Pragasen Mudali

University of Zululand | uzulu · Department of Computer Science

Most controller placement algorithms require as input the estimated number of controllers to be placed in software defined wide area networks (SD-WANs). However, determining the correct number of controllers is NP-hard, as it requires selecting the set of nodes whose propagation capabilities exceed a given threshold. To this end, we propose in this...

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has become a popular paradigm for modern day optimal performance of the network system as a result of the separation of the control component from other network elements. This enables the maintenance of the flow table structure on these devices while optimal forwarding of packets is enhanced via the central control...

LoRa Networks is one of the fast-growing and promising technologies to enable communications for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices on a large scale or long-range communication. Spreading Factors (SF) plays a significant role in enabling multiple long-range receptions of packets with every packet assigned a different spreading factor. Therefore,...

Software defined networking (SDN) has emerged as effective paradigm in which the working principle was based on the separation of data plane from the control plane. This approach has proved to be quite advantageous in terms of its flexibility and programmability, thus enhancing better service provisioning and innovative network management. Despite...

The increase in the number of connected devices in network deployments has resulted in network management becoming a tedious process. While the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm was made primarily to deal with the tedious management issue by placing all control functionality on the controllers, this results in the controller being loaded w...

The improvement in the management of Public Health through the public health man- agement system (PHMS) has become a bottleneck. Although the management of a large number of patients’ information has been studied, their networking aspect remains a chal- lenge in prompt assessment of their records. With a view to bringing about an efficient manage...

Software Defined Networking (SDN) helps in distributing network capacity more effectively by dynamically adjusting to changing demands, and managing failure more rapidly. However, considering the next-generation Wide Area Networks (WANs), which are required to be fast, scalable, reliable and cost effective, the transition to completely SDN infrastr...

The research and education advancements in Africa have resulted in National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) having to spend millions on upgrading facilities and improving network availability for all. Unlike Internet service providers (ISPs), NRENs do not support infrastructure sharing, lack of telecom infrastructure and receiving governmen...

The Fog computing paradigm allow applications to be processed at the edge of a network. This paradigm is designed to mitigate high latency and the burden of task requests sent to centralized cloud servers by end devices. Fog computing permits different portions of applications to be scheduled to Fog nodes available at the edge. These Fog nodes offe...

SDN has a potential to address a number of networking challenges, but still presents other financial and business challenges such as budget constraints, acceptability and trust amongst network operators. A hybrid SDN deployment is a conceivable solution, because it offers the benefits of SDN and traditional network capabilities, including budget co...

Despite its increased usage in industrial systems, cloud computing cannot meet some requirements of the next generation of industrial development where ultra-low latency is a requirement. This is due to its inherent limitations such as, unreliable latency, lack of mobility support and traffic congestion when communicating with end-users. Fog comput...

The dynamic spectrum management techniques have been introduced to address the current radio frequency bands inefficiency challenges. Few research works have attempted to address the dynamic reconfiguration problems in spectrum management using various approaches. However, these existing approaches have not been able to achieve optimal solution due...

The dynamic spectrum management techniques have been introduced to address the current Radio Frequency bands inefficiency challenges. Cognitive Radio (CR) technology has been regarded as the most promising technology in the dynamic spectrum management area. One of the major aspects of the spectrum management is the decision making ability of CR use...

Topology Control has been shown to produce beneficial outcomes when applied to wireless ad-hoc networks. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) may also benefit from the use of TC in its backbone network but the actual extent of the benefit remains unknown as prototype studies are rare. In this paper we distill our experiences developing two TC prototypes i...

Topology Control (TC) has been previously reported to improve the energy-efficiency and network performance of wireless ad-hoc networks, including Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Networks (I-WMNs). However, simulation-based studies have been relied upon to reach these conclusions and the study of TC prototypes applicable to I-WMNs has largely been lim...

adio. The study of dynamic reconfiguration of transceiver parameters in spectrum decision making has been motivated because of its importance to the realization of efficient spectrum utilization and management in distributed mobile cognitive radio networks. Spectrum decision making in a distributed cognitive radio network is crucial, so as to ensur...

In recent years, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) have received tremendous attention due to its ability to provide users with high speed Internet access. With properties such as selfhealing, self-configuring, self-forming it makes the network easy to deploy with low setup cost. WMNs can form a backbone mesh which consists of two types of nodes (mesh ro...

Topology Control has been shown to provide several benefits to wireless ad hoc and mesh networks. However these benefits have largely been demonstrated using simulation-based evaluations. In this paper we demonstrate the negative impact that the PlainTC Topology Control prototype has on topology stability. This instability is found to be caused by...

Wireless Mesh networks (WMNs) are gaining popularity as a scalable replacement for Wired Network infrastructure. The increasing popularity of WMNs has prompted the development of security mechanisms. The newly-ratified IEEE 802.11s mesh networking standard specifies a security mechanism that builds upon the IEEE 802.11i security standard meant for...

Wireless Mesh networks (WMNs) are gaining popularity as a scalable replacement for Wired Network infrastructure. The increasing popularity of WMNs has prompted the development of security mechanisms. The newly-ratified IEEE 802.11s mesh networking standard specifies a security mechanism that builds upon the IEEE 802.11i security standard meant for...

Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) has received considerable attention as a means to achieve connectivity in community and commercial networks. Protocols at different stack layers have varying effects both on the energy consumption and the general performance of WMN backbone nodes. Previous studies have shown that, simulations have often been used to obta...

Wireless mesh networks have been shown to be an appropriate technology for rural areas. However, in most African countries, electricity is scarce in rural areas. A candidate solution to the power-constraint problem in these areas is the use of solar/battery-powered nodes. Different protocols at different layers have varying effects on the energy co...

Wireless mesh networks have been shown to be an appropriate technology for rural areas. However, in most African countries, electricity is scarce in rural areas. A candidate solution to the power-constraint problem in these areas is the use of solar/battery-powered nodes. Different protocols at different layers have varying effects on the energy co...

Wireless mesh networks have received a lot of attention as a means of connectivity in community and commercial entities. Its easy deployment and self management characteristics make it a good choice for rural areas. However, in most African countries, electricity is scare in rural areas. A candidate solution to the power problem is the use of solar...

A number of routing metrics exist in wireless networks. These routing metrics were originally designed for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). When Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) came into being, an idea of introducing and using these routing metrics for WMNs was considered. The problem that arises is that these routing metrics have not been proven whe...

Lack of manual management mechanisms in wireless ad-hoc networks means that automatic configuration of IP addresses and other related network parameters are very crucial. Many IP address auto-configuration mechanisms have been proposed in literature. These approaches can be categorized as either being stateful or stateless. Stateless protocols empl...

Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Networks (I-WMNs) are increasingly used to bridge the digital divide in rural areas around the world. Rural African areas in particular require energy efficient I-WMNs as the nodes comprising the I-WMN backbone network may be battery-powered in the absence of reliable power supplies. A key requirement for the proper fun...

In a wireless multi-hop network (WMN), numerous QoS mechanisms such as routing, topology control protocol and transport layer protocols (TLPs) have been proposed. The focus of this study is on the TLPs. TLPs are responsible for connection establishment and attempt to ensure that all data are transmitted from source to target destination safely. Per...

Network forensics plays a major role in the investigation of criminal activities involving computer networks. Investigating such crimes is still an open research area due to the fact that technology is always advancing hence investigators must always be up-to-date with technological advancements. Wireless ad-hoc networks are one of the technologies...

Network forensics plays a major role in the investigation of criminal activities involving computer networks. Investigating such crimes is still an open research area due to the fact that technology is always advancing hence investigators must always be up-to-date with technological advancements. Wireless ad-hoc networks are one of the technologies...

The Wireless Mesh Network backbone is usually comprised of stationary nodes that are not uniformly distributed and connectivity is traditionally assured by requiring that all nodes use their maximum transceiver powers. The use of maximum transceiver powers may actually not be necessary to ensure network connectivity and this realization has led to...

Routing is an essential mechanism for proper functioning of large networks, and routing protocols make use of routing metrics to determine optimal paths. The design of routing metrics is critical for achieving high throughput and we begin this chapter by proposing the design principles for routing metrics. These design principles are for ensuring t...

The wireless mesh network (WMN) backbone is usually comprised of stationary nodes but the transient nature of wireless links results in changing network topologies. Topology Control (TC) aims to preserve network connectivity in ad hoc and mesh networks and an abundance of theoretical results on the effectiveness of TC exist. Practical evaluations o...

A routing metric is a measure used by a routing protocol to select a best path, without a routing metric a protocol will not know which path to use to send a packet. A number of routing metrics exist for WMN, but routing still remains a problem for WMN. The routing metrics have not been compared with QoS parameters. This paper is a work in progress...

Providing unique IP addresses efficiently in ad-hoc networks is still an open research question. Many protocols to address this problem have been proposed. Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) is one of the most important components of IP address auto- configuration protocols. DAD by itself is not an auto configuration protocol but a means of checking...

Body area network (BAN) has the potential to revolutionalize healthcare management by allowing the use of innovative smart sensors for remote diagnosis, treatment and continuous monitoring of a patient's body conditions. However, there are many challenges such as low bandwidth, limited computational power and limited functionality for communication...

Transport Layer protocols (TLP), protocols responsible for connection establishment and ensuring that all data are transmitted from source to target destination safely. TLPs provide QoS in various ways, but we are unable to identify the optimal protocol, since TLPs have not been compared in a consistent manner in previous works. We have designed th...

The importance of wireless ad-hoc networks in community and commercial connectivity cannot be underestimated because of the benefits associated with these networks. Self-organization will minimize the need for manual configuration. In essence, self-organization provides an out-of-the-box functionality such that very little technical expertise is re...

This paper provides an outline of research being conducted to minimize the disruptive effects of device mobility in wireless computational grid networks. The proposed wireless grid framework uses the existing GSM cellular architecture, with emphasis placed on the “location area” concept, to aid in achieving the abovestated goal. This research is mo...

Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC 2009). Swaziland, 30 August-2 September 2009 A routing metric is a measure used by a routing protocol to select a best path, without a routing metric a protocol will not know which path to use to send a packet. A number of routing metrics exist for WMN, but routing still...

Wireless multi-hop networks are not restricted to rural development efforts. They have found uses in the military, industry, as well as in urban areas. The focus of this study is on stationary wireless multi-hop networks whose primary purpose is the provisioning of Internet access using low cost, resource-constrained network nodes. Topology control...