About
53
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Introduction
My current research activity regards the orchestration in Software-Defined 5G Networks.
My past research activity mainly regarded:
- dependability in SDN and NFV;
- "Green Networking" techniques, in particular the energy-aware routing and network design in both wired and wireless environments;
- Internet connectivity sharing and content offloading in Residential Community Networks;
- design and analysis of Service Overlay Network topologies.
Additional affiliations
February 2018 - present
March 2015 - January 2018
February 2012 - January 2015
Education
January 2009 - December 2011
Publications
Publications (53)
The Network Slicing (NS) paradigm enables the partition of physical and virtual resources among multiple logical networks, possibly managed by different tenants. In such a scenario, network resources need to be dynamically allocated according to the slice requirements. In this paper, we attack the above problem by exploiting a Deep Reinforcement Le...
The main innovation of the Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile networks is the ability to provide novel services with new and stricter requirements. One of the technologies that enable the new 5G services is the Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). MEC is a system composed of multiple devices with computing and storage capabilities that are deployed at t...
The fifth-generation (5G) of cellular networks is currently under deployment by network operators, and new 5G end-user devices are about to be commercialized by many manufacturers. This is just a first step in the 5G’s development, and the true potential of 5G is still far from being reached. Currently, one of the main 5G technologies under the int...
The introduction of Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) represents a significant change in networking technology, which may create new opportunities in terms of cost efficiency, operations, and service provisioning. Although not explicitly stated as an objective, the dependability of the services provided using this technology should be at least...
We consider a problem arising in the design of green wireless local area networks. Decisions on powering-on a set of access points (APs), via the assignment of one power level (PL) to each opened AP, and decisions on the assignment of the user terminals (UTs) to the opened APs, have to be taken simultaneously. The PL assigned to an AP affects, in a...
Innovative services with strict requirements are expected in the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks and beyond. For example, the Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) requires up to 1 ms latency, end-to-end security, and reliability of up to 99.999%. The Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) promises to support the delivery of URLLC se...
Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) and network slicing two of the key enabling technologies of the Fifth Generation (5G) of cellular network. MEC helps to reduce latency, offload the cloud, and allow context-awareness. Network slicing allows to create heterogeneous services on top of shared infrastructures. Slice brokers are emerging intermediate en...
The introduction of 5G technology enables new V2X services requiring reliable and extremely low latency communications. To satisfy these requirements computing elements need to be located at the edge of the network, according to the Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm. The user mobility and the MEC approach lead to the need to carefully anal...
The 5G-MEC architecture increases the heterogeneity and dynamicity of the available resources, presenting unique and competing challenges to researchers, network designers, and application developers. Recent studies indicate AdvantEDGE as an interesting emulation platform to investigate these challenges. The paper presents a particular example of A...
The Network Slicing (NS) paradigm is one of the pillars of the future 5G networks and is gathering great attention from both industry and scientific communities. In a NS scenario, physical and virtual resources are partitioned among multiple logical networks, named slices, with specific characteristics. The challenge consists in finding efficient s...
The Network Slicing (NS) paradigm enables the partition of physical and virtual resources among multiple logical networks, possibly managed by different tenants. In such a scenario, network resources need to be dynamically allocated according to the slices' requirements. In this paper, we attack the above problem by exploiting a Deep Reinforcement...
Network slicing is a key enabler of the fifth-generation (5G) of mobile networks. It allows creating multiple logical networks, i.e. network slices, with heterogeneous requirements over a common underlying infrastructure. The underlying infrastructure is composed of heterogeneous resources, such as network and computational resources. These resourc...
A smart city is an urban area that collects data using various electronic methods and sensors. Smart cities rely on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and aim to improve the quality of services by managing public resources and focusing on comfort, maintenance, and sustainability. The fifth generation (5G) of wireless mobile communicat...
In this paper, we present an approach and an algorithm aimed at minimising the energy consumption of enterprise Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) during periods of low user activity. We act on two network management aspects: powering off some Access Points (APs), and choosing the level of transmission power of each AP. An efficient technique to...
In this paper, we present an approach and an algorithm aimed at minimising the energy consumption of enterprise wireless LANs during periods of low user activity. We act on two network management aspects: powering off some access points (APs), and choosing the level of transmission power of each AP. An efficient technique to allocate the user termi...
The fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks shall host a number of tenants and provide services tailored to meet a wide range of requirements in terms of performance, dependability and security. Network slicing will be a key enabler, by assigning dedicated resources and functionalities to meet such requirements, where the isolation between slice...
Many study programs include courses on communication technology. All these courses explain the basis of communication technology, but they have different levels of detail depending on the study program and the related organization. Several courses include experimental activities, and some of these are based on certification related to a network dev...
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) represents a key shift in nowadays network service provisioning by entailing higher flexibility, elasticity, and programmability of network services. Dependability is one of the main aspects that need to be investigated and tackled in order to profitably use NFV in the future. The main objective of this paper i...
The fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks promises to be a major step in the evolution of wireless technology. 5G is planned to be used in a very broad set of application scenarios. These scenarios have strict heterogeneous requirements that will be accomplished by enhancements on the radio access network and a collection of innovative wireles...
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) promises to improve the programmability and flexibility of networks, but also brings new challenges that need to be explored. The main objective of this paper is to include failure correlation in a quantitative assessment of the properties of SDN backbone networks to determine whether they can provide similar avail...
Software-defined networking (SDN) promises to improve the programmability and flexibility of networks, but it may bring also new challenges that need to be explored. One open issue is the quantitative assessment of the properties of SDN backbone networks to determine whether they can provide similar availability to the traditional IP backbone netwo...
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) promises to improve the programmability and flexibility of networks, but it may also bring new challenges that need to be explored. The main objective of this paper is to present a quantitative assessment of the properties of SDN backbone networks to determine whether they can provide similar availability to the tr...
We present a robust optimisation approach to energy savings in wireless local area networks, that incorporates both link capacity fluctuations and user mobility under Bertsimas and Sim's robust optimization paradigm. Preliminary computational results are discussed.
A digital ICT infrastructure must be considered as a system of systems in itself, but also in interaction with other critical infrastructures such as water distributions, transportation (e.g. Intelligent Transport Systems) and Smart Power Grid control. These systems are characterised by self-organisation, autonomous sub-systems, continuous evolutio...
Software-defined networking (SDN) promises to improve the programmability and flexibility of networks, but it may bring also new challenges that need to be explored. The purpose of this technical report is to assess how the deployment of the SDN controllers affects the overall availability of SDN. For this, we have varied the number, homing and loc...
The reduction of the energy footprint of large and mid-sized IEEE 802.11 access networks is gaining momentum. When operating at the network management level, the availability of an accurate power model of the APs becomes of paramount importance, because different detail levels have a non-negligible impact on the performance of the optimisation algo...
The last 5 years have seen a dramatic shift in media distribution. For decades, TV and radio were solely provisioned using push-based broadcast technologies, forcing people to adhere to fixed schedules. The introduction of catch-up services, however, has now augmented such delivery with online pull-based alternatives. Typically, these allow users t...
In this paper we focus on a Residential Community Network (RCN) in which the various home gateways have (limited) caching capabilities, can be shared among the users, and can exploit multi-hop wireless paths to communicate with each other. We analyse such a RCN from an energy-aware perspective, investigating its energy-saving potential in deliverin...
In this paper, we study a wireless access network based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 802.11 standard and enriched with features such as caching and mesh networking. This system is analysed in terms of energy efficiency and traffic offloading, two objectives that are somewhat in contrast but both relevant to network and s...
In this paper we study a wireless access network based on the WLAN technology and enriched with features such as caching and mesh networking. This system is analysed in terms of energy efficiency and traffic offloading, two objectives that are somewhat in contrast, but both relevant to network and service providers as they directly impact the opera...
We consider a problem arising in the design of green (or energy-saving) wireless local area networks (GWLANs). Decisions on both location and capacity dimensioning must be taken simultaneously. We model the problem as an integer program with nonlinear constraints and derive valid inequalities. We handle the nonlinearity of the formulation by develo...
In this paper we study the behavior of a general optimization model for reducing the power consumption of core networks employing energy-aware network equipment. Specifically, we assess how the energy profiles of the devices affect the outcome of the optimization model and hence determine the general power saving policy. The computational analysis...
The paper presents a comparison between various approaches to the optimized operation of a Content Centric Residential Community Network (CCRCN). The evaluation basis is mostly about the energy footprint of CCRCNs, but other factors, such as content offloading and Internet Sharing, are also taken into account. From the analysis it emerges that the...
"Catch-up", or on-demand access of previously broadcast TV content over the public Internet, constitutes a significant fraction of peak time network traffic. This paper analyses consumption patterns of nearly 6 million users of a nationwide deployment of a catch-up TV service, to understand the network support required. We find that catch-up has ce...
The paper focuses on Network Power Management in telecommunication infrastructures. Specifically, the paper describes four energy aware network design problems, with the related mathematical models, for reducing the power consumption of the current and future Internet. Each problem is based on a different characterization and power awareness of the...
The paper deeply analyzes a novel network-wide power management problem, called Power-Aware Routing and Network Design with Bundled Links (PARND-BL), which is able to take into account both the relationship between the power consumption and the traffic throughput of the nodes and to power off both the chassis and even the single Physical Interface...
"Catch-up", or on-demand access of previously broadcast TV content over the public Internet, constitutes a significant fraction of peak time network traffic. This paper analyses consumption patterns of nearly 6 million users of a nationwide deployment of a catch-up TV service, to understand the network support required. We find that catch-up has ce...
The paper presents an approach aimed to reduce the overall power consumption of a backbone network by exploiting the power behavior of green network devices. This approach is based on the solution of an optimization problem that has a Mixed Integer NonLinear Programming (MINLP) formulation. Given that the problem is NP-hard, exact methods for findi...
Nowadays, large-scale numerical simulation, data analysis, remote access to experimental apparatus and cooperative working play a key role in the practice of science and engineering. In this scenario, highly distributed grid environments, including computing, storage and instrument elements, have to be interconnected through high performance networ...
The paper describes and compares different approaches that can be used to design Network Power Management methods, with the aim of reducing the power consumption of telecommunication networks. The approaches are based on the solution of optimization problems that have, in general, a Mixed Integer NonLinear Programming (MINLP) formulation. Given tha...
The paper copes with the reduction of network power consumption by the definition of new routing algorithms, able to take into account the energy consumed by the network devices. In particular, based on the power consumption characterization of the network devices obtained using the Energy Profile (EP) concept, the paper presents the analysis of th...
Recently, the power consumption of the home/access networks has stimulated several research efforts devoted to the study of new mechanisms to optimize the energy utilization. In particular, most of these works is based on the idea that Ethernet links are mostly underutilized, and is thus aimed at realizing mechanisms able to adapt device consumptio...
Nowadays, Internet still lacks of adequate support for QoS-sensitive applications, such as VoIP, Videoconference, and Video-on-Demand. In a large extent, this is due to the fact that Internet was originally designed to provide only a best-effort packet delivery service. In recent years, Service Overlay Networks (SONs) have emerged as a profitable w...
The paper proposes the analysis of the Dual-Threshold Policy, used by Adaptive Link Rate (ALR). In particular, the paper firstly presents a new Markov model of the Dual-Threshold Policy. The new features of the model concern its ability to take into account the rate switching times and the buffer size of the Ethernet Network Interface Controller (N...
Nowadays, Internet still lacks of adequate support for QoS-sensitive applications, such as VoIP, Videoconference, and Video-on-Demand. In a large extent, this is due to the fact that Internet was originally designed to provide only a best-effort packet delivery service. In recent years, Service Overlay Networks (SONs) have emerged as a profitable w...
Projects
Projects (3)
The project focuses on security and dependability in the orchestration of data and network resources in 5G MEC. The project has three main objectives: investigate and characterize security and dependability in the orchestration of data and network resources in 5G MEC; develop and analyze intelligent solutions for jointly orchestrating data and network resources for dependability and security in 5G MEC; develop a 5G-MEC testbed in automotive and verify the proposed solutions.
Website: https://5g-modanei.ux.uis.no/
Disaster-based disruptions seriously degrading the performance of any communication network (following from natural disasters, technology-related disasters, or malicious attacks) are now gaining importance due to observed increase of their intensity and scale. The problem is of the utmost importance due to lack of appropriate mechanisms deployed in practice in Europe. Each time, unavailability of communication networks services, considered as an important part of critical infrastructure, in the presence of disasters implies evident societal problems for people desperately seeking for information, or trying to communicate with each other.
The Action will fill this gap by offering the respective solutions to provide resilient communications in the presence of disaster-based disruptions of all types for existing communication networks (e.g., IPv4-based, current Internet), as well as emerging architectures of the global communications infrastructure (i.e., the Future Internet).
Geographical diversity characteristics of disaster-based disruptions across Europe requires creation of an international and geographically diverse group of researchers to provide the proper solutions. Therefore, COST Action is viewed as the best way to address this issue.
This output-oriented Action will be driven by researchers from academia and industry in strong cooperation with governmental bodies. The aim is to introduce the set of techniques of resilient communications, as well as recommendations on how to deploy/update topologies of communication networks to make them resistant to disruptions that can be applied in practice by network equipment operators and national/international network providers at the European level.
