This paper proposes the hierarchical cloud-router network (HCRN) to overcome the scalability limit in a multi-layer generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) network. We define a group of nodes as a virtual node, called the cloud-router (CR). A CR consists of several nodes or lower-level CRs. A CR is modeled as a multiple switching capability (SC) node when it includes more than one kind of SC, which is fiber SC, lambda SC, time-division multiplexing (TDM) SC, packet SC, even if there are no actual multiple switching capability nodes in the CR. The CR advertises its abstracted CR internal structure, which is abstracted link state information inside the CR. A large-scale, multi-layer network can then achieve scalability by advertising the CR internal structure throughout the whole network. In this scheme, the ends of a link connecting two CRs are defined as interfaces of the CRs. We adopt the CR internal cost scheme between CR interfaces to abstract the network. This CR internal cost is advertised outside the CR via the interfaces. Our performance evaluation has shown that HCRN can handle a larger number of nodes than a normal GMPLS network. It can also bear more frequent network topology changes than a normal GMPLS network.

This paper proposes a disjoint path selection scheme for Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) networks with Shared Risk Link Group (SRLG) constraints. It is called the weighted-SRLG (WSRLG) scheme. It treats the total number of SRLG members related to a link as part of the link cost when the k-shortest path algorithm is executed. In WSRLG, a link that has many SRLG members is rarely selected as the shortest path. Simulation results show that WSRLG finds more disjoint paths than the conventional k-shortest path algorithm. In addition, since WSRLG searches for the weight of the SRLG factor by using a modified binary search algorithm while satisfying the required number of disjoint paths between source and destination nodes, it can find cost-effective disjoint paths.

Today's enterprise, data-center, and internet-service-provider networks deploy different types of network devices, including switches, routers, and middleboxes such as network address translation and firewalls. These devices are vertically integrated monolithic systems. Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) are promising technologies for dis-aggregating vertically integrated systems into components by using “softwarization”. Software-defined networking separates the control plane from the data plane of switch and router, while NFV decouples high-layer service functions (SFs) or Network Functions (NFs) implemented in the data plane of a middlebox and enables the innovation of policy implementation by using SF chaining. Even though there have been several survey studies in this area, this area is continuing to grow rapidly. In this paper, we present a recent survey of this area. In particular, we survey research activities in the areas of re-architecting middleboxes, state management, high-performance platforms, service chaining, resource management, and trouble shooting. Efforts in these research areas will enable the development of future virtual-network-function platforms and innovation in service management while maintaining acceptable capital and operational expenditure.

Efficiency of network resource can be improved by statistical multiplexing in ATM networks. If cell traffic characteristics of each connection could be obtained beforehand, we could admit maximum connections while satisfying the QoS (Quality of Service) objective. Since such traffic characteristics as an average rate and a mean burst length are difficult to anticipate, only peak rate will be used for CAC (connection admission control). The peak rate assignment strategy will, however, lead to inefficient network utilization for bursty traffic. This paper proposes an adaptive admission control using real-time traffic measurements to overcome the above problem. This scheme is based on two-state cell stream model composed of overload and underload states. The two-state model simplifies the measuring algorithm, which is suited for online processing. Performance of this scheme is investigated through simulation study for multiplexing of on-off sources with a wide spectrum of traffic characteristics. Since the proposed control scheme exploits measurements of cell streams, it achieves nearly optimum bandwidth efficiency.

This paper proposes a Generalized Traffic Engineering Protocol (GTEP). GTEP is a protocol that permits communication between a Path Computation Element (PCE) and a Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) controller (CNTL). The latter is hosted by each GMPLS node; it handles GMPLS and MPLS protocols such as routing and signaling protocols as well as controlling the GMPLS node host. The PCE provides multi-layer traffic engineering; it calculates Label Switched Path (LSP) routes and judges whether a new lower-layer LSP should be established. GTEP functions are implemented in both the PCE and GMPLS router. We demonstrate a multi-layer traffic engineering experiment conducted with GTEP.

This paper proposes a multiple QoS control scheme that combines the head-of-line priority (HOLP) discipline with equivalent-window connection admission control (CAC). The proposed scheme can support the different cell loss ratios of both delay-sensitive traffic in high-priority buffers and delay-tolerant traffic in low-priority buffers. The CAC scheme extends a measurement-based CAC algorithm for a single buffer to the low-priority buffer with the HOLP discipline to provide the cell loss ratio objective. We introduce an equivalent window for monitoring low-priority cell streams. The equivalent window size equals the period within which the number of times the low-priority buffer is scanned to read cells is constant. Thus the equivalent window size varies with the high-priority queueing state. Numerical results indicate that the proposed QoS control scheme using the equivalent-window CAC can utilize network resources more effectively than the conventional control scheme which is Virtual Path (VP) separation for different cell loss requirement services. In addition, it is confirmed that the proposed scheme provides conservative admissible loads. Thus, this proposed scheme can achieve large statistical gains while providing both high-priority and low-priority cell loss ratio objectives. The proposed scheme will be very useful for cost-effective multimedia services that have different QoS requirements.

To efficiently use network resources, internet service providers need to conduct traffic engineering that dynamically controls traffic routes to accommodate traffic change with limited network resources. The performance of traffic engineering (TE) depends on the accuracy of traffic prediction. However, the size of traffic change has been drastically increasing in recent years due to the growth in various types of network services, which has made traffic prediction difficult. Our approach to tackle this issue is to separate traffic into predictable and unpredictable parts and to apply different control policies. However, there are two challenges to achieving this: dynamically separating traffic according to predictability and dynamically controlling routes for each separated traffic part. In this paper, we propose a macroflow-based TE scheme that uses different routing policies in accordance with traffic predictability. We also propose a traffic-separation algorithm based on real-time traffic analysis and a framework for controlling separated traffic with software-defined networking technology, particularly OpenFlow. An evaluation of actual traffic measured in an Internet2 network shows that compared with current TE schemes the proposed scheme can reduce the maximum link load by 34% (at the most congested time) and the average link load by an average of 11%.

Network equipment, such as routers, switches, and RADIUS servers, generate various log messages induced by network events such as hardware failures and protocol flaps. In large production networks, analyzing the log messages is crucial for diagnosing network anomalies; however, it has become challenging due to the following two reasons. First, the log messages are composed of unstructured text messages generated in accordance with vendor-specific rules. Second, network events that induce the log messages span several geographical locations, network layers, protocols, and services. We developed a method to tackle these obstacles consisting of two techniques: statistical template extraction (STE) and log tensor factorization (LTF). The former leverages a statistical clustering technique to automatically extract primary templates from unstructured log messages. The latter builds a statistical model that collects spatial-temporal patterns of log messages. Such spatial-temporal patterns provide useful insights into understanding the impact and patterns of hidden network events. We evaluate our techniques using a massive amount of network log messages collected from a large operating network and confirm that our model fits the data well. We also investigate several case studies that validate the usefulness of our method.

This paper proposes a new high-speed network architecture called Dynamic Transfer Mode, DTM. At the entrance of the DTM network, destination addresses such as IP addresses are converted into DTM routing information and attached to the packet header. In a DTM network, a connection is set up on-the-fly by sending a series of routing link identifiers to the destination, so burst data transfers like WWW traffic are efficiently carried. A connection between adjacent nodes is created and released dynamically within the burst transfer period. This yields higher statistical multiplexing gain and improved bandwidth efficiency compared to with conventional STM. Time division multiplexing is utilized so delay jitter or cell loss, the major drawbacks of Asynchronous Transfer Mode, are avoided. This paper analyzes the performance of a DTM network and describes an implemented switching system. Because a DTM network uses source-routing and passive STM switching, it simplifies the core transit switch while localizing intelligence to edge nodes. A simplified core transit switch is well suited for future high-speed backbone networks.

A new adaptive rate control with congestion prediction is developed that is highly robust against long propagation delays. It minimizes the network performance degradation caused by the delay based on prediction by extrapolating past data and correction using new notification. The simulation results show that our proposed control maintains high throughput and a smaller buffer even in long propagation delay networks, like ATM-WAN.

Although the Internet is playing an increasingly significant role in global communication, it remains vulnerable to malicious traffic such as worms and DoS/DDoS attacks. In the last few years, the emergence of high speed active worms, such as Code Red II, Nimda, SQL Slammer and MS Blaster, has become a serious issue. These worms cause serious damage to communication networks throughout the world by using up network bandwidth. In addition, since conventional firewall systems are located just in front of the server and do not prevent malicious traffic from entering the network, they cannot prevent such network congestion. Therefore, the firewall between domains or between core routers should play important roles in the photonic networks. We have developed a prototype system of a network firewall using reconfigurable processors. In this paper, we overview the developed system and present its evaluation results.

A new simple cell spacing architecture that guarantees the peak cell interval and realizes preferential contention resolution is proposed. Scheduling the cell emission on departure of the previous cell, not arrival, allows the source peak cell interval to be regenerated without clumping. Priority control is also realized in the proposed spacer. A connection is scheduled either at the head or tail of the contention chain depending on its priority. The proposed method is applied to realize the UPC function. The proposed cell spacer eliminates the clumping effects of CDV completely and achieves high bandwidth efficiency.

This letter proposes a scalable network emulator architecture to support IP optical network management. The network emulator uses the same router interfaces to communicate with the IP optical TE server as the actual IP optical network, and behaves as an actual IP optical network between the interfaces. The network emulator mainly consists of databases and three modules: interface module, resource simulator module, and traffic generator module. To make the network emulator scalable in terms of network size, we employ TCP/IP socket communications between the modules. The proposed network emulator has the benefit that its implementation is not strongly dependent on hardware limitations. We develop a prototype of the network emulator based on the proposed architecture. Our design and experiments show that the proposed architecture is effective.

Implementing the fast-responding multi-layer service network (MLSN) functionality will allow the IP/MPLS service network logical topology and Optical Virtual Network topology to be reconfigured dynamically according to the traffic pattern on the network. Direct links can be created or removed in the logical IP/MPLS service network topology, when either extra capacity in MLSN core is needed or existing capacity in core is no longer required. Reconfiguring the logical and virtual network topologies constitute a new manner by which Traffic Engineering (TE) can solve or avoid network congestion problems and service degradations. As both IP and optical network layers are involved, this is called Multi-layer Traffic Engineering. We proposed border model based MLSN architecture in [5]. In this paper, we define the realization of Multi-Layer TE functions using Path Computation Element (PCE) for Border model based MLSN. It defines nodal requirements for multi-layer TE. Requirements of communication protocol between PCC (Path Computation Client) and PCE is introduced. It presents Virtual Network Topology (VNT) scenarios and steps involved along with examples for PCE-based VNT reconfiguration triggered by network failure, where VNT is a set of different layer's network resource accumulation.

This paper presents two dynamic multi-layer routing policies for optical IP Networks. Both policies first try to allocate a newly requested electrical path to an existing optical path that directly connects the source and destination nodes. If such a path is not available, the two policies employ different procedures. Policy 1, which has been published already, tries to find available existing optical paths with two or more hops that connect the source and destination nodes. Policy 2, which is proposed in this paper, tries to establish a new one-hop optical path between source and destination nodes. The performances of the two routing policies are evaluated. Simulation results suggest that policy 2 outperforms policy 1 if p is large, where p is the number of packet-switching-capable ports; the reverse is true only if p is small. We observe that p is the key factor in choosing the most appropriate routing policy.

In current large-scale IT systems, troubleshooting has become more complicated due to the diversification in the causes of failures, which has increased operational costs. Thus, clarifying the troubleshooting process also becomes important, though it is also time-consuming. We propose a method of automatically extracting a workflow, a graph indicating a troubleshooting process, using multiple trouble tickets. Our method extracts an operator's actions from free-format texts and aligns relative sentences between multiple trouble tickets. Our method uses a stochastic model to detect a resolution, a frequent action pattern that helps us understand how to solve a problem. We validated our method using real trouble-ticket data captured from a real network operation and showed that it can extract a workflow to identify the cause of a failure.

This paper proposes a novel packet classification method using ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM), which can store very wide policy rules despite the limited width of TCAM. For IP version 6, policy rules could be 304 bits wide. This method enables us to use commercially available TCAM for packet classification and thus builds an ultra high-speed policy based packet forwarding engine for differentiated services on the Internet.

The rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements of IP traffic mean that networks based on optical technologies in conjunction with IP routing technologies will provide the backbone of the next generation Internet. One of the major issues is how to construct an optical-technology-based backbone network that offers the economical transport of large-scale IP/MPLS services while achieving reliable, robust network. The key to achieving this objective lies in multilayer coordination technologies using Multi-Layer Service Network [MLSN] Architecture, that we previously proposed [2]. One of the important aspects of MLSN architecture is ability to effectively use GMPLS network resources by IP/MPLS service networks. We propose extensions to previously proposed MLSN architecture. The proposed extensions to MLSN architecture are tailored to address "service virtualization and separation" of various service networks over GMPLS backbone. As a part of this extended MLSN architecture, we introduce novel concepts known as Logical Router (LR) and Virtual Router (VR) that would enable border router to be services domain router, so that it can connect multiple service networks such as L2VPN, L3VPN etc., over GMPLS backbone by offering service separation or virtualization. This service separation/isolation greatly enhances the reliability of next generation networks, as any failure on one service should be isolated from others. We evaluate our extended network architecture against requirements for the large scale network targeting at introducing such new technology to cope with vast traffic explosion and challenges in operation and service provision sophistication.

This letter proposes ALPEN, a simple, flexible and cost effective ATM-WAN architecture that emulates multiple ATM-layer protocols at the edge nodes. Any new ATM-layer protocol can be easily implemented by modifying only the edge nodes. The transit network is simple and independent of the protocols emulated, and ALPEN has a short response time. It is very suitable for implementing multimedia ATM networks.

We propose a fast and compact longest match table look-up method for very long network addresses like IP version 6. This method uses two ideas for a routing-table arranged in a tree-structure. The first idea is to make table look-up fast by caching pointers to intermediate nodes in the tree, reducing the number of node traversals. The second idea is to reduce the memory size required for each node in the tree by one-third by eliminating common parts of addresses of adjacent nodes. Evaluating the performance of this method by using actual routing table data of an IP backbone network, we found it was five to ten times faster than a conventional method.