Information-Centric Network (ICN) architectures, such as Named Data Networking (NDN), can improve content delivery on the Internet by deploying in-network caching techniques. Replacing the entire established Internet with a novel architecture is a non-trivial task, which is why this work develops a layered network architecture consisting of several smaller NDN-based mobile networks (resp., domains), interconnected using a Distributed Hash Table (DHT)-based network running as an overlay on top of existing Internet infrastructures. Using simulations, we model real-world network characteristics to evaluate the proposed architecture’s performance successfully.

This work specifies, implements, and evaluates access management based on face recognition. The system developed uses Internet-of-Things (IoT) for video surveillance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for face recognition, and Blockchains (BC) for immutable permanent storage and provides excellent properties in terms of image quality, end-to-end delay, and energy efficiency.

While Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) offer potentials, their limited programmability and energy-limitations determine operational challenges. Thus, a TinyIPFIX-based system was designed, such that this application layer protocol is now usable to exchange data in WSNs efficiently. The system implementation in MicroPython is simple and efficient in comparison to a lower level programming language, while displaying valuable properties in terms of overhead and power efficiency. Furthermore, it demonstrates that MicroPython may pave the way towards Network Function Virtualization (NFV) on Internet- of-Things (IoT) devices by providing highly portable software functions implemented in a high-level programming language.

L-SCN is a two-layered Service-Centric Networking (SCN) architecture. The L-SCN design splits the network into domains and specifies communication protocols for service provider information propagation. Nodes in a domain receive substantial knowledge about the available resources (e.g., CPU, RAM) and available services within the domain, while the communication between different domains is realized through supernodes. We extend L-SCN with new communication mechanisms, which improve the processing time and provide lower protocol overhead for service request processing. The two proposed mechanisms are named event-driven and provider-driven. The event-driven mechanism propagates service provider information based on an event (e.g., high overload). The provider-driven mechanism propagates service provider information periodically.

This work develops an integration of Blockchains (BC) with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) using a highly constrained TelosB IoT platform based on the MSP430 processor family and CC2420 IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio interfaces. The system is evaluated in an indoor office environment focusing on overhead and energy efficiency of BC transaction (TX) transmissions.

In Industry 4.0 (I4), the Industrial Internet of Things (I2oT) data streams are prone to significant data manipulation risks. The integration of Blockchains (BC) with I2oT may become a solution preventing from this problem. This paper provides a blockchain-agnostic Blockchain I2oT (BI2oT) architecture called BIIT that allows developing a broad range of BC applications fully integrating Internet of Things (IoT). The mechanisms introduced in BIIT aim at solutions that provide data reliability, limit the computational overhead, and enhance energy efficiency. BIIT is evaluated through real-world experimentation.

Long Range (LoRa) defines a popular modulation scheme based on the chirp spread spectrum technique. It is used in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LP-WANs) for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Thus, this work here designs, specifies, implements, and evaluates a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) architecture for LoRa networks, while using (a) Software Defined Radios (SDR) to receive/send radio signals and (b) Docker to virtualize the setup. (c) A software modulator is developed to emit signals on the downlink targeting regular LoRa end-device receivers, such as Semtech SX1276 chips. Finally, the network, processing, and cost requirements of the C-RAN implemented are evaluated.

In this paper, we present L-SCN, a new routing architecture for Service-Centric Networking (SCN), which makes use of a two-layer forwarding scheme composed of inter-domain and intra-domain communication. Unlike existing SCN routing architectures relying on a flat organization, our design splits the network into domains. Nodes within a domain possess significant knowledge about existing services and available resources within the domain. Supernodes provide a significant advantage in comparison to other architectures. They assure the inter-domain communication and make use of a pull and push mechanism combined with Bloom filters. It allows us to minimize the protocol overhead and optimize sharing of information about available services and resources in the network.

Autonomic communications aim to provide the quality-of-service in networks using self-management mechanisms. It inherits many characteristics from autonomic computing, in particular, when communication systems are running as specialized applications in software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)-enabled cloud environments. This paper surveys autonomic computing and communications in the context of software-driven networks, i.e., networks based on SDN/NFV concepts. Autonomic communications create new challenges in terms of security, operations, and business support. We discuss several goals, research challenges, and development issues on self-management mechanisms and architectures in software-driven networks. This paper covers multiple perspectives of autonomic communications in software-driven networks, such as automatic testing, integration, and deployment of network functions. We also focus on self-management and optimization, which make use of machine learning techniques.

Cloud computing enables the on-demand delivery of resources for a multitude of services and gives the opportunity for small agile companies to compete with large industries. In the telco world, cloud computing is currently mostly used by mobile network operators (MNO) for hosting non-critical support services and selling cloud services such as applications and data storage. MNOs are investigating the use of cloud computing to deliver key telecommunication services in the access and core networks. Without this, MNOs lose the opportunities of both combining this with over-the-top (OTT) and value-added services to their fundamental service offerings and leveraging cost-effective commodity hardware. Being able to leverage cloud computing technology effectively for the telco world is the focus of mobile cloud networking (MCN). This paper presents the key results of MCN integrated project that includes its architecture advancements, prototype implementation, and evaluation. Results show the efficiency and the simplicity that a MNO can deploy and manage the complete service lifecycle of fully cloudified, composed services that combine OTT/IT- and mobile-network-based services running on commodity hardware. The extensive performance evaluation of MCN using two key proof-of-concept scenarios that compose together many services to deliver novel converged elastic, on-demand mobile-based but innovative OTT services proves the feasibility of such fully virtualized deployments. Results show that it is beneficial to extend cloud computing to telco usage and run fully cloudified mobile-network-based systems with clear advantages and new service opportunities for MNOs and end-users.

Cloudification of the Centralized-Radio Access Network (C-RAN) in which signal processing runs on general purpose processors inside virtual machines has lately received significant attention. Due to short deadlines in the LTE frequency division duplex access method, processing time fluctuations introduced by the virtualization process have a deep impact on C-RAN performance. This paper evaluates bottlenecks of the OpenAirInterface (OAI is an open-source software-based implementation of LTE) cloud performance, provides feasibility studies on C-RAN execution, and introduces recommendations for cloud architecture that significantly reduces the encountered execution problems. In typical cloud environments, the OAI processing time deadlines cannot be guaranteed. Our proposed cloud architecture shows good characteristics for OAI cloud execution. As an example, in our setup more than 99.5% processed LTE subframes reach reasonable processing deadlines close to performance of a dedicated machine of a single core CPU.

Commoditization and virtualization of wireless networks are changing the economics of mobile networks to help network providers (e.g., MNO, MVNO) move from proprietary and bespoke hardware and software platforms toward an open, cost-effective, and flexible cellular ecosystem. In addition, rich and innovative local services can be efficiently created through cloudification by leveraging the existing infrastructure. In this work, we present RANaaS, which is a cloudified radio access network delivered as a service. RANaaS provides the service life-cycle of an on-demand, elastic, and pay as you go 3GPP RAN instantiated on top of the cloud infrastructure. We demonstrate an example of real-time cloudified LTE network deployment using the OpenAirInterface LTE implementation and OpenStack running on commodity hardware as well as the flexibility and performance of the platform developed.

JBoss Application Server (AS) uses java.io and the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) project to provide its HTTP connectors. Due to new features of upcoming specifications of the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE), the existing connectors shall be replaced by modern non blocking Input/Outputs (I/Os). In this study, we review some modern I/O frameworks such as NIO.2 introduced by Java SE 7 and XNIO3 developed by JBoss. We compare their network performance by running a series of stress tests on client-server applications of limited functionality. As a result, we select NIO.2 as the most appropriate framework to specify and implement a new JBoss connector. Finally, we compare our newly implemented Java connector against the existing APR-based one by means of network performance measures.

We present the basic architectural elements of the Captive Portal integrating Shibboleth based Authentication, Authorization, Accounting and Auditing into Wireless Mesh Networks. The Captive Portal is built upon the SWITCHaai/Shibboleth architecture especially designed to protect web based services. The architecture is secure, eavesdropping protected and does not require any specialized software installation on the client side.

In this paper, we study the problem of designing propagation protocols for network-wide localization based on two-way ranging. At the beginning, a network contains a few localized anchor nodes and a large number unlocalized nodes. Unlocalized nodes in the communication range of anchor nodes perform two-way ranging, estimate their positions, and become anchor nodes. The process repeats until all nodes know their positions. We consider three protocols for this propagation process, analyze their convergence speed, and evaluate the communication costs related to the energy consumption. We show that the proposed Optimized Beacon protocol requires much less messages than two other considered protocols while achieving almost the same convergence delay as the Beacon protocol.

We present a novel geographical routing scheme for spontaneous wireless mesh networks. Greedy geographical routing has many advantages, but suffers from packet losses occurring at the border of voids. In this paper, we propose a flexible greedy routing scheme that can be adapted to any variant of geographical routing and works for any connectivity graph, not necessarily Unit Disk Graphs. The idea is to reactively detect voids, backtrack packets, and propagate information on blocked sectors to reduce packet loss. We also propose an extrapolating algorithm to reduce the latency of void discovery and to limit route stretch. Performance evaluation via simulation shows that our modified greedy routing avoids most of packet losses.

We propose Binary Waypoint Routing, a novel geographical routing protocol for wireless mesh networks. Its idea is to learn and maintain source routes to a small number of nodes called binary waypoints that are placed in subspaces constructed as a result of binary space partitioning. A source node sends a packet to a waypoint for a given destination and intermediate nodes try to adapt the packet route by aiming at waypoints that are closer to the destination. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves high packet delivery rate with a traffic pattern similar to the Optimal Shortest Path Routing.

We analyze greedy geographical routing in spontaneous wireless mesh networks to show several interesting properties. First, we can approximate the dependence of packet loss probability on the mean node rank with a Fermi-Dirac function. When the mesh network grows, it becomes opaque to packets regardless of the average node rank. We also show that packet loss probability in mesh networks with greedy geographical routing does not exhibit the behavior of percolating systems. Finally, we propose an analytical model of greedy geographical routing and use it to derive packet loss probability.