end user devices.

Cloud computing management supports are becoming more and more important not only in the fields of IT infrastructures for Internet applications and services, but steadily also in the field of telecommunication services and infrastructures. More and more telecommunication service providers have adopted IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) to consolidate their service infrastructures towards converged, all-IP, access network independent Next Generation Networks (NGNs). Although modern NGN service environments have the potential to greatly reduce new telecommunication services time-to-market, until now significant upfront investments into computational resources are required, that is still often a risk for the enterprise, with unsure return on invest. The application of cloud computing technologies to IMS-based service infrastructures enables new pay-per-use cost models, so IMS service providers may be charged for what they use only, significantly lowering the risk of bad investments. This work presents the design and implementation of a cloud brokering system for IMS services, capable of simultaneously interworking with multiple cloud infrastructures. We developed a Cloud Broker Engine (CBE) able to dynamically up/down-scale cloud resources across multiple cloud platforms. Our CBE is capable of coping with dynamic load situations and QoS requirements optimizing resource utilization across different cloud infrastructures: it enables QoS assurance and optimizes resource consumption across multiple cloud providers.

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication is a paradigm in which end-to-end communication is executed without human intervention. The demonstration setup described in this extended abstract shall give a practical view on our research and development activities in the field of M2M and machine type communication (MTC).

In a multi-network environment, users can receive services via several networks, protocols, and connected devices. These services are usually bound to their specific technology and often limited to a dedicated service provider domain. We are developing a platform overcoming these limitations by enabling information sharing beyond the boundaries of network technologies and services. In this paper, we propose a service architecture for the interaction of users/personas and services in a converged Internet and Telecom service space on top of multiple access networks. This is achieved by convergence of multiple separated communication channels on service layer in an IP Multimedia Subsystem based Telecom environment. We design a service platform enabling and controlling information flow across networks and services.

Resource federation is a concept for sharing information and communication technology (ICT) resources beyond administrative domains. The aim is to implement some common service drawing upon the resources committed by participating organizations. This concept is currently applied in a number of projects to provide large scale experimental facilities serving Future Internet research and development. In this paper we show how federated distributed resources can be described in terms of a common information model to support distributed resource management and Future Internet experimentation.

With the development of novel access technologies e.g. LTE, WiMAX etc., the mobile devices are able to establish services over multiple wireless connections with different momentary capabilities. Being imported from the fixed line communication, the current services deployed are lacking an efficient mechanism of adaptation to the momentary connectivity conditions, which deters the efficiency of the service delivery. This paper introduces a novel solution for the adaptation of the services to the momentary network conditions of the mobile device which does not require a complete end-to-end re-signaling, by this reducing the communication over the wireless link and enabling efficient provisioning of the services and the development of new ones customized for the wireless environment. Furthermore, the concept is exemplified on the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core architecture and evaluated using the Fraunhofer OpenEPC testbed implementation.

Mobility in a wireless heterogeneous scenario in which the mobile devices are able to connect to more than one access technology available in their vicinity requires a re-consideration on the access network reselection mechanisms. The present paper describes and evaluates the opportunity of introducing novel access reselection procedures which enable a network provider to optimize the allocation of the users on the different access networks available using as central concept that handovers can and should be triggered by the modifications on the resources required by the mobile devices in order to optimize the overall usage of the wireless environment. This concept is exemplified on the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core and evaluated on a minimal prototype implementation.

For more than twenty years we have been living in a society of online social relationships, where people tend to connect and share with others. Despite we have not yet seen its truly utility, we are facing an era of social functionality where social context can be used to personalize multimedia content and services. Contributing towards this vision, this paper presents an architectural approach that will enable multimedia social services, by securely exposing user social profiles, relationships and interests. Furthermore, it extends these data by providing interfaces to infer distance, similarity and influence. In addition, by connecting with an external framework, it enhances the supported functionalities, allowing the calculation of relevant social network metrics. Finally, it introduces the results from our prototype implementation.

Several projects worldwide offer experimental facilities to enable large scale research experiments. PlanetLab as one of the first initiatives in this field, currently consists of 1021 network nodes forming a global research network. On the other hand, Panlab offers a wide range of heterogeneous resources ranging from hardware devices to dedicated software. The broad field of Future Internet research requires such diverse infrastructures that serve different needs across domains and layers. Federation between different experimental facilities is foreseen to address those requirements as single testbeds cannot offer the full range of technologies that are required by the Future Internet community. This paper outlines an approach of federating Panlab resources with PlanetLab and vice versa. A prototype implementation is described and evaluated. Also, we present a case study to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed system.

This paper intends to provide an architectural overview designed to improve interactivity around IPTV services, and focusing on optimization and new services that can be achieved when IMS is combined with existing standards such as MPEG-4, MPEG-7 and MPEG-21. Several approaches have introduced the need for an integrated solution within the core of an IMS network. In addition, MPEG as a set of standards has proved to be efficient and is well accepted in the IPTV industry world. On top of this architecture, various real life business cases are presented to show the improvements and advantages of this paper.

Modern telecommunication networks and classical roles of operators are subject to fundamental change.Many network operators are currently seeking for new sources to generate revenue by exposing network capabilities to 3rdparty service providers. At the same time we can observe that applications on the World Wide Web (WWW) are adding more and more (real-time) communication features, mostly without involving telecommunications operators. This report describes our approach to include telecommunications service enabler into WWW mash-ups or other 3rdparty applications by defining a policy-based service broker that mediates between the 3rdparty applications and real-time communication service enablers. Furthermore, defined policies serve besides service access definitions as a flexible expression for user/service-specific capabilities.

Modern telecommunications networks and classical roles of operators are subject to fundamental change. In the age of Web expansion, many network operators are currently seeking for new ways to create and provide applications on top of converging networks. Enabling user generated services as well as the smooth integration of communications services into mash-ups and other 3rd party services is a key capability for the Service Creation Environments. In this paper we describe our approach to enabling eXtreme Model Driven Design of Parlay X-based communications services, which is a standardized collection of Web services that expose Next Generation Networks (NGN) core services to 3rd parties. We explain how to integrate Parlay X services in a service creation environment adequate for easy, user-level mash-up design as a human-computer interaction during service design and creation phase. We illustrate the integration into end-to-end multiplatform service orchestrations by means of an Assisted Living scenario that has been exhibited at the German CeBIT 2009 fair to show how human beings may interact with automated processes through real-time communication channels.

Provides an abstract of the keynote presentation and a brief professional biography of the presenter. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings.

Next generation telecommunication network operators securely opening up their network capabilities and services to third party service providers require flexible service delivery platforms. Policy based service exposure, service discovery and service composition mechanisms are required to offer chargeable services and service building blocks to external entities in a customizable way. Based on research and developments conducted while prototyping solutions for the Open SOA Telco Playground, a unique IMS based NGN testbed for realizing SOA based NGN service delivery platforms, this work proposes the extended policy based, semantically enabled service broker (XPOSER). XPOSER provides novel NGN service exposition mechanisms. It enables intent-based NGN service discovery and allows for user-centric, automated service composition. Utilizing SOA based operation support systems this work explains requirements and solutions for dynamically managing NGN service compositions by tightly linking service creation, service fulfillment and service assurance mechanisms already at service composition time.

The Internet and the Internet protocol (IP) have influenced the way of communication in the contemporary society. At the same time, the fixed-mobile convergence leads to next generation networks (NGNs) where messaging is looked upon as one of the killer services. Unfortunately, most of the messaging systems are not interoperable and operate in isolation, so users might typically not be able to communicate among different systems. In this paper, we present the architecture of a NGN-based converged messaging enabler to allow transparent and seamless interworking between legacy messaging services as short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS) and IP-based messaging as XMPP (extensible messaging and presence protocol) and E-Mail. The system provides a generic approach of message interworking that allows easy and straightforward integration of heterogeneous messaging services. A prototype is developed to demonstrate a complex scenario including messaging convergence and the interaction with other telecommunications enablers. We also anticipate the feasibility of the implementation to support multi-media communication.

The wide adoption of web-based distributed systems and consequently their complexity leads to an increasing demand for performance and QoS testing tools for these systems. Pushing forward open NGN protocols has resulted in a proliferation of benchmarking, interoperability and prototyping tools, yet there is still no solid strategy for integrating these efforts, collecting test information and processing it at higher levels. We propose a thin management layer able to consume real-time test data from existing tools, using it for statistics collection and fault management based on an extensible policy system. The results of validating the proposed system in connection with a unified web service and NGN performance testing tool are discussed.

Mobility in a wireless heterogeneous scenario in which the mobile devices are able to connect to more than one access technology requires a new architectural development for the network connectivity management. The present paper describes and evaluates a set of architectural options for integrating the novel network discovery and selection functionality in the 3GPP evolved packet core which enables an operator to manage the connections of the mobile devices. As the design options here presented consider different levels of network control on the mobility at the cost of new interfaces and new procedures, an evaluation based on these two criteria is given.

Provisioning of multimedia content to users being in different contexts (e.g. device capabilities, network conditions, location, user mode, user activity, etc.) and associated to various business models (e.g. prepaid, post-paid, session-based, etc.), challenges service providers to develop service capabilities that can be shared across all services and make use of network delivery functions more efficiently. Enabling the delivery of multimedia services following Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm is the main objective of this work. In this paper we present a set of basics elementary functions that enable efficient multimedia content delivery over various transmission modes (unicast, multicast or broadcast) and different heterogeneous networks, utilizing IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) to control and manage sessions, hiding therefore access dependencies and network complexity. A reference architecture is described along with implementation details that allow the integration with a converged media delivery framework. Then we present the performance of the implementation as well as the related signaling interfaces that were evaluated through a set of live measurements.

Existing telecommunications networks and classical roles of operators are subject to fundamental change. Many network operators are currently seeking for new sources to generate revenue by exposing network capabilities to third party service providers. At the same time we can observe that applications in the World Wide Web (WWW) are becoming more mature in terms of communications functionality and the definition of APIs that are offered towards other services. The combinations of those services are commonly referred to as Web 2.0 mash-ups.

Social communities are emerging as cloud-based service platforms for communities that also offer communication channels to their users. At the same time, modern telecommunications providers are currently seeking for new sources of revenue by exposing network capabilities to 3rd party providers. Moreover, both mobility and the possibility to access services anyhow, anywhere and at any time are becoming the user's pre-requisites for next generation services. By combining these concepts, it becomes clear that mobile social communities will play a predominate role in our society. This paper presents Mediacast, an innovate service that on the one hand allows users to share and consume multimedia within web social community environments using their mobiles and on the other hand promotes collaboration by providing a set of communication tools for hybrid (web/mobile) communities.

The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) is an open IP based service infrastructure that enables an easy deployment of new rich multimedia services mixing voice and data. The IMS is considered as a next generation service delivery platform (SDP) on top of different wireless and wire line access networks. It is based on the session initiation protocol (SIP) which is gaining more and more acceptance in the VoIP market. As an emerging technology, the SIP standard will certainly be the target of denial of service (DoS) attacks and consequently IMS will also inherit this problem. Therefore, it is very important to protect IMS resources from DoS threats. In this paper, we suggest an efficient solution for protecting the IMS networks from such attacks.

Optimized processing and cost efficient solutions for providing and controlling the quality of service (QoS) are important issues for the 3GPP operators. Although the main frame of the IMS architecture in the area was defined, i.e. the policy and charging control architecture (PCC), it misses a clear definition and standardized processing of the interchanged messages. This allows for a set of different perspectives on how the main information unit of the architecture, the PCC rule, is deployable. Based on the incomplete set of requirements already existent, this paper proposes two solutions on handling QoS provisioning architectural aspects of the IMS. It also considers a comparative evaluation of the prototypes developed in this work for proving the concept of the two approaches.

The high popularity of mobile computing and the increasing number of powerful mobile phones that are able to access high speed data networks pave the way to new scenarios for multimedia applications for mobile devices. Older limitations on network access, displaying capabilities and computing power have been surmounted. The users now have powerful devices and more bandwidth and expect that new, as well as traditional, multimedia applications are available on them. There is a need to offer users a coherent experience and provide multimedia independent of the constrains of the device in which it runs, and the network access technologies used. A way to achieve this is to use a software framework on top of which applications can be built. This framework is able to run on top of a wide variety of mobile platforms and enables a fast and easy deployment of multimedia clients. This paper analyzes the requirements and describes the architecture of Multimedia Open Internet Services and Telecommunication Environment (MONSTER), a framework for mobile multimedia clients currently developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS).

Triple Play is considered as delivering of telephony (VoIP), Internet, and TV services on the top of a single bearer technology plus value added services like presence, community-based services, multimedia streaming services etc. Since IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has been designed to enable the convergence of fixed and mobile networks to provide combinational services with QoS, so it offers the comprehensive architecture for provisioning of triple play services. However further studies are required in order to provide triple-play services seamlessly over different access networks. This paper describes a converged IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem)/TISPAN Service Delivery Platform (SDP) architecture to provide triple play services and focuses on the issues of access and transport layers for providing seamless environment in UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and DVB (Digital Video Broadcast). This work is being developed in the context of extending the FOKUS IMS testbed to offer new IPTV testing capabilities to the Pan-European Network of testbeds (Panlab Project) federation.

To protect SIP communication networks from attacks, especially flooding attacks like denial-of-service or message spam, intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at the ingress point of the network to filter potential malicious traffic. A key issue of IDS performance is the operation of its firewall to block malicious user requests. Depending on the complexity of the firewall ruleset, filtering performance of the IDS can decrease considerably during high-load flooding situations. In this paper we propose a scheme to increase IDS firewall performance by merging several similar rules into more general ones and ignoring lesser relevant rules to limit the number of firewall rules. We formalise a mathematical model to compute new firewall rules and show exemplary with traffic from SIP VoIP communication networks how the calculation can be performed. If applied to a VoIP IDS, the scheme can increase firewall thoughput considerably, while retaining most of its effectiveness.

Modern telecommunication networks and classical roles of operators are subject to fundamental change. Many network operators are currently seeking for new sources to generate revenue by exposing network capabilities to 3rd party service providers.At the same time we can observe that applications on the World Wide Web (WWW) are becoming more mature in terms of the definition of APIs that are offered towards other services. The combinations of those services are commonly referred to as Web 2.0 mash-ups.This report describes our approach to prototype a policy-based service broker function for Next Generation Networks (NGN)-based telecommunications service delivery platforms to provide flexible service exposure anchor points for service integration into so called mash-ups. The defined exposure API uses Intent-based request constructs to allow a description of services in business terms, i.e. intentions and strategies to achieve them and to organize their publication, search and composition on the basis of these descriptions.

In this paper we provide the description of a new mobility service for an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) platform. It optimizes the operation of multimedia services in a wireless heterogeneous environment containing multiple access networks with different cost per bandwidth ratio. It extends the SIP Presence Service with mobility related information, i.e. Media Independent Handover (MIH). The terminals are able to exchange specific handover knowledge with the remote service provisioning infrastructure and to receive commands adapted to the profile of all the parties involved in multimedia sessions, transparent to the actual multimedia service. The system was designed to enable the adaptation of multimedia sessions to the profile of the users and to the momentary network conditions on an end-to-end basis.

In this paper we present the vulnerability, threats and attacks for third generation (3G) networks converged with WLAN and propose the security model addressing the roaming and non-roaming security scenarios. Many threats against 3G network resources can be realised by attacking the WLAN access network, therefore it is important to identify the security requirements for 3G-WLAN interworking and choose a security solution that is robust and dynamic to different levels of WLAN access network. The proposed architecture is based on the extensible authentication protocol (EAP) for USIM authentication & key agreement (AKA) and authorization procedures, and secure tunnel establishment using IKEv2 (Internet key exchange) protocol to minimize security threats. We will also discuss the termination of fake or forge WLAN session to protect the user confidential information on vulnerable wireless link. The development is part of secure service provisioning (SSP) framework of IP multimedia system (IMS) at 3Gb Testbed of Fokus Fraunhofer

With the emergence of mobile multimedia services, such as unified messaging, click to dial, cross network multiparty conferencing and seamless multimedia streaming services, the fixed-mobile convergence and voice-data integration has started, leading to an overall Internet-Telecommunications merger. The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) is considered as the next generation service delivery platform in this converge communication world. It consists of modular design with open interfaces and enables the flexibility for providing multimedia services over IP technology. At parallel this open based emerging technology has security challenges from multiple communication platforms like IP, SIP and RTP. In this article our objective is to develop security model to protect IMS service delivery platform (SDP) from different time independent attacks e.g. SQL injection and media flow attacks. These attacks ultimately downfall the value added services. At the end we shall present the performance results at Fokus Fraunhofer Testbed to see the proposed solution for real world applications.

Currently there is a strong discussion throughout the industry and all relevant standard development organizations (SDO) like the ITU-T and ETSI TISPAN how next generation IPTV services could incorporate with the developments from the TISPAN NGN Release 2 architecture. Several approaches have already been introduced struggling with the need for an integrated solution with the core IMS network or the development of a separated subsystem for next generation IPTV services. The main focus for the integrated solution lies on the difficulties in using the session initiation protocol (SIP) or SIP in combination with the real time streaming protocol (RTSP) for both the signaling and media control including so called trick functions that allow to manipulate media delivery by e.g. pausing and fast forwarding the content. This paper demonstrates fundamental scenarios and requirements towards a cooperative service delivery platform for the provisioning of IPTV services over IMS enabled next generation networks. As a result of that work a generic IMS-based cooperative service delivery platform is introduced

In this paper we propose architecture and design methodology for the inter-domains security management (IDSM) model for the IP multimedia system (IMS), which is standardized by third generation partnership project (3GPP) and 3GPP2 as next generation mobile networks. The IDSM model is based on trust domain relationship between different network domain operators using policy based security associations and managements. The design methodology introduces inter-domains security gateways for generating and managing keys and certificates based on public key infrastructure (PKI) architecture. IPSec protocol is used for implementing confidentiality and integrity protection. This research work is part of secure service provisioning (SSP) framework for the IMS playground and third generation beyond (3Gb) testbed at the FOKUS Fraunhofer Institute.

From state of the art technologies for load balancing and reliability increase in VoIP infrastructures one learns that no homogenous solution exists. Thus compromises have been made as in the number of machines versus achieved reliability, or with regard to separation of load balancing and failure resilience. In this paper we present a distributed architecture for VoIP services based on peer-to-peer principles. In contrast to other peer-to-peer based approaches, relying upon an external DHT service, our architecture utilizes peer-to-peer technologies to integrate load balancing and failover requirements with a centralized VoIP server concept. This results in an integrated solution with focus on todays service provider requirements. Within the scope of this work, a proof-of-concept software solution has been designed and implemented. We show that the proposed architecture can be easily scaled up and provides efficient, redundant storage for user and session data.

Future IP networks demand increased resilience. We present two new routing algorithms which provide at each node two or more next hops towards every destination, so that nodes can react quickly without further signaling to link or node failures. We derive formal requirements of this approach on the routing graphs, describe and analyze two algorithms and introduce a new link weight metric dependent on the network topology only. Both algorithms are evaluated in terms of the number of protected nodes and links.

The specification of the IP multimedia subsystem as a service delivery architecture for next generation networks and the introduction of push to talk (PTT) as an IMS based service moves VoIP applications for mobile devices already to the market. PTT has gained a strong following in the US market and is on the verge of spreading globally. The open mobile alliance (OMA) currently specifies PTT as an IMS based service to assure interoperability between different operator domains. Most PTT solution vendors think already about extending PTT with other media types then voice, like video communication, file transfer or service subscription for content push services. Thus, push to multimedia (PTM) does not seem to be that far away from market and is well suited as an enabler to provide IMS applications with advanced multimedia communication functionalities. The department for Next Generation Network Integration (NGNI) at Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS has created a PTM application that utilises the IMS architecture. This paper reports about a concept of integrating this PTT/PTM functionality in community based applications to enable already existing groups and communities with new communication features.

The new IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) provides an overlay architecture for IP based core networks and enables the efficient provision of an open set of potentially highly integrated multimedia services (i.e. instant messaging, video conferencing, VoIP, application sharing, etc) on top of possibly different access technologies. However, there will be different domains and IMSs managed by different ISPs (Internet service providers) in the Internet. Each ISP has an SLA (service level agreement) established between its users, which defines what kind of resources and prices was agreed to be offered to each user. However there is no SLA between a visited domain and a mobile user. This paper analyses how to extend the QoS capabilities of the IMS offered to a mobile terminal when it roams among different domains. We propose a framework that integrates QoS and mobility management. This integration envisages the improvement of the overall end-to-end performance and the reduction of management entities in the network. The architecture presents the domain policy manager (DPM) as the decision-making and controller of a domain. The proposed architecture uses policies with inter-domain negotiation. An application scenario to show the framework functionality is described as well as the current status of the implementation.

UMTS networks are going to be provided on a commercial basis within the next twelve month in different European countries. The fast and flexible provision of innovative services, such as location-based services and mobile portals, particularly by third parties, will become a crucial issues for the the success of UMTS. As the UMTS role out will happen stepwise, additionally the interworking with other network technologies, such as WLAN hotspots and GPRS/GSM, for seamless service provision will be an important prerequisite for user acceptance. Thus the virtual home environment, in which services will be provided to users in a personalized way via different end systems and network technologies will have to become reality. Open network APIs, such as OSA/Parlay represent today a globally accepted technological means for providing services transparently on top of different networks. This paper provides an overview of the IST project OPIUM (open platform for integration of UMTS middleware), which investigates within four interconnected European test beds and one test bed in China the practical usage of the OSA/Parlay APIs on top of UMTS and GPRS networks. We will briefly look at the different test beds. However, particular emphasis will be given to the German OPIUM test bed, i.e. the UMTS/3G beyond test and development center at Fraunhofer FOKUS. This test bed will also provide a key location for the upcoming ETSI plug tests for OSA/Parlay interoperability, as it provides in addition to its own platform also access to different remote OSA/Parlay platforms.

A variety of concepts for service integration and corresponding service platforms emerged in the last two years. On the one hand, they aim for the interworking and integration of classical telecommunication and data communication services, such as telephony, voicemail, fax, e-mail, paging, etc. On the other hand they focus on universal service access from a variety of end user systems, including both fixed and mobile terminals. One form of these concepts are Unified Messaging Systems, which are proposed to enhance the control over reachability in telecommunications. This paper presents the evolution of messaging system and an outlook of future developments in the area of communication and information services. Based on this analysis it shows the drawbacks of the current understanding of Unified Messaging. The second part of the paper proposes a system architecture from the technical perspective to overcome the examined disadvantages.

The global telecommunications environment is rapidly changing to a highly dynamic open environment, where a multitude of competing and/or cooperating service providers offer a steadily growing number of increasingly powerful communication and information services. The need for integration, ubiquitous service access and rapid service provisioning requires an open, universal service platform which supports both telecommunications and management applications. The development of such a platform based on the concept of distributed processing environments (DPEs) has been a major research area. However, DPEs are relatively inflexible. An entirely different platform approach is based on the application of agent technology. Of particular interest are mobile agents, autonomous and thus intelligent software entities, which may roam the network in the course of performing their designated tasks. They offer new opportunities for the provisioning of services in the emerging electronic service markets. Mobile intelligent agents need a distributed agent environment platform. Since both, distributed processing-based and agent-based service provisioning have their specific advantages, such a platform should support both paradigms. This paper provides an overview of the mobile agent architecture MAGNA, and the accompanying agent platform. The distributed agent environment provided by the MAGNA platform is based on current DPE concepts and therefore enables coexistence and integration of distributed and agent-based implementations of telecommunications and management applications.

Network computing is an emerging paradigm that promises to extend computing and information access capabilities transparently beyond the domain of a specific organization and enable unprecedented collaboration and business transactions in a global open network environment. It also challenges the present client-server paradigm, which has proven to be rather expensive, owing to the high cost of maintaining and managing individual workstations and PCs. Network computing is closely coupled with the Internet and World Wide Web explosion. The HTTP-based browser is becoming a standard open universal interface not just for WWW browsing, but for access to corporate databases, for remote system/network management, communication and collaboration, workflow management, and for other services and applications. The Network Computer (NC) is viewed by many as the successor of the familiar PC, that will get most of the needed software and services on demand from the network. To realize the vision of network computing, powerful, robust, and efficient “backend” infrastructure is required to provide such applications and services within an organization, across domains, and on the global scale. What kind of role does the autonomous distributed system (ADS) paradigm play in network computing? Are these two different worlds? Are they complementary? Or, is ADS an inseparable part of or a base for the fledging network computing? The individual panelists address these questions from the point of view of different environments and applications. They discuss technologies that support these paradigms and form a bridge between them.

The vision for future telecommunications is often described by the slogan "information at any time, at any place, in any form", driven by both society's increasing demand for "universal connectivity" and the technological progress in the area of mobile computing and personal communications. In order to realize this vision, the emerging concept of personal communications support (PCS), which includes support for personal mobility, service personalization, and advanced service interoperability, is becoming increasingly important since it allows users to configure their communications environment in accordance with their individual needs, thereby providing them with controlled access to telecommunication services, regardless of their current location, terminal and network capabilities. This paper provides an overview of a personal communications support system (PCSS). The PCSS represents a platform providing advanced PCS capabilities in a uniform way to numerous communication applications in distributed multimedia environments. From a functional perspective, the PCSS provides enhanced intelligent network (IN) and universal personal telecommunication (UPT) capabilities with respect to user addressing (based on logical names instead of numbers) and advanced user control capabilities. From a design perspective, the centralistic IN/UPT approach to the realization of service logic has been replaced by a highly distributable, object-oriented approach based on X.500/X.700/telecommunications management network (TMN) concepts. This paper addresses the basic aspects of the PCSS, including design criteria, system architecture, supported applications, and evolution issues.

The telecommunications environment is changing its face towards an open market of information services where the vision is "information any time, at any place, in any form". Within this electronic market the aspects of service customization and instant service provision are of fundamental importance. In this context a new paradigm is gaining momentum referred to as "intelligent agents". This paper provides an overview of the emerging field of intelligent agents (IAs) by identifying their basic properties. Focusing on mobile agents, which could be considered as a specific class of intelligent agents, we identify the chances of agent technology in the context of telecommunications. We look at their potential impacts on open service architectures, intelligent communications and network management.

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This paper addresses the impacts of advanced personal communications on the design of distributed office communications environments. Fast changing user demands require the integration of state-of-the-art concepts for personal communications, multimedia services, enhanced user control capabilities, and ubiquitous computing into the design of highly efficient office communication environments. We propose a personal communications support system (PCSS) designed to support personal mobility, service personalization and service interoperability in distributed multimedia environments optimized for the use in customer premises networks. The proposed system focuses on the communications aspects of reachability, privacy and enhanced customer control. The PCSS design is strongly influenced by recent research activities in the field of advanced telecommunications and distributed computer sciences, such as intelligent networks (INs) universal personal telecommunications (UPT) telecommunications management network (TMN) and electronic location technologies. The concepts presented have been developed within the BERKOM II project "IN/TMN Integration" performed at the Department for Open Communications Systems at the Technical University of Berlin for Deutsche Telekom Berkom.>

The evolution of the telecommunications environment toward an open distributed processing system, influenced by the recent developments in the framework of open distributed processing (ODP) and intelligent networks (INs), is addressed. The trader is a component for solving autonomy issues, since entities/objects which register for cooperation with other entities at the trader are limiting their autonomy to a specific degree. In contrast to manual negotiations between importers and exporters the trader represents a trusted third party automating these negotiations. The possible mapping of IN and ODP concepts and the application of the ODP trader in INs to support different autonomy issues in the provision of IN services are discussed.>