2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2017
Lately application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confr... more Lately application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confronted with the unprecedented challenge of accommodating increasing service and traffic demands from their geographically distributed users. Many ASPs and ISPs, such as Facebook, AT&T and others have adopted micro-service architecture to tackle this problem. Instead of building a single, monolithic application, the idea is to split the application into a set of smaller, interconnected services, called micro-services (or simply services). Such services are lightweight and perform distinct tasks independent of each other. Hence, they can be deployed quickly and independently as user demands vary. Nevertheless, scheduling of micro-services is a complex task and is currently under-researched. In this work, we address the problem of scheduling micro-services across multiple clouds, including microclouds. We consider different user-level SLAs, such as latency and cost, while scheduling such services. Our aim is to reduce overall turnaround time for the complete end-to-end service in service function chains and reduce the total traffic generated. In this work we present a novel fair weighted affinity-based scheduling heuristic to solve this problem. We also compare the results of proposed solution with standard biased greedy scheduling algorithms presented in the literature and observe significant improvements.
Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 2018
With the enhancements in the field of software-defined networking and virtualization technologies... more With the enhancements in the field of software-defined networking and virtualization technologies, novel networking paradigms such as network function virtualization (NFV) and the Internet of things (IoT) are rapidly gaining ground. Development of IoT as well as 5G networks and explosion in online services has resulted in an exponential growth of devices connected to the network. As a result, application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confronted with the unprecedented challenge of accommodating increasing service and traffic demands from the geographically distributed users. To tackle this problem, many ASPs and ISPs, such as Netflix, Facebook, AT&T and others are increasingly adopting micro-services (MS) application architecture. Despite the success of MS in the industry, there is no specific standard or research work for service providers as guidelines, especially from the perspective of basic micro-service operations. In this work, we aim to bridge this gap between industry and academia and discuss different micro-service deployment, discovery and communication options for service providers as a means to forming complete service chains. In addition, we address the problem of scheduling micro-services across multiple clouds, including micro-clouds. We consider different user-level SLAs, such as latency and cost, while scheduling such services. We aim to reduce overall turnaround time as well as costs for the deployment of complete end-to-end service. In this work, we present a novel affinity-based fair weighted scheduling heuristic to solve this problem. We also compare the results of proposed solution with standard greedy scheduling algorithms presented in the literature and observe significant improvements. 1
Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon's EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common... more Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon's EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common and popular today. Obtaining resources from a multiple cloud system gives clients competitive pricing, flexibility of resource provisioning, better points of presence and reduced risk of a total blackout. When these clients happen to be carriers, like Internet service providers, seeking to deploy their network services over multiple clouds, there still are many research challenges that inhibit large-scale deployments. This talk revolves around some of the key issues that were designated as "challenges" at the beginning of the network virtualization journey, and still need considerable research to see any kind of resolution in the near future. Specifically, I will present my work on the techniques that improve availability of virtual network services and secure inter-domain flow of data in the context of Internet of Things and multi-cloud based health networks.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enormous potential in the public and civil domains. These ar... more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enormous potential in the public and civil domains. These are particularly useful in applications where human lives would otherwise be endangered. Multi-UAV systems can collaboratively complete missions more efficiently and economically as compared to single UAV systems. However, there are many issues to be resolved before effective use of UAVs can be made to provide stable and reliable context-specific networks. Much of the work carried out in the areas of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), and Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) does not address the unique characteristics of the UAV networks. UAV networks may vary from slow dynamic to dynamic; have intermittent links and fluid topology. While it is believed that ad hoc mesh network would be most suitable for UAV networks yet the architecture of multi-UAV networks has been an understudied area. Software Defined Networking (SDN) could facilitate flexible deployment and management of new services and...
Application Service Providers (ASPs) obtaining resources from multiple clouds have to contend wit... more Application Service Providers (ASPs) obtaining resources from multiple clouds have to contend with different management and control platforms employed by the cloud service providers (CSPs) and network service providers (NSP). Distributing applications on multiple clouds has a number of benefits but the absence of a common multi-cloud management platform that would allow ASPs dynamic and real-time control over resources across multiple clouds and interconnecting networks makes this task arduous. OpenADN, being developed at Washington University in Saint Louis, fills this gap. However, performance issues of such a complex, distributed and multi-threaded platform, not tackled appropriately, may neutralize some of the gains accruable to the ASPs. In this paper, we establish the need for and methods of collecting precise and fine-grained behavioral data of OpenADN like platforms that can be used to optimize their behavior in order to control operational cost, performance (e.g., latency) ...
2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)
Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artific... more Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, where multiple participants, or agents, collaborate to make consensus decisions. To achieve this, the data in the blockchain storage have to be transformed into blockchain knowledge. We refer to these types of blockchains as knowledgebased blockchains. Knowledge-based blockchains are potentially useful in building efficient risk assessment applications. An earlier work introduced probabilistic blockchain which facilitates knowledge-based blockchains. This paper proposes an extension for the probabilistic blockchain concept. The design of a reputation management framework, suitable for such blockchains, is proposed. The framework has been developed to suit the requirements of a wide range of applications. In particular, we apply it to the detection of malicious nodes and reduce their effect on the probabilistic blockchains' consensus process. We evaluate the framework by comparing it to a baseline using several adversarial strategies. Further, we analyze the collaborative decisions with and without the malicious node detection. Both results show a sustainable performance, where the proposed work outperforms others and achieves excellent results.
Service Function Chaining (SFC) is the problem of deploying various network service instances ove... more Service Function Chaining (SFC) is the problem of deploying various network service instances over geographically distributed data centers and providing inter-connectivity among them. The goal is to enable the network traffic to flow smoothly through the underlying network, resulting in an optimal quality of experience to the end-users. Proper chaining of network functions leads to optimal utilization of distributed resources. This has been a de-facto model in the telecom industry with network functions deployed over underlying hardware. Though this model has served the telecom industry well so far, it has been adapted mostly to suit the static behavior of network services and service demands due to the deployment of the services directly over physical resources. This results in network ossification with larger delays to the end-users, especially with the data-centric model in which the computational resources are moving closer to end users. A novel networking paradigm, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), meets the user demands dynamically and reduces operational expenses (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx), by implementing network functions in the software layer known as virtual network functions (VNFs). VNFs are then interconnected to form a complete end-to-end service, also known as service function chains (SFCs). In this work, we study the problem of deploying service function chains over network function virtualized architecture. Specifically, we study virtual network function placement problem for the optimal SFC formation across geographically distributed clouds. We set up the problem of minimizing inter-cloud traffic and response time in a multi-cloud scenario as an ILP optimization problem, along with important constraints such as total deployment costs and service level agreements (SLAs). We consider link delays and computational delays in our model.
2018 9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), 2018
A blockchain provides a securedparadigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer... more A blockchain provides a securedparadigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer network in which no trusted central party is required. As a result, it has the potential to resolve many challenges that are faced with current centralized controllers in globally distributed applications. To date, the blockchain technology has been used for recording transactions and tracking objects in which multiple participants reach a consensus on whether a transaction is valid or not. This paper introduces the novel paradigm of probabilistic blockchains, an extension of the current blockchains that allows building efficient and distributed risk assessment and decision-making applications in which multiple untrusting parties collaborate but may not completely agree on the outcome. The paradigm is particularly useful for risk assessment, where a group of decision-makersneeds to decide or analyze an event based on imperfect information. The proposed approach can be used in applicatio...
Controlling and managing networks has become a highly complex and specialized activity. Network o... more Controlling and managing networks has become a highly complex and specialized activity. Network operators are struggling to cope with integration of different types of networks, while meeting the challenges of increasing traffic. The traditional network tends to be rigid. Once the forwarding policy has been defined, the only way to change it is by changing the configuration of all the affected devices. This is time consuming and puts a limit on scalability and meeting challenges of mobility and big data. In this context software defined networking (SDN) is being looked upon as a promising paradigm that has the power to change the way networking is done. By centralizing control, and making forwarding nodes simple, SDN offers flexible control over the traffic flows and the policies networks use to manage these flows. Along with the excitement, there have been apprehensions regarding SDN. The perceived risks associated with SDN have prevented faster adoption so far. There have been a n...
Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon’s EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common... more Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon’s EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common and popular today. Obtaining resources from a multiple cloud system gives clients competitive pricing, flexibility of resource provisioning, better points of presence and reduced risk of a total blackout. When these clients happen to be carriers, like Internet service providers, seeking to deploy their network services over multiple clouds, there still are many research challenges that inhibit large-scale deployments. This talk revolves around some of the key issues that were designated as "challenges" at the beginning of the network virtualization journey, and still need considerable research to see any kind of resolution in the near future. Specifically, I will present my work on the techniques that improve availability of virtual network services and secure inter-domain flow of data in the context of Internet of Things and multi-cloud based health networks.
2020 Fourth World Conference on Smart Trends in Systems, Security and Sustainability (WorldS4), 2020
The costs of delivering critical services, such as healthcare, power, financial systems and trans... more The costs of delivering critical services, such as healthcare, power, financial systems and transportation are spiraling up while the performance expectations of them have risen manifold. The mechanics of providing these services (e.g., activities like processing satellite imagery for defense and civil applications, analyzing patient data for diagnosing acute ailments, ensuring uneventful working of unmanned vehicles and big data analytics for sustaining smart cities) all require unprecedented data acquisition, storage, computation and communication. Driven by the need to achieve agility, intelligence and high performance at lower cost and improve outcomes, these systems are increasingly relying on advanced methods and technologies. Trends show the prevalence of IoT for data collection, multi-cloud computing for storage and analytics and virtualization of communication components. The increasing sophistication of technology also increases susceptibility of these systems to cyberatta...
2019 International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC)
Fault and performance management systems, in the traditional carrier networks, are based on rule-... more Fault and performance management systems, in the traditional carrier networks, are based on rule-based diagnostics that correlate alarms and other markers to detect and localize faults and performance issues. As carriers move to Virtual Network Services, based on Network Function Virtualization and multi-cloud deployments, the traditional methods fail to deliver because of the intangibility of the constituent Virtual Network Functions and increased complexity of the resulting architecture. In this paper, we propose a framework, called HYPER-VINES, that interfaces with various management platforms involved to process markers through a system of shallow and deep machine learning models. It then detects and localizes manifested and impending fault and performance issues. Our experiments validate the functionality and feasibility of the framework in terms of accurate detection and localization of such issues and unambiguous prediction of impending issues. Simulations with real network fault datasets show the effectiveness of its architecture in large networks.
IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), 2018
A blockchain provides a secured paradigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-pee... more A blockchain provides a secured paradigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer network in which no trusted central party is required. As a result, it has the potential to resolve many challenges that are faced with current centralized controllers in globally distributed applications. To date, the blockchain technology has been used for recording transactions and tracking objects in which multiple participants reach a consensus on whether a transaction is valid or not. This paper introduces the novel paradigm of probabilistic blockchains, an extension of the current blockchains that allows building efficient and distributed risk assessment and decision-making applications in which multiple untrusting parties collaborate but may not completely agree on the outcome. The paradigm is particularly useful for risk assessment, where a group of decision-makers needs to decide or analyze an event based on imperfect information. The proposed approach can be used in applicat...
2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain),, 2019
Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artific... more Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, where multiple participants, or agents, collaborate to make consensus decisions. To achieve this, the data in the blockchain storage have to be transformed into blockchain knowledge. We refer to these types of blockchains as knowledge-based blockchains. Knowledge-based blockchains are potentially useful in building efficient risk assessment applications. An earlier work introduced probabilistic blockchain which facilitates knowledge-based blockchains. This paper proposes an extension for the probabilistic blockchain concept. The design of a reputation management framework, suitable for such blockchains, is proposed. The framework has been developed to suit the requirements of a wide range of applications. In particular, we apply it to the detection of malicious nodes and reduce their effect on the probabilistic blockchains' consensus process. We ev...
Efficient provisioning of 5G network slices is a major challenge for 5G network slicing technolog... more Efficient provisioning of 5G network slices is a major challenge for 5G network slicing technology. Previous slice provisioning methods have only considered network resource attributes and ignored network topology attributes. These methods may result in a decrease in the slice acceptance ratio and the slice provisioning revenue. To address these issues, we propose a two-stage heuristic slice provisioning algorithm, called RT-CSP, for the 5G core network by jointly considering network resource attributes and topology attributes in this paper. The first stage of our method is called the slice node provisioning stage, in which we propose an approach to scoring and ranking nodes using network resource attributes (i.e., CPU capacity and bandwidth) and topology attributes (i.e., degree centrality and closeness centrality). Slice nodes are then provisioned according to the node ranking results. In the second stage, called the slice link provisioning stage, the k-shortest path algorithm is ...
Network slicing in 5G is expected to essentially change the way in which network operators deploy... more Network slicing in 5G is expected to essentially change the way in which network operators deploy and manage vertical services with different performance requirements. Efficient and secure slice provisioning algorithms are important since network slices share the limited resources of the physical network. In this article, we first analyze the security issues in network slicing and formulate an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model for secure 5G core network slice provisioning. Then, we propose a heuristic 5G core network slice provisioning algorithm called VIKOR-CNSP based on VIKOR, which is a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method. In the slice node provisioning stage, the node importance is ranked with the VIKOR approach by considering the node resource and topology attributes. The slice nodes are then provisioned according to the ranking results. In the slice link provisioning stage, the k shortest path algorithm is implemented to obtain the candidate physical paths for the slice link, and a strategy for selecting a candidate physical path is proposed to increase the slice acceptance ratio. The strategy first calculates the path factor P f which is the product of the maximum link bandwidth utilization of the candidate physical path and its hop-count, and then chooses the candidate physical path with the smallest P f to host the slice link. Extensive simulations show that the proposed algorithm can achieve the highest slice acceptance ratio and the largest provisioning revenue-to-cost ratio, satisfying the security constraints of 5G core network slice requests.
2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2017
Lately application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confr... more Lately application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confronted with the unprecedented challenge of accommodating increasing service and traffic demands from their geographically distributed users. Many ASPs and ISPs, such as Facebook, AT&T and others have adopted micro-service architecture to tackle this problem. Instead of building a single, monolithic application, the idea is to split the application into a set of smaller, interconnected services, called micro-services (or simply services). Such services are lightweight and perform distinct tasks independent of each other. Hence, they can be deployed quickly and independently as user demands vary. Nevertheless, scheduling of micro-services is a complex task and is currently under-researched. In this work, we address the problem of scheduling micro-services across multiple clouds, including microclouds. We consider different user-level SLAs, such as latency and cost, while scheduling such services. Our aim is to reduce overall turnaround time for the complete end-to-end service in service function chains and reduce the total traffic generated. In this work we present a novel fair weighted affinity-based scheduling heuristic to solve this problem. We also compare the results of proposed solution with standard biased greedy scheduling algorithms presented in the literature and observe significant improvements.
Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, 2018
With the enhancements in the field of software-defined networking and virtualization technologies... more With the enhancements in the field of software-defined networking and virtualization technologies, novel networking paradigms such as network function virtualization (NFV) and the Internet of things (IoT) are rapidly gaining ground. Development of IoT as well as 5G networks and explosion in online services has resulted in an exponential growth of devices connected to the network. As a result, application service providers (ASPs) and Internet service providers (ISPs) are being confronted with the unprecedented challenge of accommodating increasing service and traffic demands from the geographically distributed users. To tackle this problem, many ASPs and ISPs, such as Netflix, Facebook, AT&T and others are increasingly adopting micro-services (MS) application architecture. Despite the success of MS in the industry, there is no specific standard or research work for service providers as guidelines, especially from the perspective of basic micro-service operations. In this work, we aim to bridge this gap between industry and academia and discuss different micro-service deployment, discovery and communication options for service providers as a means to forming complete service chains. In addition, we address the problem of scheduling micro-services across multiple clouds, including micro-clouds. We consider different user-level SLAs, such as latency and cost, while scheduling such services. We aim to reduce overall turnaround time as well as costs for the deployment of complete end-to-end service. In this work, we present a novel affinity-based fair weighted scheduling heuristic to solve this problem. We also compare the results of proposed solution with standard greedy scheduling algorithms presented in the literature and observe significant improvements. 1
Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon's EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common... more Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon's EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common and popular today. Obtaining resources from a multiple cloud system gives clients competitive pricing, flexibility of resource provisioning, better points of presence and reduced risk of a total blackout. When these clients happen to be carriers, like Internet service providers, seeking to deploy their network services over multiple clouds, there still are many research challenges that inhibit large-scale deployments. This talk revolves around some of the key issues that were designated as "challenges" at the beginning of the network virtualization journey, and still need considerable research to see any kind of resolution in the near future. Specifically, I will present my work on the techniques that improve availability of virtual network services and secure inter-domain flow of data in the context of Internet of Things and multi-cloud based health networks.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enormous potential in the public and civil domains. These ar... more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enormous potential in the public and civil domains. These are particularly useful in applications where human lives would otherwise be endangered. Multi-UAV systems can collaboratively complete missions more efficiently and economically as compared to single UAV systems. However, there are many issues to be resolved before effective use of UAVs can be made to provide stable and reliable context-specific networks. Much of the work carried out in the areas of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), and Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) does not address the unique characteristics of the UAV networks. UAV networks may vary from slow dynamic to dynamic; have intermittent links and fluid topology. While it is believed that ad hoc mesh network would be most suitable for UAV networks yet the architecture of multi-UAV networks has been an understudied area. Software Defined Networking (SDN) could facilitate flexible deployment and management of new services and...
Application Service Providers (ASPs) obtaining resources from multiple clouds have to contend wit... more Application Service Providers (ASPs) obtaining resources from multiple clouds have to contend with different management and control platforms employed by the cloud service providers (CSPs) and network service providers (NSP). Distributing applications on multiple clouds has a number of benefits but the absence of a common multi-cloud management platform that would allow ASPs dynamic and real-time control over resources across multiple clouds and interconnecting networks makes this task arduous. OpenADN, being developed at Washington University in Saint Louis, fills this gap. However, performance issues of such a complex, distributed and multi-threaded platform, not tackled appropriately, may neutralize some of the gains accruable to the ASPs. In this paper, we establish the need for and methods of collecting precise and fine-grained behavioral data of OpenADN like platforms that can be used to optimize their behavior in order to control operational cost, performance (e.g., latency) ...
2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)
Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artific... more Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, where multiple participants, or agents, collaborate to make consensus decisions. To achieve this, the data in the blockchain storage have to be transformed into blockchain knowledge. We refer to these types of blockchains as knowledgebased blockchains. Knowledge-based blockchains are potentially useful in building efficient risk assessment applications. An earlier work introduced probabilistic blockchain which facilitates knowledge-based blockchains. This paper proposes an extension for the probabilistic blockchain concept. The design of a reputation management framework, suitable for such blockchains, is proposed. The framework has been developed to suit the requirements of a wide range of applications. In particular, we apply it to the detection of malicious nodes and reduce their effect on the probabilistic blockchains' consensus process. We evaluate the framework by comparing it to a baseline using several adversarial strategies. Further, we analyze the collaborative decisions with and without the malicious node detection. Both results show a sustainable performance, where the proposed work outperforms others and achieves excellent results.
Service Function Chaining (SFC) is the problem of deploying various network service instances ove... more Service Function Chaining (SFC) is the problem of deploying various network service instances over geographically distributed data centers and providing inter-connectivity among them. The goal is to enable the network traffic to flow smoothly through the underlying network, resulting in an optimal quality of experience to the end-users. Proper chaining of network functions leads to optimal utilization of distributed resources. This has been a de-facto model in the telecom industry with network functions deployed over underlying hardware. Though this model has served the telecom industry well so far, it has been adapted mostly to suit the static behavior of network services and service demands due to the deployment of the services directly over physical resources. This results in network ossification with larger delays to the end-users, especially with the data-centric model in which the computational resources are moving closer to end users. A novel networking paradigm, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), meets the user demands dynamically and reduces operational expenses (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx), by implementing network functions in the software layer known as virtual network functions (VNFs). VNFs are then interconnected to form a complete end-to-end service, also known as service function chains (SFCs). In this work, we study the problem of deploying service function chains over network function virtualized architecture. Specifically, we study virtual network function placement problem for the optimal SFC formation across geographically distributed clouds. We set up the problem of minimizing inter-cloud traffic and response time in a multi-cloud scenario as an ILP optimization problem, along with important constraints such as total deployment costs and service level agreements (SLAs). We consider link delays and computational delays in our model.
2018 9th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), 2018
A blockchain provides a securedparadigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer... more A blockchain provides a securedparadigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer network in which no trusted central party is required. As a result, it has the potential to resolve many challenges that are faced with current centralized controllers in globally distributed applications. To date, the blockchain technology has been used for recording transactions and tracking objects in which multiple participants reach a consensus on whether a transaction is valid or not. This paper introduces the novel paradigm of probabilistic blockchains, an extension of the current blockchains that allows building efficient and distributed risk assessment and decision-making applications in which multiple untrusting parties collaborate but may not completely agree on the outcome. The paradigm is particularly useful for risk assessment, where a group of decision-makersneeds to decide or analyze an event based on imperfect information. The proposed approach can be used in applicatio...
Controlling and managing networks has become a highly complex and specialized activity. Network o... more Controlling and managing networks has become a highly complex and specialized activity. Network operators are struggling to cope with integration of different types of networks, while meeting the challenges of increasing traffic. The traditional network tends to be rigid. Once the forwarding policy has been defined, the only way to change it is by changing the configuration of all the affected devices. This is time consuming and puts a limit on scalability and meeting challenges of mobility and big data. In this context software defined networking (SDN) is being looked upon as a promising paradigm that has the power to change the way networking is done. By centralizing control, and making forwarding nodes simple, SDN offers flexible control over the traffic flows and the policies networks use to manage these flows. Along with the excitement, there have been apprehensions regarding SDN. The perceived risks associated with SDN have prevented faster adoption so far. There have been a n...
Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon’s EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common... more Single cloud computing platforms, like Amazon’s EC2, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, are common and popular today. Obtaining resources from a multiple cloud system gives clients competitive pricing, flexibility of resource provisioning, better points of presence and reduced risk of a total blackout. When these clients happen to be carriers, like Internet service providers, seeking to deploy their network services over multiple clouds, there still are many research challenges that inhibit large-scale deployments. This talk revolves around some of the key issues that were designated as "challenges" at the beginning of the network virtualization journey, and still need considerable research to see any kind of resolution in the near future. Specifically, I will present my work on the techniques that improve availability of virtual network services and secure inter-domain flow of data in the context of Internet of Things and multi-cloud based health networks.
2020 Fourth World Conference on Smart Trends in Systems, Security and Sustainability (WorldS4), 2020
The costs of delivering critical services, such as healthcare, power, financial systems and trans... more The costs of delivering critical services, such as healthcare, power, financial systems and transportation are spiraling up while the performance expectations of them have risen manifold. The mechanics of providing these services (e.g., activities like processing satellite imagery for defense and civil applications, analyzing patient data for diagnosing acute ailments, ensuring uneventful working of unmanned vehicles and big data analytics for sustaining smart cities) all require unprecedented data acquisition, storage, computation and communication. Driven by the need to achieve agility, intelligence and high performance at lower cost and improve outcomes, these systems are increasingly relying on advanced methods and technologies. Trends show the prevalence of IoT for data collection, multi-cloud computing for storage and analytics and virtualization of communication components. The increasing sophistication of technology also increases susceptibility of these systems to cyberatta...
2019 International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC)
Fault and performance management systems, in the traditional carrier networks, are based on rule-... more Fault and performance management systems, in the traditional carrier networks, are based on rule-based diagnostics that correlate alarms and other markers to detect and localize faults and performance issues. As carriers move to Virtual Network Services, based on Network Function Virtualization and multi-cloud deployments, the traditional methods fail to deliver because of the intangibility of the constituent Virtual Network Functions and increased complexity of the resulting architecture. In this paper, we propose a framework, called HYPER-VINES, that interfaces with various management platforms involved to process markers through a system of shallow and deep machine learning models. It then detects and localizes manifested and impending fault and performance issues. Our experiments validate the functionality and feasibility of the framework in terms of accurate detection and localization of such issues and unambiguous prediction of impending issues. Simulations with real network fault datasets show the effectiveness of its architecture in large networks.
IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), 2018
A blockchain provides a secured paradigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-pee... more A blockchain provides a secured paradigm to achieve consensus using a distributed and peer-to-peer network in which no trusted central party is required. As a result, it has the potential to resolve many challenges that are faced with current centralized controllers in globally distributed applications. To date, the blockchain technology has been used for recording transactions and tracking objects in which multiple participants reach a consensus on whether a transaction is valid or not. This paper introduces the novel paradigm of probabilistic blockchains, an extension of the current blockchains that allows building efficient and distributed risk assessment and decision-making applications in which multiple untrusting parties collaborate but may not completely agree on the outcome. The paradigm is particularly useful for risk assessment, where a group of decision-makers needs to decide or analyze an event based on imperfect information. The proposed approach can be used in applicat...
2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain),, 2019
Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artific... more Recently, leading research communities have been investigating the use of blockchains for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, where multiple participants, or agents, collaborate to make consensus decisions. To achieve this, the data in the blockchain storage have to be transformed into blockchain knowledge. We refer to these types of blockchains as knowledge-based blockchains. Knowledge-based blockchains are potentially useful in building efficient risk assessment applications. An earlier work introduced probabilistic blockchain which facilitates knowledge-based blockchains. This paper proposes an extension for the probabilistic blockchain concept. The design of a reputation management framework, suitable for such blockchains, is proposed. The framework has been developed to suit the requirements of a wide range of applications. In particular, we apply it to the detection of malicious nodes and reduce their effect on the probabilistic blockchains' consensus process. We ev...
Efficient provisioning of 5G network slices is a major challenge for 5G network slicing technolog... more Efficient provisioning of 5G network slices is a major challenge for 5G network slicing technology. Previous slice provisioning methods have only considered network resource attributes and ignored network topology attributes. These methods may result in a decrease in the slice acceptance ratio and the slice provisioning revenue. To address these issues, we propose a two-stage heuristic slice provisioning algorithm, called RT-CSP, for the 5G core network by jointly considering network resource attributes and topology attributes in this paper. The first stage of our method is called the slice node provisioning stage, in which we propose an approach to scoring and ranking nodes using network resource attributes (i.e., CPU capacity and bandwidth) and topology attributes (i.e., degree centrality and closeness centrality). Slice nodes are then provisioned according to the node ranking results. In the second stage, called the slice link provisioning stage, the k-shortest path algorithm is ...
Network slicing in 5G is expected to essentially change the way in which network operators deploy... more Network slicing in 5G is expected to essentially change the way in which network operators deploy and manage vertical services with different performance requirements. Efficient and secure slice provisioning algorithms are important since network slices share the limited resources of the physical network. In this article, we first analyze the security issues in network slicing and formulate an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model for secure 5G core network slice provisioning. Then, we propose a heuristic 5G core network slice provisioning algorithm called VIKOR-CNSP based on VIKOR, which is a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method. In the slice node provisioning stage, the node importance is ranked with the VIKOR approach by considering the node resource and topology attributes. The slice nodes are then provisioned according to the ranking results. In the slice link provisioning stage, the k shortest path algorithm is implemented to obtain the candidate physical paths for the slice link, and a strategy for selecting a candidate physical path is proposed to increase the slice acceptance ratio. The strategy first calculates the path factor P f which is the product of the maximum link bandwidth utilization of the candidate physical path and its hop-count, and then chooses the candidate physical path with the smallest P f to host the slice link. Extensive simulations show that the proposed algorithm can achieve the highest slice acceptance ratio and the largest provisioning revenue-to-cost ratio, satisfying the security constraints of 5G core network slice requests.
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