SimulaMets research projects are both internally and externally financed. We collaborate with universities both in Norway and in other countries, as well as with industry.
Raksha: 5G Security for Critical Communications
The 5G networks can act as a vehicle to drive the digitalization phase for realizing a gigabit networked society. They use Service-Based Architecture to enable different use-case scenarios for example future critical communications services, such as Next Generation Nodnett (NGN) in Norway will be moving towards 5G networks. The complex 5G networks are vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to the increasing level of network softwarization approach, a requirement to support less secure legacy networks, and the adoption of web-centric protocols for the core network signaling. In addition, the security requirements of NGN are different than of 5G networks, hence it is crucial to understand their threat landscape from the attacker's perspective.
There is also a need for threat modeling methods and tools to effectively identify and address emerging risks in multi-generational 5G networks. Existing threat modeling approaches have limited scope to accommodate new security paradigms and varying degrees of trust assumptions of 5G networks. Moreover, it is almost impossible to validate threat modeling approaches by performing cyber security exercises and assess vulnerabilities on operational 5G as this could lead to unacceptable risk. Therefore, one of the best approaches to address the above issues is to combine threat modeling science together with a cyber range concept to enhance the cyber-resiliency of 5G-enabled critical communications and eventually other use-cases as well.
The project delivers a 5G cyber range platform empowered with tools for risk and threat assessment, cyber-attack simulation, evaluation and demonstration of defensive solutions for NGN. The project includes a Norwegian mobile operator, authorities responsible for cellular networks and security, research institutes, and universities. The proposed approach could be a future best practice for the Norwegian telecom industry to address cyber security challenges.
Coordinator:
Partners:
SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab
Research objectives
The SimulaMet Interoperability lab (SMIL) support a wide range of research activities at SimulaMet, and will in particular address the following research areas:
- Benchmark and improve time-sensitive networking technologies for 5G networks between base stations and edge computing for 5G.
- Study and improve mechanisms for network slicing to ensure successful co-use of 5G networks for critical applications.
- Study how legacy computers can be used to realize Cloud Radio Access Networks by using software defined radio and lower cost of deployment by moving functionality from hardware to software. Of particular interest is real-time scheduling of Cloud RAN workloads in edge data centres.
- Study new 5G and IoT applications enabled by edge computing using features such as low latency, high throughput and quality of service guarantees combined with edge computing capabilities available in 5G cellular networks.
- Develop and improve self-driving networks for fast recovery with technologies such as SDN, P4 and Network Function Virtualization in combination with machine learning of large-scale data analytics of the entire networked system.
- Understand and improve mechanisms required to establish Robust cellular networks for reliable infrastructure for new user groups which relies on dependable networks.
Time sensitive networking
Traditionally, dedicated point-to-point connections using Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) have been used to interconnect smart cellular antennas to base stations. In 5G, the main infrastructure vendors have proposed e-CPRI, based on the Ethernet standard. With Ethernet, one would expect to leverage traditional switches for aggregation and simultaneous data transport in addition to e-CPRI, but Ethernet and legacy switches are not built for the timing requirements of 5G. To overcome this problem, different technologies have been suggested to enable Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) with Ethernet as the transport technology. In this research activity, we study how TSN can be realized in 5G front haul networks, combining the requirements of synchronization, bound latency in combination with traditional best-effort packet transport. In the laboratory we collaborate with TransPacket for access to FPGA-based implementations of TSN using the Fusion network technology implemented in Xilinx FPGAs enabling 100 Gbit/s Ethernet transport aggregating 5G base stations using 10Gbit/s ethernet with guaranteed transport service.
Network slicing
In 5G networks, the concept of Network slicing enables different classes of applications to share the same physical network. 5G is expected to be able to handle applications like emergency networks, real-time industry applications in combination with supporting demanding multimedia applications for consumers. These requirements require ability to express and enforce Quality of Service requirements ranging from frequency resource allocation, 5G base station resource allocation, network quality of service and allocation of processing resources in edge computers.
Initial work has focused on SDN-based implementations using the opensource Open Air interface, and future work will extend this to network slicing in 5G-NR and 5G front-haul and back-haul network guarantees for network slicing.
Cloud Radio Access Networks (Cloud RAN)
Cloud RAN enable the use of general purpose computers placed in edge data centres for realizing virtualized radio functions by using software defined radio techniques to lower cost of deployment by moving functionality from hardware to software. Of a particular interest to our research group is real-time scheduling of Cloud RAN workloads, how to partition between real-time and non-real-time workloads in the Cloud RAN, and how to handle the strict requirements to enable services like Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) which can enable new applications previously not possible in cellular networks. Vendors are already introducing Cloud RAN solutions, such as the Nokia AirScale CloudRAN , the 4G/5G C-RAN architecture from Ericsson and 5G oriented C-RAN solutions from Huawei. It is of a particular interest to study if such network architectures can be realized in a multi-vendor environment. At what level should interoperability be ensured? Can Virtual Network Functions from different vendors run in the same edge computer environment?
New 5G and IoT applications enabled by edge computing
With edge computing deployed in the distributed 5G networks, new 5G and IoT applications can be made possible since response times can be guaranteed, and computing resources can be made available close to the application. An example is the real-time application of collision avoidance for cars sharing their sensor data with a local edge data center which can execute collision avoidance algorithms within specified time deadlines to provide drivers or self-driving vehicles with time-critical information to avoid collision. Other applications like games using augmented reality and real-time collaboration in industrial applications can be enabled by low latency and high throughput communication service with processing in edge data centres. Finally, IoT sensors with very low power consumption can leverage high sensitivity 5G NR capabilities to provide very long battery life for embedded applications. In SMIL, we will collaborate with other research groups and the 5G industry to investigate applications previously not possible in cellular networks and suggest improvements to applications and networks.
Self-driving Networks
The complexity of configuration and adjustment of telecommunication networks to respond to rapid changes in demand has led to the vision of Self-driving networks which measure, analyze and control themselves in an automated manner. Self-driving networks can react to changes in the environment (e.g., demand), while exploiting existing flexibilities to optimize themselves. Furthermore, the advent of large-scale machine learning can also benefit self-driving networks and over time develop to faster reconfiguration and more reliable operation compared to manual configuration by human operators, see for example the paper Why (and How) Networks Should Run Themselves for an in-depth discussion.
This method is of particular interest in 5G to ensure rapid reconfiguration in case of failure which requires automated response to demand, changes in geographic load in the network, change in network capacity and loss of connectivity with minimal impact for critical applications. The requirement for reconfiguration can also be used for business purposes, for example optimized use of software licenses, where an operator can install hardware at all relevant locations but deploy software licenses only for operation of a subset of this hardware based on actual demand and moved with users. This research area is closely related to Software Defined Networking which until recently has focused mostly on the data plane with technologies such as OpenFlow and Netconf/Yang.
Recent developments such as the Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors language (P4) has enabled software control also of the data plane which opens for software defined processing in the actual packet flow. In SMIL, we plan to leverage these advances together from SDN controllers such as OpenDaylight to enable Self-driving networks for access and transport networks for 5G. In the laboratory, we will use the latest MX-series routers from Juniper Networks with P4 capabilites to explore self-driving networks for 5G.
Robust cellular networks
New user groups are encouraged to share a common infrastructure to save cost and leverage state of the art technologies. This trend increases the requirements of robustness of the underlying architecture since our society relies not only on critical consumer services like communication services, banking, shopping and logistics, but also applications traditionally served by dedicated networks such as military, emergency (e.g. TETRA) and railroad signalling networks (e.g. GSM-R) which all consider 5G as their network infrastructure in the future.
We believe Heterogeneous infrastructure has several benefits to ensure interoperability and open standards in 5G but this requirement also adds to the complexity of the network since different vendors may rely on different network structures, and different communication protocols even if they are defined by standard bodies such as 3GPP. When the goal of heterogenous infrastructure is added to requirements from new users, we can see that 5G represents very demanding requirements for the cellular operators and the network infrastructure vendors.
SimulaMet Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications have studied this topic over many years in fixed networks, in 4G cellular networks and for IoT applications. With the new laboratory, we will extend our studies to 5G New Radio and will also address how to provide robustness of the 5G core network by reducing the dependency for a centralized 5G infrastructure by virtualization.
Publications for SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab
Journal Article
Towards a Lightweight Task Scheduling Framework for Cloud and Edge Platform
Internet of Things; Engineering Cyber Physical Human Systems (2023).Status: Accepted
Towards a Lightweight Task Scheduling Framework for Cloud and Edge Platform
Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives, but they have limited computational capacity. Thanks to the advancement in the network infrastructure, task offloading from resource-constrained devices to the near edge and the cloud becomes possible and advantageous. Complete task offloading is now possible to almost limitless computing resources of public cloud platforms. Generally, the edge computing resources support latency-sensitive applications with limited computing resources, while the cloud supports latency-tolerant applications. This paper proposes one lightweight task-scheduling framework from cloud service provider perspective, for applications using both cloud and edge platforms. Here, the challenge is using edge and cloud resources efficiently when necessary. Such decisions have to be made quickly, with a small management overhead. Our framework aims at solving two research questions. They are: i) How to distribute tasks to the edge resource pools and multi-clouds? ii) How to manage these resource pools effectively with low overheads? To answer these two questions, we examine the performance of our proposed framework based on Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool). We have shown via simulations that RSerPool, with the correct usage and configuration of pool member selection policies, can accomplish the cloud/edge setup resource selection task with a small overhead.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2023 |
| Journal | Internet of Things; Engineering Cyber Physical Human Systems |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Keywords | Cloud computing, Edge Computing, Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool), Resource Pools, Task Scheduling |
Proceedings, refereed
Proactive Resource Orchestration Framework for Cloud/Fog Platform
In Proceedings of the 28th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC). Tunis/Tunisia: IEEE, 2023.Status: Accepted
Proactive Resource Orchestration Framework for Cloud/Fog Platform
Cloud computing makes complex computing an off-premise activity by offering software- and hardware-based services using standard security protocols over the Internet. It has been seen that the cloud is not ideal for latency-sensitive applications. Thanks to the current growth of network communication and infrastructure, fog adds a computing resource delegation layer between the user and the cloud. Fog aims to improve latency-sensitive applications support. Here, we propose one unified, proactive resource orchestration framework from a cloud/fog service provider perspective. The framework consists of a predictor and a resource allocator module. Users subscribe to these resources to execute their applications. The framework does not require application-specific information and is modular, meaning a service provider can customise each module. We have presented the framework prototype by showing each module's simulated performance results using the parameters of our cloud/fog research test bed.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, NorNet, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, MELODIC: Multi-cloud Execution-ware for Large-scale Optimised Data-Intensive Computing |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2023 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 28th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC) |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Tunis/Tunisia |
| Keywords | Cloud, Fog, Orchestration, Prediction, Resource Allocation |
A Scalable Data Collection System for Continuous State of Polarisation Monitoring
In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON). Bucharest/Romania, 2023.Status: Accepted
A Scalable Data Collection System for Continuous State of Polarisation Monitoring
Our dependency on the telecommunication infrastructure is continuously increasing, as different infrastructures – such as energy and telecommunication – now have mutual dependencies. This calls for increased monitoring of the fibre network, which is a highly critical part of the infrastructure. State of Polarisation (SoP) of light propagating through fibre transmission systems is impacted by any vibrations and mechanical impacts on the fibre. By continuously monitoring the SoP, any unexpected movements of a fibre along a fibre-path may be traced. Movements may be caused by e.g. work in node-rooms impacting patch-cords, trawlers or other types of sub-sea equipment touching or hooking into sub-sea fibre cables, digging close to a fibre-cable, or geophysical phenomena like earthquakes. In this paper, we describe a low-cost, scalable system for SoP monitoring and give examples of patterns monitored in different types of fibre infrastructures. The monitoring system consists of single-unit rack-mount instruments connected to taps from live optical transmission signals. Each instrument has local storage for 1-2 years of data, and is periodically automatically uploading data to a server for backup and data-access purposes. Examples of observed patterns are impact from a thunderstorm on a Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) cable, 50 Hz on a fibre-cable spun around a high-voltage power air-cable, as well as animal impact on a patch-cord.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, GAIA, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2023 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON) |
| Date Published | 07/2023 |
| Place Published | Bucharest/Romania |
Journal Article
Secure Embedded Living: Towards a Self-contained User Data Preserving Framework
IEEE Communications Magazine 60, no. 11 (2022): 74-80.Status: Published
Secure Embedded Living: Towards a Self-contained User Data Preserving Framework
Smart living represents the hardware-software co-inhabiting with humans for better living standards and improved well-being. Here, hardware monitors human activities (by collecting data) specific to a context. Such data can be processed to offer context-specific valuable insights. Such insights can be used for optimising the well-being, living experience and energy cost of smart homes. This paper proposes a Secure Embedded Living Framework (SELF) that enforces a privacy-preserving data control mechanism by integrating multiple technologies, such as Internet-of-thing, cloud/fog platform, machine learning and blockchain. The primary aim of the SELF is to allow the user to retain more control of its data.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Journal | IEEE Communications Magazine |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pagination | 74–80 |
| Date Published | 11/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| ISSN | 0163-6804 |
| Keywords | blockchain, Cloud, Data, IoTs, Security, User |
| DOI | 10.1109/MCOM.001.2200165 |
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
Transactions on Network and Service Management (2022).Status: Published
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
IT systems monitoring is a crucial process for managing and orchestrating network resources, allowing network providers to rapidly detect and react to most impediment causing network degradation. However, the high growth in size and complexity of current operational networks (2022) demands new solutions to process huge amounts of data (including alarms) reliably and swiftly. Further, as the network becomes progressively more virtualized, the hosting of nfv on cloud environments adds a magnitude of possible bottlenecks outside the control of the service owners. In this paper, we propose two deep learning anomaly detection solutions that leverage service exposure and apply it to automate the detection of service degradation and root cause discovery in a cloudified mobile network that is orchestrated by ETSI OSM. A testbed is built to validate these AI models. The testbed collects monitoring data from the OSM monitoring module, which is then exposed to the external AI anomaly detection modules, tuned to identify the anomalies and the network services causing them. The deep learning solutions are tested using various artificially induced bottlenecks. The AI solutions are shown to correctly detect anomalies and identify the network components involved in the bottlenecks, with certain limitations in a particular type of bottlenecks. A discussion of the right monitoring tools to identify concrete bottlenecks is provided.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Journal | Transactions on Network and Service Management |
| Date Published | 08/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Los Alamitos, California/U.S.A. |
| ISSN | 1932-4537 |
| Keywords | 5G, AI, Anomaly detection, Autoencoders, deep learning, Mobile networks, Smart Networks |
| DOI | 10.1109/TNSM.2022.3203246 |
Proceedings, refereed
Load Distribution for Mobile Edge Computing with Reliable Server Pooling
In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Recent Advances for Multi-Clouds and Mobile Edge Computing (M2EC) in conjunction with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA). Sydney, New South Wales/Australia: Springer, 2022.Status: Published
Load Distribution for Mobile Edge Computing with Reliable Server Pooling
Energy-efficient computing model is a popular choice for high performance as well as throughput oriented computing ecosystems. Mobile (computing) devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous to our computing domain, but with limited resources (true both for computation as well as for energy). Hence, workload offloading from resource-constrained mobile devices to the Edge and maybe (later) to the cloud become necessary as well as useful. Thanks to the persistent technical breakthroughs in global wireless standards (or in mobile networks) together with the almost limitless amount of resources in public cloud platforms, workload offloading is possible and cheaper. In such scenarios, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) resources could be provisioned in proximity to the users for supporting latency-sensitive applications. Here, two relevant problems could be: i) How to distribute workload to the resource pools of MEC as well as public (multi-)clouds? ii) How to manage such resource pools effectively? To answer these problems in this paper, we examine the performance of our proposed approach using the Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) framework in more detail. We also have outlined the resource pool management policies to effectively use RSerPool for workload offloading from mobile devices into the cloud/MEC ecosystem.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, MELODIC: Multi-cloud Execution-ware for Large-scale Optimised Data-Intensive Computing |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Recent Advances for Multi-Clouds and Mobile Edge Computing (M2EC) in conjunction with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA) |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Place Published | Sydney, New South Wales/Australia |
| Keywords | Cloud computing, Load Distribution, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Multi-Cloud Computing, Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool), Serverless Computing |
Talks, contributed
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
In ETSI, Virtual. Virtual: ETSI, 2022.Status: Published
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
Open Source MANO is a helpful tool to manage and orchestrate the instantiation of core network setups, like Network Service (NS) instances of our SimulaMet OpenAirInterface Virtual Network Function (VNF) for Enhanced Packet Cores (EPC). We furthermore extended our NS with VNF instances of Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) switches, in order to allow for in-band telemetry. With in-band telemetry, it is possible to flexibly add, process, and remove telemetry information to traffic within the packet core, in order to allow for fine-granular evaluation of the system performance and the users' experienced quality of service. In our presentation and demo, we would like to provide an overview of our ongoing work on P4-based in-band telemetry in an OSM-orchestrated 4G core, which is used for detecting performance problems and anomalies in the network based on machine learning. We would furthermore like to demonstrate the details of our setup to the audience in a live demo.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, NorNet, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
| Publication Type | Talks, contributed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Location of Talk | ETSI, Virtual |
| Publisher | ETSI |
| Place Published | Virtual |
| Type of Talk | Demo presentation |
| Keywords | Anomaly detection, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Open Source MANO (OSM), P4, Telemetry |
| URL | http://osm-download.etsi.org/ftp/osm-11.0-eleven/OSM13_Ecosystem_Day/OSM... |
Talks, invited
Reliability and security in future telecommunication networks
In Inside Telecom conference, Scandic hotel, Fornebu, Norway. Inside Telecom conference: Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), 2022.Status: Published
Reliability and security in future telecommunication networks
The talk address Reliability and security in future telecommunication networks reporting work from SimulaMet SMIL laboratory and the GAIA-project, explaining dependencies and vulnerabilities of current telecommunication networks and applications and how to address these to form robust and reliable networks and services.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Talks, invited |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Location of Talk | Inside Telecom conference, Scandic hotel, Fornebu, Norway |
| Publisher | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA) |
| Place Published | Inside Telecom conference |
| Type of Talk | Invited talk |
| Keywords | 5G, Applications, Cloud services, geographical dependencies, network measurements, Resilience, Robustness |
Technical reports
Norske mobilnett i 2021 – Tilstandsrapport fra Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications
Oslo/Norway: Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), 2022.Status: Published
Norske mobilnett i 2021 – Tilstandsrapport fra Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications
Denne rapporten er utarbeidet av Center for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), som er en del av Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering. CRNA driver grunn- leggende forskning innen robusthet og sikker- het i nettverk med mandat og finansiering fra Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet. Senteret produserer en årlig rapport om tilstan- den i norske mobilnett. Årets rapport er den niende i rekken.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Technical reports |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Publisher | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA) |
| Place Published | Oslo/Norway |
| ISBN Number | 82-92593-36-5 |
| URL | https://www.simula.no/sites/default/files/norske_mobilnett_i_2021.pdf |
Book
AI and ML – Enablers for Beyond 5G Networks
Online: 5G PPP Technology Board, 2021.Status: Published
AI and ML – Enablers for Beyond 5G Networks
This white paper on AI and ML as enablers of beyond 5G (B5G) networks is based on contributions from almost 20 5G PPP projects, coordinated through the 5G PPP Technology Board, that research, implement and validate 5G and B5G network systems. The paper introduces the main relevant mechanisms in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), currently investigated and exploited for enhancing 5G and B5G networks.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Book |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Date Published | 05/2021 |
| Publisher | 5G PPP Technology Board |
| Place Published | Online |
| URL | https://5g-ppp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AI-MLforNetworks-v1-0.pdf |
| DOI | 10.5281/zenodo.429989 |
GAIA
Background
Recent advances in cloud computing and higher network capacities have led to online services being hosted at diverse geographic locations. Outsourcing of services for commercial reasons have become common. The growth of the internet infrastructure has happened dynamically and has been based on trust. Therefore, many countries now rely on services that are not contained within their respective national borders. These may be general services, such as Google, WhatsApp and Facebook as well as the DNS infrastructure and microservices critical to national services like health and online banking.
This development has led to our society becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks and major disruptions. Recent increases in cyber attacks and their potential harmful ramifications have made combating cyber vulnerabilities a national security priority. Consequently, an increasing number of states are calling for tighter controls on service placement and Internet connectivity in order to maintain national autonomy. While these fears could be warranted, a premature push in this direction may undermine the very fabric of openness and trust that binds the Internet together.
In this respect, GAIA aims to fill an important gap in our current knowledge, which is the lack of maps that describe the geographic distribution of online services. Such maps will provide an understanding of how Internet traffic travels between different countries and allow us to explore how internet connectivity interplays with geopolitics. GAIA will achieve that through an interdisciplinary effort that combines technological and political aspects of the problem. To this end, the project consortium comprises a unique set of stakeholders, including computer scientists, social and political scientists, regulatory bodies and network operators.
See GAIA's webpages here.
Partner
SimulaMet is partnering with The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) to deliver this project.
Outcomes
The insights gained by the GAIA project will help reducing the vulnerability of our society to potential harmful attacks on communication infrastructures which in worse case could harm our economy, endager our democracy and even result in loss of
The envisioned results of GAIA will thus contribute to improve our understanding of the complex interplay between digital vulnerabilities and national autonomy, which will be of relevance to policy makers, technologists and end users.
And just as important, GAIA's findings will provide regulators and policy makers with expert opinions that will help navigating the intricate conflict of interest between national autonomy and the trust-based openness on which the current Internet is based.
Consortium and methods
The project consortium comprises a unique set of stakeholders, including computer scientists, social and political scientists, regulatory bodies and network operators. GAIA will be using a combination of methods; measurement and data analytics, testbed experimentations as well as interviews and case studies.
Publications for GAIA
Proceedings, refereed
A Scalable Data Collection System for Continuous State of Polarisation Monitoring
In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON). Bucharest/Romania, 2023.Status: Accepted
A Scalable Data Collection System for Continuous State of Polarisation Monitoring
Our dependency on the telecommunication infrastructure is continuously increasing, as different infrastructures – such as energy and telecommunication – now have mutual dependencies. This calls for increased monitoring of the fibre network, which is a highly critical part of the infrastructure. State of Polarisation (SoP) of light propagating through fibre transmission systems is impacted by any vibrations and mechanical impacts on the fibre. By continuously monitoring the SoP, any unexpected movements of a fibre along a fibre-path may be traced. Movements may be caused by e.g. work in node-rooms impacting patch-cords, trawlers or other types of sub-sea equipment touching or hooking into sub-sea fibre cables, digging close to a fibre-cable, or geophysical phenomena like earthquakes. In this paper, we describe a low-cost, scalable system for SoP monitoring and give examples of patterns monitored in different types of fibre infrastructures. The monitoring system consists of single-unit rack-mount instruments connected to taps from live optical transmission signals. Each instrument has local storage for 1-2 years of data, and is periodically automatically uploading data to a server for backup and data-access purposes. Examples of observed patterns are impact from a thunderstorm on a Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) cable, 50 Hz on a fibre-cable spun around a high-voltage power air-cable, as well as animal impact on a patch-cord.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, GAIA, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2023 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON) |
| Date Published | 07/2023 |
| Place Published | Bucharest/Romania |
Book Chapter
5G-sikkerhet: Norge mellom stormaktene
In Digitalisering og internasjonal politikk. Universitetsforlaget, 2022.Status: Published
5G-sikkerhet: Norge mellom stormaktene
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, GAIA |
| Publication Type | Book Chapter |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Book Title | Digitalisering og internasjonal politikk |
| Chapter | 7 |
| Date Published | 01/2022 |
| Publisher | Universitetsforlaget |
| ISBN Number | 9788215052557 |
Journal Article
OpenIaC: open infrastructure as code - the network is my computer
Journal of Cloud Computing 11 (2022).Status: Published
OpenIaC: open infrastructure as code - the network is my computer
Modern information systems are built fron a complex composition of networks, infrastructure, devices, services, and applications, interconnected by data flows that are often private and financially sensitive. The 5G networks, which can create hyperlocalized services, have highlighted many of the deficiencies of current practices in use today to create and operate information systems. Emerging cloud computing techniques, such as Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and elastic computing, offer a path for a future re-imagining of how we create, deploy, secure, operate, and retire information systems. In this paper, we articulate the position that a comprehensive new approach is needed for all OSI layers from layer 2 up to applications that are built on underlying principles that include reproducibility, continuous integration/continuous delivery, auditability, and versioning. There are obvious needs to redesign and optimize the protocols from the network layer to the application layer. Our vision seeks to augment existing Cloud Computing and Networking solutions with support for multiple cloud infrastructures and seamless integration of cloud-based microservices. To address these issues, we propose an approach named Open Infrastructure as Code (OpenIaC), which is an attempt to provide a common open forum to integrate and build on advances in cloud computing and blockchain to address the needs of modern information architectures. The main mission of our OpenIaC approach is to provide services based on the principles of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) among the federation of connected resources based on Decentralized Identity (DID). Our objectives include the creation of an open-source hub with fine-grained access control for an open and connected infrastructure of shared resources (sensing, storage, computing, 3D printing, etc.) managed by blockchains and federations. Our proposed approach has the potential to provide a path for developing new platforms, business models, and a modernized information ecosystem necessary for 5G networks.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Journal | Journal of Cloud Computing |
| Volume | 11 |
| Number | 12 |
| Date Published | 05/2022 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Place Published | Journal of Cloud Computing |
| Keywords | 5G networks, Cloud, edge, infrastructure-as-Code, OPenIaC |
Secure Embedded Living: Towards a Self-contained User Data Preserving Framework
IEEE Communications Magazine 60, no. 11 (2022): 74-80.Status: Published
Secure Embedded Living: Towards a Self-contained User Data Preserving Framework
Smart living represents the hardware-software co-inhabiting with humans for better living standards and improved well-being. Here, hardware monitors human activities (by collecting data) specific to a context. Such data can be processed to offer context-specific valuable insights. Such insights can be used for optimising the well-being, living experience and energy cost of smart homes. This paper proposes a Secure Embedded Living Framework (SELF) that enforces a privacy-preserving data control mechanism by integrating multiple technologies, such as Internet-of-thing, cloud/fog platform, machine learning and blockchain. The primary aim of the SELF is to allow the user to retain more control of its data.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Journal | IEEE Communications Magazine |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pagination | 74–80 |
| Date Published | 11/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| ISSN | 0163-6804 |
| Keywords | blockchain, Cloud, Data, IoTs, Security, User |
| DOI | 10.1109/MCOM.001.2200165 |
Proceedings, refereed
Towards a Privacy Preserving Data Flow Control via Packet Header Marking
In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics (HPCC). Chengdu, Sichuan/People's Republic of China: IEEE, 2022.Status: Published
Towards a Privacy Preserving Data Flow Control via Packet Header Marking
{Computing infrastructure is becoming ubiquitous thanks to the advancement in computing and the network domain. Reliable network communication is essential to offer good quality services, but it is not trivial. There are privacy concerns. Metadata may leak user information even if traffic is encrypted. Some countries have data privacy preserving-related regulations, but end-users cannot control through which path, networks, and hardware their data packets should travel. Even worse, the user cannot declare their privacy preferences. This paper presents an approach to tackle such privacy issues through data privacy-aware routing. The user can specify their preferences for packet routing using marking and filtering. Routing can work according to such specifications. It is implemented by P4, allowing a vendor-independent realisation with standard off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software components. We presented the initial experimental results of a proof-of-concept run on a unified cloud/fog research testbed.}
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, GAIA |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics (HPCC) |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Chengdu, Sichuan/People's Republic of China |
| Keywords | Cloud, Data, Fog, P4, Packets, Privacy, Routing |
Towards a Blockchain and Fog-Based Proactive Data Distribution Framework for ICN
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT). Sendai/Japan, 2022.Status: Published
Towards a Blockchain and Fog-Based Proactive Data Distribution Framework for ICN
Most of today's IP traffic is cloud traffic. Due to a vast, complex and non-transparent Internet infrastructure, securely accessing and delegating data is not a trivial task. Existing technologies of Information-Centric Networking (ICN) make content distribution and access easy while primarily relying on the existing cloud-based security features. The primary aim of ICN is to make data independent of its storage location and application. ICN builds upon traditional distributed computing, which means ICN platforms also can suffer from similar data security issues as distributed computing platforms. We present our ongoing work to develop a secure, proactive data distribution framework. The framework answers the research question, i.e., How to extend online data protection with a secure data distribution model for the ICN platform? Our framework adds a data protection layer over the content distribution network, using blockchain and relying on the fog to distribute the contents with low latency. Our framework is different from the existing works in multiple aspects, such as i) data are primarily distributed from the fog nodes, ii) blockchain is used to protect data and iii) blockchain allows statistical and other information sharing among stakeholders (such as content creators) following access rights. Sharing statistics about content distribution activity can bring transparency and trustworthiness among the stakeholders, including the subscribers, into the ICN platforms. We showed such a framework is possible by presenting initial performance results and our reflections while implementing it on a cloud/fog research testbed.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, GAIA |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT) |
| Place Published | Sendai/Japan |
| Keywords | blockchain, Data, Distribution, Fog, ICN, Protection |
Network Path Integrity Verification using Deterministic Delay Measurements
In TMA Conference 2022. IEEE/IFIP, 2022.Status: Published
Network Path Integrity Verification using Deterministic Delay Measurements
With the intuition that every device on the data path contributes to the end-to-end delay, we propose a simple and deterministic measurement-based approach for detecting the insertion of a layer-2 switch on the data path of a network operator.
For this purpose, we use commodity hardware and the standard ping tool for collecting ICMP RTTs.
To minimise inaccuracies in the measurements, we increase timing determinism on both ICMP source and target by using a real-time kernel on both, a dedicated source (a Linux server) and target (an RPI4 with custom image). Additionally, we manipulate real-time attributes for prioritising the ping process. By using this approach on different loaded networks: lab, campus network, research and education network and an ISP, we are able to reliably detect that a switch was added at the end of the path or within it.
Our method yields an excellent performance on networks with considerable cross traffic as well as lightly loaded networks.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, GAIA |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | TMA Conference 2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE/IFIP |
| ISBN Number | 978-3-903176-47-8 |
| Keywords | alien switch, deterministic RTT, network |
Find Out: How Do Your Data Packets Travel?
In Proceedings of the 18th IEEE International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM). Thessaloniki, Greece: IEEE, 2022.Status: Published
Find Out: How Do Your Data Packets Travel?
In today's communication-centric world, users generate and exchange a huge amount of data. The Internet helps user data to travel from one part of the world to another via a complex setting of network systems. These systems are intelligent, heterogeneous, and non-transparent to users. In this paper, we present an extensive trace-driven study of user data traffic covering five years of observations, six large ISPs, 21 different autonomous systems, and a total of 13 countries. The aim of this work is to make users aware about how their data travels in the Internet, as the data traffic path is majorly influenced by the interests of ISPs. We showed that shortest land distance between the two countries does not impact data path selection, while data traffic prefers to travel even though country do not share land borders.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 18th IEEE International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM) |
| Date Published | 11/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Thessaloniki, Greece |
| ISBN Number | 978-3-903176-51-5 |
| Keywords | connectivity, Data, Internet, Packets, Routing, Traffic Paths |
Crosslayer Network Outage Classification Using Machine Learning
In Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW). ACM, 2022.Status: Published
Crosslayer Network Outage Classification Using Machine Learning
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, GAIA |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW) |
| Pagination | 1-7 |
| Publisher | ACM |
Public outreach
Hvorfor venter vi «skandale» hver gang it-sikkerheten sjekkes i staten?
Dagens Næringsliv, 2022.Status: Published
Hvorfor venter vi «skandale» hver gang it-sikkerheten sjekkes i staten?
Det eneste som kan gi bedre datasikkerhet i staten raskt, er at politikerne tar beslutninger som går på tvers av sektorene. Mer ansvar og myndighet til NSM og Justisdepartementet er en mulig løsning.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, GAIA, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Public outreach |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Date Published | 11/2022 |
| Publisher | Dagens Næringsliv |
| Type of Work | Popular science |
| Keywords | Security |
| URL | https://www.dn.no/innlegg/datasikkerhet/it-sikkerhet/cyberangrep/hvorfor... |
5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure
5G-VINNI will accelerate the uptake of 5G in Europe by providing an end-to-end (E2E) facility that validates the performance of new 5G technologies by operating trials of advanced vertical sector services. The 5G-VINNI strategy to achieve this involves:
- Designing the most advanced 5G facility to demonstrate that technical and business 5G KPIs can be met,
- Building and operating 7 interworking instances of the E2E facility to prove the capabilities and openness of the system,
- Creating user friendly zero-touch orchestration, operations and management systems for the 5G-VINNI facilities to ensure operational efficiencies and optimal resource use,
- Proving the 5G-VINNI capabilities through extensive experiments and measurements of performance against the 5G KPIs,
- Developing a viable 5G ecosystem model to support the NaaS infrastructure provision as a sustainable business beyond the project, and
- Promoting the value of 5G-VINNI results to the relevant standards bodies and open source communities.
The 5G-VINNI E2E facility will demonstrate the achievement of 5G KPIs across a range of combinations and permutations of new 5G access technologies and end-user equipment types interconnected by the most advanced 5G core network technologies available. For this 5G-VINNI will leverage the latest 5G technologies, including results from previous 5G PPP projects. This approach employs Network Function Virtualization, Network Slicing and a rigorous automated testing campaign to validate the 5G KPIs under various combinations of technologies and network loads.
To ensure realistic load scenarios 5G-VINNI will create and make available an openness framework to give verticals and peer projects easy access to the 5G-VINNI facilities, both legally and technically, e.g. via open APIs. The 5G-VINNI facilities include 7 infrastructure instances in nationally supported 5G nodes across Europe; this number may be expanded as the ICT-19 projects come on-line in 2019.
Funding source
This project has received funding from the European Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n° 815279 - 5G VINNI
All partners
Simula Metropolitan Centre for Digital Engineering (Norway)
Telenor ASA (Norway)
British Telecommunications Public Limited Company (UK)
Telefonica Investigacion y Desarollo SA TID (Spain)
Samsung Electronics (UK)
Limited SAMS (UK)
Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GMBH (Germany)
Huawei Technologies Norway AS (Norway)
Ericsson AS (Norway)
Nokia Solutions and Networks (Finland)
Software Radio Systems Limited SRS 9Ireland)
Lime Microsystems LTD (UK)
EANTC Aktiengesellschaft (Germany)
Keysight Technologies (Denmark)
APS KEYS (Denmark)
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V. FHG (Germany)
EURESCOM-European Institute for Research and Strategic Studies in Telecommunications GMBH EUR (Germany)
Altice Labs SA (Portugal)
Panepistimio Patron UOP (Greece)
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)
Athens University of Economics and Business – Research Center AUEB (Greece)
Intracom SA Telecom Solutions ICOM (Greece)
SES Techcom SA SES (Luxembourg)
Cisco Norway AS (Norway)
Engineering-Ingegneria Informatica SPA (Italy)
Social media presence
Publications for 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure
Journal Article
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
Transactions on Network and Service Management (2022).Status: Published
AI Anomaly Detection for Cloudified Mobile Core Architectures
IT systems monitoring is a crucial process for managing and orchestrating network resources, allowing network providers to rapidly detect and react to most impediment causing network degradation. However, the high growth in size and complexity of current operational networks (2022) demands new solutions to process huge amounts of data (including alarms) reliably and swiftly. Further, as the network becomes progressively more virtualized, the hosting of nfv on cloud environments adds a magnitude of possible bottlenecks outside the control of the service owners. In this paper, we propose two deep learning anomaly detection solutions that leverage service exposure and apply it to automate the detection of service degradation and root cause discovery in a cloudified mobile network that is orchestrated by ETSI OSM. A testbed is built to validate these AI models. The testbed collects monitoring data from the OSM monitoring module, which is then exposed to the external AI anomaly detection modules, tuned to identify the anomalies and the network services causing them. The deep learning solutions are tested using various artificially induced bottlenecks. The AI solutions are shown to correctly detect anomalies and identify the network components involved in the bottlenecks, with certain limitations in a particular type of bottlenecks. A discussion of the right monitoring tools to identify concrete bottlenecks is provided.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, NorNet, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Journal | Transactions on Network and Service Management |
| Date Published | 08/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Los Alamitos, California/U.S.A. |
| ISSN | 1932-4537 |
| Keywords | 5G, AI, Anomaly detection, Autoencoders, deep learning, Mobile networks, Smart Networks |
| DOI | 10.1109/TNSM.2022.3203246 |
Proceedings, refereed
A Live Demonstration of In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
In Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). Edmonton, Alberta/Canada: IEEE, 2022.Status: Published
A Live Demonstration of In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
Network Function Virtualization is a key enabler to building future mobile networks in a flexible and cost-efficient way. Such a network is expected to manage and maintain itself with least human intervention. With early deployments of the fifth generation of mobile technologies – 5G – around the world, setting up 4G/5G experimental infrastructures is necessary to optimally design Self-Organising Networks (SON). In this demo, we present a custom small-scale 4G/5G testbed. As a step towards self-healing, the testbed integrates four Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) virtual switches, that are placed along interfaces between different components of transport and core network. This demo not only shows the administration and monitoring of the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) VNF components, using Open Source MANO, but also as a proof of concept for the potential of P4-based telemetry in detecting anomalous behaviour of the mobile network, such as a congestion in the transport part.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) |
| Pagination | 245–247 |
| Date Published | 09/2022 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Place Published | Edmonton, Alberta/Canada |
| ISBN Number | 978-1-6654-8001-7 |
| Keywords | Anomaly detection, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Open Source MANO (OSM), P4, Telemetry |
Load Distribution for Mobile Edge Computing with Reliable Server Pooling
In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Recent Advances for Multi-Clouds and Mobile Edge Computing (M2EC) in conjunction with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA). Sydney, New South Wales/Australia: Springer, 2022.Status: Published
Load Distribution for Mobile Edge Computing with Reliable Server Pooling
Energy-efficient computing model is a popular choice for high performance as well as throughput oriented computing ecosystems. Mobile (computing) devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous to our computing domain, but with limited resources (true both for computation as well as for energy). Hence, workload offloading from resource-constrained mobile devices to the Edge and maybe (later) to the cloud become necessary as well as useful. Thanks to the persistent technical breakthroughs in global wireless standards (or in mobile networks) together with the almost limitless amount of resources in public cloud platforms, workload offloading is possible and cheaper. In such scenarios, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) resources could be provisioned in proximity to the users for supporting latency-sensitive applications. Here, two relevant problems could be: i) How to distribute workload to the resource pools of MEC as well as public (multi-)clouds? ii) How to manage such resource pools effectively? To answer these problems in this paper, we examine the performance of our proposed approach using the Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) framework in more detail. We also have outlined the resource pool management policies to effectively use RSerPool for workload offloading from mobile devices into the cloud/MEC ecosystem.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, MELODIC: Multi-cloud Execution-ware for Large-scale Optimised Data-Intensive Computing |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Recent Advances for Multi-Clouds and Mobile Edge Computing (M2EC) in conjunction with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA) |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Place Published | Sydney, New South Wales/Australia |
| Keywords | Cloud computing, Load Distribution, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Multi-Cloud Computing, Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool), Serverless Computing |
Talks, contributed
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
In ETSI, Virtual. Virtual: ETSI, 2022.Status: Published
Detecting Issues with In-Band Telemetry in OSM-Orchestrated Core Networks
Open Source MANO is a helpful tool to manage and orchestrate the instantiation of core network setups, like Network Service (NS) instances of our SimulaMet OpenAirInterface Virtual Network Function (VNF) for Enhanced Packet Cores (EPC). We furthermore extended our NS with VNF instances of Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) switches, in order to allow for in-band telemetry. With in-band telemetry, it is possible to flexibly add, process, and remove telemetry information to traffic within the packet core, in order to allow for fine-granular evaluation of the system performance and the users' experienced quality of service. In our presentation and demo, we would like to provide an overview of our ongoing work on P4-based in-band telemetry in an OSM-orchestrated 4G core, which is used for detecting performance problems and anomalies in the network based on machine learning. We would furthermore like to demonstrate the details of our setup to the audience in a live demo.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, NorNet, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
| Publication Type | Talks, contributed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Location of Talk | ETSI, Virtual |
| Publisher | ETSI |
| Place Published | Virtual |
| Type of Talk | Demo presentation |
| Keywords | Anomaly detection, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Open Source MANO (OSM), P4, Telemetry |
| URL | http://osm-download.etsi.org/ftp/osm-11.0-eleven/OSM13_Ecosystem_Day/OSM... |
NorNet – A Linux- and Open-Source-Software-based International Platform for Networking Research
In Linux Conference Australia, Virtual. Melbourne, Australia: Linux Conference Australia, 2022.Status: Published
NorNet – A Linux- and Open-Source-Software-based International Platform for Networking Research
The NorNet testbed (https://www.nntb.no) is an Internet testbed platform for research on multi-homed systems. The particular property of multi-homed systems is to be connected to multiple Internet Service Providers (ISP) simultaneously. Its initial purpose is of course to still provide connectivity in case of ISP/network failures. But does it really work that well, also with current protocols and applications? And redundancy does not come for free. A user connected to multiple ISPs will also receive multiple Internet bills each month. So, is there a possibility to make further use of multi-homing in the usual case where nothing goes wrong? Obviously, there are a lot of interesting research questions, which need to be examined in realistic Internet setups! Therefore, we are building up the NorNet open Internet testbed platform as a Linux- and Open-Source-software-based infrastructure, which currently spreads over multiple sites in different countries.
NorNet makes extensive use of advanced Linux features like Kernel-based Virtualisation (KVM), Linux Containers (LXC), BTRFS file system features, IP routing rules, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), Multi-Path TCP (MPTCP), and many more. The goal of this talk is therefore to present an overview of the testbed, its underlying Linux features, and how they are combined to provide the multi-homing features to the various testbed users. This particularly includes an overview of how to make use of multi-path transport with MPTCP – based on the Linux MPTCP implementation – in multi-homed environments. The idea is to provide guidelines for also utilising multi-homing features in own projects.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , GAIA |
| Publication Type | Talks, contributed |
| Year of Publication | 2022 |
| Location of Talk | Linux Conference Australia, Virtual |
| Publisher | Linux Conference Australia |
| Place Published | Melbourne, Australia |
| Keywords | Linux, Multi-Homing, Multi-Path Transport, NorNet, Open Source, Testbed |
| URL | https://lca2022.linux.org.au/schedule/presentation/52/ |
Book
AI and ML – Enablers for Beyond 5G Networks
Online: 5G PPP Technology Board, 2021.Status: Published
AI and ML – Enablers for Beyond 5G Networks
This white paper on AI and ML as enablers of beyond 5G (B5G) networks is based on contributions from almost 20 5G PPP projects, coordinated through the 5G PPP Technology Board, that research, implement and validate 5G and B5G network systems. The paper introduces the main relevant mechanisms in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), currently investigated and exploited for enhancing 5G and B5G networks.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications |
| Publication Type | Book |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Date Published | 05/2021 |
| Publisher | 5G PPP Technology Board |
| Place Published | Online |
| URL | https://5g-ppp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AI-MLforNetworks-v1-0.pdf |
| DOI | 10.5281/zenodo.429989 |
Journal Article
Optimising Performance for NB-IoT UE Devices through Data Driven Models
Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks 10 (2021).Status: Published
Optimising Performance for NB-IoT UE Devices through Data Driven Models
<p>This paper presents a data driven framework for performance optimisation of Narrow-Band IoT user equipment. The proposed framework is an edge micro-service that suggests one-time configurations to user equipment communicating with a base station. Suggested configurations are delivered from a Configuration Advocate, to improve energy consumption, delay, throughput or a combination of those metrics, depending on the user-end device and the application. Reinforcement learning utilising gradient descent and genetic algorithm is adopted synchronously with machine and deep learning algorithms to predict the environmental states and suggest an optimal configuration. The results highlight the adaptability of the Deep Neural Network in the prediction of intermediary environmental states, additionally the results present superior performance of the genetic reinforcement learning algorithm regarding its performance optimisation.</p>
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Journal | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
| Volume | 10 |
| Number | 1 |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Place Published | Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks |
| ISSN | 2224-2708 |
| URL | https://www.mdpi.com/2224-2708/10/1/21 |
| DOI | 10.3390/jsan10010021 |
Proceedings, refereed
A Demo of Workload Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing Using the Reliable Server Pooling Framework
In Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: IEEE Computer Society, 2021.Status: Published
A Demo of Workload Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing Using the Reliable Server Pooling Framework
Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) places cloud resources nearby the user, to provide support for latency-sensitive applications. Offloading workload from resource-constrained mobile devices (such as smartphones) into the cloud ecosystem is becoming increasingly popular. In this demonstration, we show how to deploy a mobile network (with OpenAirInterface and Open Source MANO), as well as to adapt the Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) framework to efficiently manage MEC as well as multi-cloud resources to run an interactive demo application.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, MELODIC: Multi-cloud Execution-ware for Large-scale Optimised Data-Intensive Computing, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, NorNet |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Conference Name | Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) |
| Date Published | 10/2021 |
| Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
| Place Published | Edmonton, Alberta, Canada |
| Keywords | Demonstration, Evolved Packet Core (EPC), Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Multi-Cloud Computing, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) |
| URL | https://www.ieeelcn.org/lcn46demos/Demo_4_1570754367.pdf |
An Exposed Closed-Loop Model for Customer-Driven Service Assurance Automation
In 2021 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit (EuCNC/6G Summit). Porto, Portugal: IEEE Computer Society, 2021.Status: Published
An Exposed Closed-Loop Model for Customer-Driven Service Assurance Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is widely applied in telecommunications to enable zero-touch automation in network operation and service management. Due to the high complexity, deploying advanced AI mechanisms is not always feasible inside the operator’s network domains. Instead, via service exposures, it becomes possible for vertical customers to integrate their external AI solutions with the network and service management system to form a closed loop (CL) and contribute to the automation process. In this paper, we propose an exposed CL model based on service exposure and apply it to automate service assurance tasks like autoscaling in a network function virtualization (NFV) system orchestrated by ETSI Open Source MANO (OSM). A testbed is built to validate the model. It collects monitoring data from the OSM monitoring module and external monitoring tools. Vertical customers drive and customize their AI solutions to aggregate these data sets and run analytics to detect and predict anomalies prepared for scaling. Preliminary analysis demonstrates the added values of customer-driven monitoring and analysis via the exposed CL.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Conference Name | 2021 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit (EuCNC/6G Summit) |
| Pagination | 419–424 |
| Date Published | 06/2021 |
| Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
| Place Published | Porto, Portugal |
| ISBN Number | 978-1-6654-1526-2 |
| Keywords | Autonomous Management, Closed Loop, Machine learning, Monitoring, Service Exposure |
| DOI | 10.1109/EuCNC/6GSummit51104.2021.9482533 |
Reliable Server Pooling Based Workload Offloading with Mobile Edge Computing: A Proof-of-Concept
In Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2021). Springer, 2021.Status: Published
Reliable Server Pooling Based Workload Offloading with Mobile Edge Computing: A Proof-of-Concept
In recent times, mobile broadband devices have become almost ubiquitous. However, battery-powered devices (such as smartphones), have limitations on energy consumption, computation power and storage space. Cloud computing, and in particular with the upcoming 5G networks, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) can provide compute and storage services at the vicinity of the user (with a low communication latency). However, the complexity lies in how to simply and efficiently realise MEC services, with the auxiliary public (multi-)cloud resources? In this paper, we propose a proof-of-concept of using Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) as a light-weight layer of managing resource pools and handling application sessions with these pools. Our approach is simple, efficient, has low overhead and is available as open-source. Here, we demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by measuring in a test setup, with a 4G testbed connected to MEC and public multi-cloud resources.
| Afilliation | Communication Systems |
| Project(s) | NorNet, The Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, SMIL: SimulaMet Interoperability Lab, 5G-VINNI: 5G Verticals INNovation Infrastructure , Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering, MELODIC: Multi-cloud Execution-ware for Large-scale Optimised Data-Intensive Computing |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2021 |
| Conference Name | Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2021) |
| Pagination | 582-593 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Keywords | 5G, Evolved Packet Core (EPC), Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Multi-Cloud Computing, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) |
LUCS: Learning to Understand and Control nation-wide Smart grids of energy prosumers
The world energy market is changing, with many developed countries investing into green energy as well as distributed energy production. This transformation has led to the possibility of prosumers- the producer of relatively small and sporadic amounts of energy, to significantly influence the market and the power quality in the grid. Nonetheless, a wider proliferation of privately owned solar collectors, windmills, and other kinds of green generators make it challenging to manage the flow of energy that is no longer uni-directional.
LUCS is bringing together research groups and educational institutions that are committed to educating the next generation of researchers and engineers by joining forces to provide knowledge and experience that will assist Masters and early doctoral students with experiment design and performance analyses of smart grid systems. The research-related objectives of LUCS are to facilitate interaction of researchers for the purpose of developing and implementing novel approaches to improve the performance and robustness of the smart grid systems.
Final goal
LUCS will conduct four main activities:
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Organize 4 summer schools
- Develop a common smart grid curriculum at University of Oslo and Technical University of Berlin
- Organize 3 research workshops
- Sponsor the mobility of researchers to strengthen the group collaboration
Summer schools
3 summer schools have been held since 2018, and the final summer school, led by University of Oslo (UiO), will be in the summer of 2022 at Sundvollen.
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Future Energy Information Networks, was held in Oslo from September 3rd to 7th, 2018.
- Smart Cities for Sustainable Energy Future - from design to practice, was held in Berlin from August 19th to 30th, 2019.
- Green Computing meets Green Energy, was held in Lille from September 5th to 10th, 2021. The Lille summer school was the first in-person event since the pandemic. More information on this summer school is found in this article.
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From Energy Systems to Energy Justice, hosted by University of Oslo. Will be held at Sundvollen, from August 29—September 2, 2022. Call for participation.
Workshops
3 collaborative LUCS-PACE research workshops have been held.
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The first workshop was a combined kick-off held in Oslo.
- The second LUCS-PACE workshop was held virtually due to Covid-19, from 25th to 26th of April, 2021. A summary of the workshop is available through this article.
- The final workshop was led by the Technical University of Munich (TuM), and took place at their premises in Munich, from 2nd to 4th of March, 2022. Read more about this workshop.
Funding source
INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research
All partners
- Simula Research Laboratory, Norway
- University of Oslo, Norway
- Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin), Germany
- German Turkish Advanced Research Center for ICT (GT-ARC) Germany
Project leader
David Hayes, Center for Resilient Networks and Applications, SimulaMet, Norway