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After humans destroy one another’s worlds, what will be left are the jellyfish. At least, this is the suggestion of the biologist Jeremy Jackson, who argues that the synergistic effects of the 6th mass extinction have led to the flourishing of some species — such as jellyfish. Such thriving is almost certainly not what Joseph Beuys had in mind when he argued that we are creating the “total artwork of the future social order.” But what would happen if we held these provocations together: that human auto-destruction is a creation for other worlds, other species … other others? Artworks for Jellyfish collects writings from artists, theorists and scholars of science on the question of how art mediates and mitigates our imagination of the future in the wake of an extinction event — or, to put it a little bit differently, how to make artworks for jellyfish., https://www.librarystack.org/artworks-for-jellyfish-and-other-others/?ref=unknown

Influenced by the success of cloudification of Information Technology (IT) services, 5th Generation (5G) networks are also expected to leverage the benefits of virtualization and network programmability. Doing so will provide the necessary level of automation and flexibility to meet the stringent requirements of 5G services. Multiple orchestration platforms, tailored towards Telco cloud-based deployments, have been released (e.g., CORD, OSM, OPFNV), which facilitate the integration of virtualization and network programmability. However, these platforms are complex software stacks, making their deployment a time-consuming and sometimes challenging task. This paper presents an investigation of possible deployment best practices using the CORD platform as a use-case. The results show a considerable reduction in deployment time (approximately 67%), without an increase in the complexity of the deployment process. Moreover, this paper includes a list of “lessons-learned” from using the CORD platform. These lessons will hopefully help improve future releases of CORD (and similar Telco cloud platforms).

The emergence of widespread cloudification and virtualisation promises increased flexibility, scalability, and programmability for the deployment of services by Vertical Service Providers (VSPs). This cloudification also improves service and network management, reducing the Capital and Operational Expenses (CAPEX, OPEX). A truly cloud-native approach is essential, since 5G will provide a diverse range of services - many requiring stringent performance guarantees while maximising flexibility and agility despite the technological diversity. This paper proposes a workflow based on the principles of build-to-order, Build-Ship-Run, and automation; following the Next Generation Platform as a Service (NGPaaS) vision. Through the concept of Reusable Functional Blocks (RFBs), an enhancement to Virtual Network Functions, this methodology allows a VSP to deploy and manage platforms and services, agnostic to the underlying technologies, protocols, and APIs. To validate the proposed workflow, a use case is also presented herein, which illustrates both the deployment of the underlying platform by the Telco operator and of the services that run on top of it. In this use case, the NGPaaS operator facilitates a VSP to provide Virtual Network Function as a Service (VNFaaS) capabilities for its end customers.

This paper describes how the novel Next Generation Platform-as-a-Service (NGPaaS) framework can facilitate major benefits for Network Operators and Vertical Service Providers (VSPs) who wish to leverage Virtual Network Functions-as-a-Service (VNFaaS) capabilities. Network Operators can benefit by providing an on-demand PaaS with required features for the VSPs, thus generating new revenue streams but with low operational overhead due to the high degree of automation. VSPs can benefit from the PaaS-oriented approach, by being able to flexibly on-board new VNF types and “value-added” service capabilities like monitoring, healing and profiling, to deliver customized service blueprints to meet the needs of their end customers. The paper outlines the design of an early prototype, built on the Open-CORD platform and using industry-standard Virtualised Network Functions (VNFs).

5G is expected to provide high bandwidth and low latency communications, thus allowing Telco operators to provide new services to their end customers. This increase in performance is achieved through the migration of network functions from the core to the edge of the network and facilitated by the flexibility and automation provided by Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). To pave the way to 5G, and simplify the management of 5G deployments a number of SDN/VNF platforms has been developed in the recent years. However deploying and configuring the platforms themselves, is a complex and time consuming task which can act as a barrier to their adoption by Telco operators. This is because Telco Operators strife for fast provisioning times and zero-touch provisioning. Based on this observation, this paper proposes a Build-Ship-Run platform deployment using Central Office Rearchitected as a Datacenter (CORD) as an exemplar platform. The proposed approach is based on the use of compressed Virtual Machine snapshots, which allow preconfigured CORDflavors to be fetched, uncompressed and deployed on demand. Using the proposed workflow, a deployment time seven times better than the raw installation is demonstrated.

The Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigms can provide increased levels of flexibility, automation and programmability to fields related to Cloud and 5G technologies. One field that can benefit greatly from SDN/NFV is that of policy-based network management. Building upon previous work, this paper presents a network policy framework prototype for the ONOS SDN controller. This paper presents an architecture, where the policy manager and the different policy types are disaggregated as different applications (communicating through dedicated REST APIs). This allows for the ad-hoc installation and removal of new policy types to the policy framework, without causing systemwide disruptions. Details of the underlying framework design are provided, together with concrete insight on the network policy prototype implementation. The prototype is then validated through three Proof of Concept (PoC) policy types, a firewall, a NAT and a connectivity policy.

The emergence of widespread cloudification and virtualisation promises increased flexibility, scalability, and programmability for the deployment of services by Vertical Service Providers (VSPs). This cloudification also improves service and network management, reducing the Capital and Operational Expenses (CAPEX, OPEX). A truly cloud-native approach is essential, since 5G will provide a diverse range of services - many requiring stringent performance guarantees while maximising flexibility and agility despite the technological diversity. This paper proposes a workflow based on the principles of build-to-order, Build-Ship-Run, and automation; following the Next Generation Platform as a Service (NGPaaS) vision. Through the concept of Reusable Functional Blocks (RFBs), an enhancement to Virtual Network Functions, this methodology allows a VSP to deploy and manage platforms and services, agnostic to the underlying technologies, protocols, and APIs. To validate the proposed workflow, a use case is also presented herein, which illustrates both the deployment of the underlying platform by the Telco operator and of the services that run on top of it. In this use case, the NGPaaS operator facilitates a VSP to provide Virtual Network Function as a Service (VNFaaS) capabilities for its end customers.

This paper presents an analysis of requirements to Software Defined Network (SDN) Controllers (SDNC), from the point of view of the Telco’s Next Generation Platform as a Service (NGPaaS) functional and architectural needs. Numerous requirements have been identified, which can be grouped in 4 categories: domain-based, modularity-based, related to the SDN and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) integration and finally policy-based. These requirements are later mapped into the ONOS SDN controller, with the scope of identifying possible gaps and points of improvement.

5G standard emerges at a particular time in technology history when cloud transforms deeply almost all industries and services: it becomes obvious that innovations have to be made cloud-native for being successful. 5G must become the ubiquitous fabric blending universal connectivity (to humans, robots, sensors...) with cloud versatility and scalability. For realizing this vision, another model than laaS must be adopted, the Platform as a Service (PaaS), which should be built to support telco-grade requirements and combine all sort of third-party applications. These are the core objectives of the Next Generation Platform as a Service (NGPaaS) project, a H2020 5G PPP Phase 2 project. The paper presents the project fundamentals, its architectural proposal and most relevant features

Platform-As-A-Service (PaaS) systems offer customers a rich environment in which to build, deploy, and run applications. Today's PaaS offerings are tailored mainly to the needs of web and mobile applications developers, and involve a fairly rigid stack of components and features. The vision of the H2020 5GPPP Phase 2 Next Generation Platform-as-a-Service (NGPaaS) project is to enable "build-to-order" customized PaaSes, tailored to the needs of a wide range of use cases with telco-grade 5G characteristics. This paper sets out the salient and innovative features of NGPaaS and explores the impacts on Operational Support Systems and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS), moving from fixed centralized stacks to a much more flexible and modular distributed architecture.

In the recent years more and more existing services have moved from local execution environments into the cloud. In addition, new cloud-based services are emerging, which are characterized by very stringent delay requirements. This trend puts a stress in the existing monolithic architecture of Data Center Networks (DCN), thus creating the need to evolve them. Traffic Engineering (TE) has long been the way of attacking this problem, but as with DCN, needs to evolve by encompassing new technologies and paradigms. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of current DCN operational and TE techniques focusing on their limitations. Then, it highlights the benefits of incorporating the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm to address these limitations. Furthermore, it illustrates two methodologies and addresses the scalability aspect of DCN-oriented TE, network and service testing, by presenting a hybrid physical-simulated SDN enabled testbed for TE studies.

This prototype allows Service Providers to define topology-wide and SDN-based (ONOS) network policies, by means of abstracting the underlying ONOS implementation and the use of generic interfaces. This prototype disaggregates the policy manager and the policies as different ONOS apps that communicate through REST, allowing the addition of new policy types without affecting the policy manager. Currently, 3 policy types are supported: Firewall, NAT and Connectivity.

In an increasingly interconnected world, new opportunities for telecom-based services are emerging. Innovative applications profit from cloud versatility and scalability, but require a platform to combine the optimized 5G network fabric with the advancements in the domain of cloud computing, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In this multi-domain context, we find that available service platforms are lagging, because they tend to be tightly coupled to a constrained set of technologies. In practice, we need the flexibility to deploy different microservices over a heterogeneous range of infrastructure types, aggregating various virtualization, orchestration and control mechanisms. Moreover, the integration of the service requires collaboration among a wide mix of actors (e.g. developers, operators, hardware/software vendors, infrastructure/service providers or vertical integrators). We propose a next-generation Platform-asa-Service (NGPaaS), devised as a modular framework for the development and operation of network services, while targeting a high degree of both customization and automation. The presented architecture is built around a workflow-based orchestrator which coordinates custom-built tasks across a tailored group of specialized infrastructure or platforms. We also explain how NGPaaS enhances DevOps-principles, to achieve a more efficient integration process across the many isolated administrative domains in the modern telco landscape.

Platform-As-A-Service (PaaS) systems offer customers a rich environment in which to build, deploy, and run applications. Today’s PaaS offerings are tailored mainly to the needs of web and mobile applications developers, and involve a fairly rigid stack of components and features. The vision of the H2020 5GPPP Phase 2 Next Generation Platform-as-a-Service (NGPaaS) project is to enable “build-to-order” customized PaaSes, tailored to the needs of a wide range of use cases with telcograde 5G characteristics. This paper sets out the salient and innovative features of NGPaaS and explores the impacts on Operational Support Systems and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS), moving from fixed centralized stacks to a much more flexible and modular distributed architecture.

The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model, allows service providers to build and deploy their services following streamlined work-flows. However, platforms deployed through the PaaS model can be very diverse in terms of technologies and involved subsystems (e.g. infrastructure, orchestration). Thus, the means for deploying and managing a service can significantly vary depending on the deployed platform. To address this issue, this paper proposes a policy-based framework designed for the Next Generation Platform-as-a-Service (NGPaaS). This framework allows service providers to define platform-wide and technology-agnostic policies to NGPaaS, by means of abstraction of the underlying platforms and the use of generic interfaces. The paper also presents a specific use case for the proposed framework, which targets network-oriented policies.

The forwarding rules, used by the legacy and SDN network devices to perform routing/forwarding decisions, are generally stored in Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) modules, which offer constant look-up times, but have limited capacity, due to their high capital and operational costs, high power consumption and high silicon footprint. To counter this limitation, some commercial switches offer both, hardware and software flow table implementations, termed hybrid flow table architecture in this paper. The software-based tables are stored in non-TCAM memory modules, which offer higher capacity, but with slower lookup times. In addition, these memory modules are limited in terms of how many requests they can serve per time unit. Thus, exceeding this threshold will lead to packet loss in the network. This paper proposes a novel placement algorithm, which dynamically decides whether a new flow rule should be placed in a hardware (expensive) or a software (cheap) table. The placement decisions are based on a number of criteria with the goal to increase the utilization of the software-based table, without introducing performance degradation in the network in terms of significant delay and packet loss. The performance of the placement algorithm was evaluated through experimental measurements in a testbed, which comprises a hybrid SDN switch, a server performing traffic generation and a server hosting the SDN controller. The results indicate that, by limiting the maximum allowed processing capacity of the software table, the number of accommodated flows is significantly increased, while bounding any excessive delays and avoiding packet loss.

5G standard emerges at a particular time in technology history when cloud transforms deeply almost all industries and services: it becomes obvious that innovations have to be made cloud-native for being successful. 5G must become the ubiquitous fabric blending universal connectivity (to humans, robots, sensors…) with cloud versatility and scalability. For realizing this vision, another model than IaaS must be adopted, the Platform as a Service (PaaS), which should be built to support telco-grade requirements and combine all sort of third-party applications. These are the core objectives of the Next Generation Platform as a Service (NGPaaS) project, a H2020 5G PPP Phase 2 project. The paper presents the project fundamentals, its architectural proposal and most relevant features.

Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) can provide deterministic traffic behavior over Ethernet networks, for time sensitive traffic, whilst also bound the delay/jitter. To do so, the IEEE TSN working group introduced a network-wide transmission port scheduling mechanism. The duration of this schedule is directly related with the delay; hence reducing it can be beneficial within the TSN paradigm. This paper investigates the effects of port congestion, in the duration of the network wide schedule. A congested port can make scheduling more complex, leading to longer network-wide schedules. To verify this, the same set of experiments was repeated, with and without considering port congestion during path allocation. The computed paths were given as input to an implementation of the shifting bottleneck heuristic algorithm. The shifting bottleneck heuristic, computed the network-wide gating schedule. The results show that with port congestion as a metric during path allocation the duration of the gating schedule in multipath networks can be reduced up to 26%.

A challenge in the adoption of the OpenFlow (OF)-based SDN paradigm is related to the limited number of OF rules supported by the network devices. The technology used to implement the OF rules is TCAM, which is expensive and power demanding. Due to this, the network devices are either very costly or they can support a very limited number of OF rules. One way to cope with this limitation, is to perform the same logic but with fewer OF rules in the devices. As a demonstration of this operational strategy, the current paper proposes a service for traffic flow aggregation which reduces the number of OF rules needed in the network devices, without impacting the control plane logic. The proposed traffic flow aggregation service is tested on a set of topologies specific to the backhaul network, since they aggregate a large amount of traffic flows. The results illustrate significant reductions in the number of OF rules in network devices, thus a lower demand on TCAM capacity.