@inproceedings{2472, author = {{Auroux, Sébastien and Karl, Holger}}, publisher = {{Proc. of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC)}}, title = {{{Distributed Placement of Virtualized Control Applications in Mobile Backhaul Networks}}}, doi = {{ 10.1109/WCNC.2018.8377335}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{2666, abstract = {{Supporting the vast variety of network services’ management and orchestration requirements is one of the main challenges that Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is dealing with. While general management requirements such as Virtual Network Function (VNF) resource requirements can be specified by the service developers using service descriptors, specific management operations like VNF-specific configuration cannot be performed by these descriptors. On the other hand, it is inefficient and also very challenging for Management and Orchestration (MANO) frameworks to provide all specific-management operations for every individual network service and their constituent VNFs. To mitigate this issue, we propose the use of service-specific programs called Specific Managers (SMs) that can customize management and orchestration of network services and also extend the capability of MANO frameworks to support per-service management and orchestration. The results of our evaluation show that the higher flexibility and programmability enabled by SMs improve the performance of the service performance and also utilises the service provider resources more efficiently.}}, author = {{Razzaghi Kouchaksaraei, Hadi and Dräxler, Sevil and Peuster, Manuel and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{2018 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC)}}, location = {{Ljubljana, Slovenia}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Programmable and Flexible Management and Orchestration of Virtualized Network Functions}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{2667, abstract = {{Developing cloud applications using a microservice architecture allows their functional blocks to be distributed and deployed on multiple Cloud infrastructures. This enables service providers to mix and match Cloud-based microservices and Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that are provided by Network Function Virtualization (NFV). Provisioning complex services containing VNFs and Cloud-based microservices across NFV and cloud infrastructures can enhance service quality, reduce latency, and optimise cost. This can be provided by an orchestration system that can handle cross-ecosystem dependencies. To this end, we implemented Pishahang that is a framework for jointly managing and orchestrating virtual network functions and Cloud-based microservices. During the demo, we deploy several complex services to demonstrate features provided by Pishahang to support management and orchestration of complex services.}}, author = {{Razzaghi Kouchaksaraei, Hadi and Dierich, Tobias and Karl, Holger}}, location = {{Montreal, Canada}}, title = {{{Pishahang: Joint Orchestration of Network Function Chains and Distributed Cloud Applications}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{3217, author = {{Demirel, Burak and Ramaswamy, Arunselvan and Quevedo, Daniel and Karl, Holger}}, title = {{{DeepCAS: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Control-Aware Scheduling}}}, doi = {{10.1109/LCSYS.2018.2847721}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{3345, abstract = {{Dynamically steering flows through virtualized net- work function instances is a key enabler for elastic, on-demand deployments of virtualized network functions. This becomes par- ticular challenging when stateful functions are involved, necessi- tating state management. The problem with existing solutions is that they typically embrace state migration and flow rerouting jointly, imposing a huge set of requirements on the on-boarded VNFs, e.g., solution-specific state management interfaces. In this paper, we introduce the seamless handover proto- col (SHarP). It provides an easy-to-use, loss-less, and order- preserving flow rerouting mechanism that is not fixed to a single state management approach. This allows VNF vendors to implement or use the state management solution of their choice. SHarP supports these solutions with additional information when flows are migrated. Further, we show how SHarP significantly reduces the buffer usage at a central (SDN) controller, which is a typical bottleneck in existing solutions. Our experiments show that SHarP uses a constant amount of controller buffer, irrespective of the time taken to migrate the VNF state.}}, author = {{Peuster, Manuel and Küttner, Hannes and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{4th IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft 2018)}}, location = {{Montreal}}, title = {{{ Let the state follow its flows: An SDN-based flow handover protocol to support state migration}}}, doi = {{10.1109/NETSOFT.2018.8460007}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{3346, abstract = {{Developing a virtualized network service does not only involve the implementation and configuration of the network functions it is composed of but also its integration and test with management solutions that will control the service in its production environment. These integration tasks require testbeds that offer the needed network function virtualization infrastructure~(NFVI), like OpenStack, introducing a lot of management and maintenance overheads. Such testbed setups become even more complicated when the multi point-of-presence~(PoP) case, with multiple infrastructure installations, is considered. In this demo, we showcase an emulation platform that executes containerized network services in user-defined multi-PoP topologies. The platform does not only allow network service developers to locally test their services but also to connect real-world management and orchestration solutions to the emulated PoPs. During our interactive demonstration we focus on the integration between the emulated infrastructure and state-of-the-art orchestration solutions like SONATA or OSM.}}, author = {{Peuster, Manuel and Kampmeyer, Johannes and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{4th IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft 2018)}}, location = {{Montreal}}, title = {{{Containernet 2.0: A Rapid Prototyping Platform for Hybrid Service Function Chains}}}, doi = {{10.1109/NETSOFT.2018.8459905}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{3347, abstract = {{Management and orchestration~(MANO) systems are the key components of future large-scale NFV environments. They will manage resources of hundreds or even thousands of NFV infrastructure installations, so called points of presence~(PoP). Such scenarios need to be automatically tested during the development phase of a MANO system. This task becomes very challenging because large-scale NFV testbeds are hard to maintain, too expensive, or simply not available. In this paper, we present a multi-PoP NFV infrastructure emulation platform that enables automated, large-scale testing of MANO stacks. We show that our platform can easily emulate hundreds of PoPs on a single physical machine and reduces the setup time of a test PoP by a factor of 232x compared to a DevStack-based test PoP installation. Further, we present a case study in which we test ETSI's Open Source MANO~(OSM) against our proposed system to gain insights about OSM's behaviour in large-scale NFV deployments.}}, author = {{Peuster, Manuel and Marchetti, Michael and Garcia de Blas, Gerado and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC)}}, location = {{Ljubljana}}, title = {{{Emulation-based Smoke Testing of NFV Orchestrators in Large Multi-PoP Environments}}}, doi = {{10.1109/EuCNC.2018.8442701}}, year = {{2018}}, } @article{3152, abstract = {{To adapt to continuously changing workloads in networks, components of the running network services may need to be replicated (scaling the network service) and allocated to physical resources (placement) dynamically, also necessitating dynamic re-routing of flows between service components. In this paper, we propose JASPER, a fully automated approach to jointly optimizing scaling, placement, and routing for complex network services, consisting of multiple (virtualized) components. JASPER handles multiple network services that share the same substrate network; services can be dynamically added or removed and dynamic workload changes are handled. Our approach lets service designers specify their services on a high level of abstraction using service templates. JASPER automatically makes scaling, placement and routing decisions, enabling quick reaction to changes. We formalize the problem, analyze its complexity, and develop two algorithms to solve it. Extensive empirical results show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach.}}, author = {{Dräxler, Sevil and Karl, Holger and Mann, Zoltan Adam}}, journal = {{IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{JASPER: Joint Optimization of Scaling, Placement, and Routing of Virtual Network Services}}}, doi = {{10.1109/TNSM.2018.2846572}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6016, author = {{Peuster, Manuel and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{IEEE/IFIP 14th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM)}}, location = {{Rome}}, publisher = {{IEEE/IFIP}}, title = {{{Understand your chains and keep your deadlines: Introducing time-constrained profiling for NFV}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6483, author = {{Peuster, Manuel and Schneider, Stefan Balthasar and Christ, Frederic and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualisation and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN) 5GNetApp}}, location = {{Verona}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{A Prototyping Platform to Validate and Verify Network Service Header-based Service Chains}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @techreport{6485, author = {{Rosa, Raphael Vicente and Rothenberg, Christian Esteve and Peuster, Manuel and Karl, Holger}}, publisher = {{IETF}}, title = {{{Methodology for VNF Benchmarking Automation}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6970, abstract = {{Dynamic allocation of resources is a key feature in network function virtualization (NFV), enabling flexible adjustment of slices and contained network services to ever-changing service demands. Considering resource allocation across the entire network, many authors have proposed approaches to optimize the placement and chaining of virtual network function (VNF) instances and the allocation of resources to these VNF instances. In doing so, various optimization objectives are conceivable, e.g., minimizing certain required resources or the end-to-end delay of the placed services. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between four typical optimization objectives when coordinating the placement and resource allocation of chained VNF instances. We observe an interesting trade-off between minimizing the overhead of starting/stopping VNF instances and all other objectives when adapting to changed service demands.}}, author = {{Schneider, Stefan Balthasar and Dräxler, Sevil and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2018)}}, location = {{Abu Dhabi, UAE}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Trade-offs in Dynamic Resource Allocation in Network Function Virtualization}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6972, abstract = {{In recent years, a variety of different approaches have been proposed to tackle the problem of scaling and placing network services, consisting of interconnected virtual network functions (VNFs). This paper presents a placement abstraction layer (PAL) that provides a clear and simple northbound interface for using such algorithms while hiding their internal functionality and implementation. Through its southbound interface, PAL can connect to different back ends that evaluate the calculated placements, e.g., using simulations, emulations, or testbed approaches. As an example for such evaluation back ends, we introduce a novel placement emulation framework (PEF) that allows executing calculated placements using real, containerbased VNFs on real-world network topologies. In a case study, we show how PAL and PEF facilitate reusing and evaluating placement algorithms as well as validating their underlying models and performance claims.}}, author = {{Schneider, Stefan Balthasar and Peuster, Manuel and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN 2018)}}, location = {{Verona, Italy}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{A Generic Emulation Framework for Reusing and Evaluating VNF Placement Algorithms}}}, doi = {{10.1109/NFV-SDN.2018.8725795}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6974, abstract = {{A key challenge of network function virtualization (NFV) is the complexity of developing and deploying new network services. Currently, development requires many manual steps that are time-consuming and error-prone (e.g., for creating service descriptors). Furthermore, existing management and orchestration (MANO) platforms only offer limited support of standardized descriptor models or package formats, limiting the re-usability of network services. To this end, we introduce a fully integrated, open-source NFV service development kit (SDK) with multi-MANO platform support. Our SDK simplifies many NFV service development steps by offering initial generation of descriptors, advanced project management, as well as fully automated packaging and submission for on-boarding. To achieve multi-platform support, we present a package format that extends ETSI’s VNF package format. In this demonstration, we present the end-to-end workflow to develop an NFV service that is then packaged for multiple platforms, i.e., 5GTANGO and OSM.}}, author = {{Schneider, Stefan Balthasar and Peuster, Manuel and Tavernier, Wouter and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN 2018)}}, location = {{Verona, Italy}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{A Fully Integrated Multi-Platform NFV SDK}}}, doi = {{10.1109/NFV-SDN.2018.8725794}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{1041, abstract = {{Recent studies show the increasing popularity of distributed cloud applications, which are composed of multiple microservices. Besides their known benefits, microservice architecture also enables to mix and match cloud applications and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) services (service chains), which are composed of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). Provisioning complex services containing VNFs and microservices in a combined NFV/cloud platform can enhance service quality and optimise cost. Such a platform can be based on the multi-cloud concept. However, current multi-cloud solutions do not support NFV requirements, making them inadequate to support complex services. In this paper, we investigate these challenges and propose a solution for jointly managing and orchestrating microservices and virtual network functions.}}, author = {{Razzaghi Kouchaksaraei, Hadi and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{The Ninth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization CLOUD COMPUTING}}, isbn = {{978-1-61208-607-1}}, location = {{Barcelona, Spain}}, pages = {{153--154}}, title = {{{Joint Orchestration of Cloud-Based Microservices and Virtual Network Functions}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{6859, abstract = {{Signal processing in WASNs is based on a software framework for hosting the algorithms as well as on a set of wireless connected devices representing the hardware. Each of the nodes contributes memory, processing power, communication bandwidth and some sensor information for the tasks to be solved on the network. In this paper we present our MARVELO framework for distributed signal processing. It is intended for transforming existing centralized implementations into distributed versions. To this end, the software only needs a block-oriented implementation, which MARVELO picks-up and distributes on the network. Additionally, our sensor node hardware and the audio interfaces responsible for multi-channel recordings are presented.}}, author = {{Afifi, Haitham and Schmalenstroeer, Joerg and Ullmann, Joerg and Haeb-Umbach, Reinhold and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{Speech Communication; 13th ITG-Symposium}}, pages = {{1--5}}, title = {{{MARVELO - A Framework for Signal Processing in Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @inproceedings{30858, author = {{Dräxler, Sevil and Peuster, Manuel and Illian, Marvin and Karl, Holger}}, booktitle = {{2018 4th IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization and Workshops (NetSoft)}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Generating Resource and Performance Models for Service Function Chains: The Video Streaming Case}}}, doi = {{10.1109/netsoft.2018.8460029}}, year = {{2018}}, } @proceedings{61268, editor = {{Dräxler, Sevil and Peuster, Manuel and Illian, Marvin and Karl, Holger}}, location = {{Darmstadt, Germany}}, title = {{{Towards Predicting Resource Demands and Performance of Distributed Cloud Services}}}, year = {{2018}}, } @article{58, abstract = {{Network function virtualization and software-defined networking allow services consisting of virtual network functions to be designed and implemented with great flexibility by facilitating automatic deployments, migrations, and reconfigurations for services and their components. For extended flexibility, we go beyond seeing services as a fixed chain of functions. We define the service structure in a flexible way that enables changing the order of functions in case the functionality of the service is not influenced by this, and propose a YANG data model for expressing this flexibility. Flexible structures allow the network orchestration system to choose the optimal composition of service components that for example gives the best results for placement of services in the network. When number of flexible services and number of components in each service increase, combinatorial explosion limits the practical use of this flexibility. In this paper, we describe a selection heuristic that gives a Pareto set of the possible compositions of a service as well as possible combinations of different services, with respect to different optimization objectives. Moreover, we present a heuristic algorithm for placement of a combination of services, which aims at placing service components along shortest paths that have enough capacity for accommodating the services. By applying these solutions, we show that allowing flexibility in the service structure is feasible.}}, author = {{Dräxler, Sevil and Karl, Holger}}, journal = {{International Journal of Network Management}}, number = {{2}}, pages = {{1----16}}, publisher = {{Wiley Online Library}}, title = {{{Specification, Composition, and Placement of Network Services with Flexible Structures}}}, doi = {{10.1002/nem.1963}}, year = {{2017}}, } @article{64, abstract = {{A current trend in networking and cloud computing is to provide compute resources at widely distributed sites; this is exemplified by developments such as Network Function Virtualisation. This paves the way for wide-area service deployments with improved service quality: e.g. user-perceived response times can be reduced by offering services at nearby sites. But always assigning users to the nearest site can be a bad decision if this site is already highly utilised. This paper formalises two related decisions of allocating compute resources at different sites and assigning users to them with the goal of minimising the response times while the total number of resources to be allocated is limited – a non-linear capacitated Facility Location Problem with integrated queuing systems. To efficiently handle its non-linearity, we introduce five linear problem linearisations and adapt the currently best heuristic for a similar scenario to our scenario. All six approaches are compared in experiments for solution quality and solving time. Surprisingly, our best optimisation formulation outperforms the heuristic in both time and quality. Additionally, we evaluate the influence of distributions of available compute resources in the network on the response time: The time was halved for some configurations. The presented formulation techniques for our problem linearisations are applicable to a broader optimisation domain.}}, author = {{Keller, Matthias and Karl, Holger}}, journal = {{IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management}}, number = {{1}}, pages = {{121----135}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Response-Time-Optimised Service Deployment: MILP Formulations of Piece-wise Linear Functions Approximating Non-linear Bivariate Mixed-integer Functions}}}, doi = {{10.1109/TNSM.2016.2611590}}, year = {{2017}}, }