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Computer Networks Virtualization Cost Effective and Distance Learning Achievement
Abstract
Abstract- in the curricula of higher education faculties, computer networking is a main topic in computer Science courses. Previous methods of teaching a subject like Com-puter Networks has consisted of a face to face proposal, high cost labs and static and complex configuration of real net-working devices restricted by in location attendance for ex-periment purposes and in lab work.
With computer networks virtualization, Students and re-searchers are allowed to do tests on real world networking configuration scenarios and to configure various and com-plex network scenarios by configuring virtualized equip-ments, such as routers and switches, through virtual con-soles and Network virtualization and simulation tools .
In this paper an evaluation of the concept of computer net-works virtualization and Software Defined Networks is con-ducted which can be used by the students to improve the learning process of computer networks subject in engineer-ing studies. Emulating the same physical networks as in the laboratory, at home or remotely from anywhere with more flexibility and lower cost, all that through emulation tools installed on students computers.
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The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution has major impacts on the network & Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. As IT in the past decade, network virtualization is simultaneously on its way with for instance Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). NFV and SDN are approaches enhancing the infrastructure agility thus facilitating the design, delivery and operation of network services in a dynamic and scalable manner. IoT will push the infrastructure to its limit with numerous and diverse requirements to fulfill, we therefore believe that the agility brought by the combination of NFV and SDN is essential to face the IoT revolution. In this article, we first highlight some IoT challenges that the network & IT infrastructure will face. The NFV and SDN benefits are presented from a network operator point of view. Following a description of the IoT ecosystem and a recall of some of the IoT stakeholders expectations, a new multi-layered IoT architecture involving SDN and NFV and based upon network & IT resources is put forward. Finally, the article illustrates how the proposed architecture is able to cope with the identified IoT challenges.
Designing educational resources allow students to modify their learning process. In particular, on-line and downloadable educational resources have been successfully used in engineering education the last years [1]. Usually, these resources are free and accessible from web. In addition, they are designed and developed by lecturers and used by their students. But, they are rarely developed by students in order to be used by other students. In this work-in-progress, lecturers and students are working together to implement educational resources, which can be used by students to improve the learning process of computer networks subject in engineering studies. In particular, network topologies to model LAN (Local Area Network) and MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) are virtualized in order to simulate the behavior of the links and nodes when they are interconnected with different physical and logical design.
Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) represents an innovative approach in the area of computer networks, since they propose a new model to control forwarding and routing data packets that navigate the World Wide Web. Since research on this topic is still in progress, there are not many devices such as routers and switches that implement SDN functionalities; moreover, the existing ones are very expensive. Thus, in order to make researchers able to do experiments and to test novel features of this new paradigm in practice at a low financial cost, one solution is to use virtual network emulators. As a result, this paper focuses on study and evaluation of SDN emulation tool called Mininet. Initial tests suggested that the capacity of rapid and simplified prototyping, the ensuring applicability, the possibility of sharing results and tools at zero cost are positive factors that help scientists boost their researches despite the limitations of the tool in relation to the performance fidelity between the simulated and the real environment. After presenting some concepts of this paradigm, the purpose of its appearance, its elements and how it works, some net prototypes are created to better understand the Mininet tool and an evaluation is done to demonstrate its advantages and disadvantages.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that promises to
change the state of affairs of current networks, by breaking vertical
integration, separating the network's control logic from the underlying routers
and switches, promoting (logical) centralization of network control, and
introducing the ability to program the network. The separation of concerns
introduced between the definition of network policies, their implementation in
switching hardware, and the forwarding of traffic, is key to the desired
flexibility: by breaking the network control problem into tractable pieces, SDN
makes it easier to create and introduce new abstractions in networking,
simplifying network management and facilitating network evolution. Today, SDN
is both a hot research topic and a concept gaining wide acceptance in industry,
which justifies the comprehensive survey presented in this paper. We start by
introducing the motivation for SDN, explain its main concepts and how it
differs from traditional networking. Next, we present the key building blocks
of an SDN infrastructure using a bottom-up, layered approach. We provide an
in-depth analysis of the hardware infrastructure, southbound and northbounds
APIs, network virtualization layers, network operating systems, network
programming languages, and management applications. We also look at cross-layer
problems such as debugging and troubleshooting. In an effort to anticipate the
future evolution of this new paradigm, we discuss the main ongoing research
efforts and challenges of SDN. In particular, we address the design of switches
and control platforms -- with a focus on aspects such as resiliency,
scalability, performance, security and dependability -- as well as new
opportunities for carrier transport networks and cloud providers. Last but not
least, we analyze the position of SDN as a key enabler of a software-defined
environment.
Learning and teaching processes are continually changing. Therefore, the design of learning technologies has gained the interest of educators and educational institutions from secondary school level to higher education. This paper describes the successful use in education of social learning technologies and virtual laboratories designed by the authors, as well as videos developed by the students. These tools, combined with other open educational resources that are based on a blendedlearning methodology, have been employed to teach the subject of Computer Networks.Wehave not only verified that the application of Open Educational Resources (OERs) into the learning process leads to a significantly improvement of the assessments, but also that the combination of several OERs enhances their effectiveness. These results are supported first by a study of both students’ opinion and students’ behaviour over five academic years, and, secondly, by a correlation analysis between the use of OERs and the grades obtained by students.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm that separates the network control plane from the data forwarding plane with the promise to dramatically improve network resource utilization, simplify network management, reduce operating costs and promote innovation and evolution. Although traffic engineering techniques have been widely exploited for ATM and IP/MPLS networks for performance
optimization in the past, the unique features of Software Defined Networking require novel traffic engineering solutions that can exploit the global network view, network status, and flow patterns/characteristics in order to achieve better traffic control and management. This article discusses the state-of-the-art in traffic engineering for SDNs with a specific focus on four thrusts including flow management, fault tolerance, topology update, and
traffic c analysis/characterization. Open and challenging research issues for SDN traffic engineering solutions are discussed in detail.
In this paper an evaluation of a Software Defined Networks emulation tool called Mininet is conducted. Tests were conducted to study the performance of Mininet in emulating software defined network layers which are; the network infrastructure layer, southbound (OpenFlow Protocol) interface layer, software defined network’s centralized controller platform layer, and finally the real- time software defined network applications and northbound interface layer. In addition, Mininnet limitations related to the simulation environment, resource capabilities are tested. To evaluate the later, the scalability of Mininet in term of creating many topologies is tested with varying number of nodes and two different environment scenarios. Results show that the simulation environment has a remarkable effect on the required time for building a topology, for instance, the powerful resources scenario needed only 0.19 sec, whereas, 5.611 sec were needed when the resources were less. However, the required time were increased in both scenarios when the number of nodes was increased into 242.842 and 3718.117 sec for the powerful and less capabilities resources respectively.
Software Defined Networks discusses the historical networking environment that gave rise to SDN, as well as the latest advances in SDN technology. The book gives you the state of the art knowledge needed for successful deployment of an SDN, including: • How to explain to the non-technical business decision makers in your organization the potential benefits, as well as the risks, in shifting parts of a network to the SDN model • How to make intelligent decisions about when to integrate SDN technologies in a network • How to decide if your organization should be developing its own SDN applications or looking to acquire these from an outside vendor • How to accelerate the ability to develop your own SDN application, be it entirely novel or a more efficient approach to a long-standing problem • Discusses the evolution of the switch platforms that enable SDN • Addresses when to integrate SDN technologies in a network • Provides an overview of sample SDN applications relevant to different industries • Includes practical examples of how to write SDN applications.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) brings-in a paradigm shift in the network design, management and control through its disruptive idea of separating the control plane out of the embedded switching systems. This allows better centralization as multiple network elements can be controlled by a single SDN controller. The network management is also expected to be more simplified as the network management system (NMS) can contact the SDN controller instead of multiple network elements. However, the traditional NMS has to undergo certain changes to achieve the above. Initial part of this paper focuses on those challenges and the approaches for mitigating them. Further, beyond the normal functionalities the current NMSs does, SDN opens up wide opportunities in terms of flexibility and programmability. The paper attempts to bring out those innovation possibilities as well. Finally, combining the current and future requirements, this paper defines the characteristics of a futuristic NMS over SDN. Attempt has also been made to weigh those characteristics and define an approach to place them on a functionality map.
In this paper, we show how to enable Information- Centric Networking (ICN) on existing IP networks, such as ISP or data center networks, using Software-Defined Networking (SDN) functions and control. We describe a mechanism that (i) enables addressing and transfer through non-SDN controlled networks (i. e., the Internet), (ii) allows to identify ICN requests and responses, (iii) decouples forwarding from the object name, (iv) requires neither new or extended network/L3 and transport/L4 protocols nor changes of client and server OS, and (v) supports aggregation of routes inside the SDN controlled network. In addition, the proposed solution is agnostic of the specific ICN protocol in use, and does not require all network elements to be SDN-enabled. It supports advanced ICN routing features like request aggregation and forking, as well as loadbalancing, traffic engineering, and explicit path steering (e. g., through ICN caches). We present the design as well as our first implementation of the proposed scheme-based on the Trema OpenFlow controller-framework and CCNx-along with initial performance measurements showing the feasibility of our approach.
OpenFlow is currently the most commonly deployed Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology. SDN consists of decoupling the control and data planes of a network. A software-based controller is responsible for managing the forwarding information of one or more switches; the hardware only handles the forwarding of traffic according to the rules set by the controller. OpenFlow is an SDN technology proposed to standardize the way that a controller communicates with network devices in an SDN architecture. It was proposed to enable researchers to test new ideas in a production environment. OpenFlow provides a specification to migrate the control logic from a switch into the controller. It also defines a protocol for the communication between the controller and the switches.
As discussed in this survey paper, OpenFlow-based architectures have specific capabilities that can be exploited by researchers to experiment with new ideas and test novel applications. These capabilities include software-based traffic analysis, centralized control, dynamic updating of forwarding rules and flow abstraction. OpenFlow-based applications have been proposed to ease the configuration of a network, to simplify network management and to add security features, to virtualize networks and data centers and to deploy mobile systems. These applications run on top of networking operating systems such as Nox, Beacon, Maestro, Floodlight, Trema or Node.Flow. Larger scale OpenFlow infrastructures have been deployed to allow the research community to run experiments and test their applications in more realistic scenarios. Also, studies have measured the performance of OpenFlow networks through modelling and experimentation.We describe the challenges facing the large scale deployment of OpenFlow-based networks and we discuss future research directions of this technology.
Recent advances of software defined networking and optical switching technology make it possible to program the network stack all the way from physical topology to flow level traffic control. In this paper, we leverage the combination of SDN controller with optical switching to explore the tight integration of application and network control. We particularly study the run-time network configuration for big data applications to jointly optimize application performance and network utilization. We use Hadoop as an example to discuss the integrated network control architecture, job scheduling, topology and routing configuration mechanisms for Hadoop jobs. Our analysis suggests that such an integrated control has great potential to improve application performance with relatively small configuration overhead. We believe our study shows early promise of achieving the long-term goal of tight network and application integration using SDN.
Mininet is a system for rapidly prototyping large networks on the constrained resources of a single laptop. The lightweight approach of using OS-level virtualization features, including processes and network namespaces, allows it to scale to hundreds of nodes. Experiences with our initial implementation suggest that the ability to run, poke, and debug in real time represents a qualitative change in workflow. We share supporting case studies culled from over 100 users, at 18 institutions, who have developed Software-Defined Networks (SDN). Ultimately, we think the greatest value of Mininet will be supporting collaborative network research, by enabling self-contained SDN prototypes which anyone with a PC can download, run, evaluate, explore, tweak, and build upon.
Software-Defined Networking: The New Norm for Networks
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