In-Network Programmability for Next-Generation personal Cloud service support: The INPUT project Constantinos Vassilakis, PhD Athens, 2/10/2015
Motivation Trend Move functionality and services to the cloud i.e. personal servers, business applications,... From simple storage to full-featured applications now days Personalized applications Why Users need access to applications and data Anytime, anywhere, using different end devices (a PC, a tablet, a Smart TV, a smartphone) Common view synchronized among devices New applications are complex, need of resources (CPU, mem,...) to run that are not available to end devices (e.g. smartphones) Energy consumption is required to be kept low Move to the cloud - Offload and enhance user applications - Support mobility, diverse devices, synchronization, sharing, - Minimize energy demands Concerns - End to end response time - Security
INPUT concept Design a novel infrastructure and paradigm to support Future Internet personal cloud services in a more scalable and sustainable way and with innovative added-value capabilities. Enable next-generation cloud applications to go beyond classical service models (i.e., IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), and even to replace physical Smart Devices (SD), usually placed in users homes (e.g., network attached storage servers, set-top-boxes, video recorders, home automation control units, etc.) or deployed around for monitoring purposes (e.g., sensors), with their virtual images, providing them to users as a Service (SD as a Service SDaaS).
Personal Network as a Service A virtual image is defined to be a software instance that dematerializes a physical network-connected device, and that provides its virtual presence in the network and all its functionalities. Virtual images are meant to realize smarter, always and everywhere accessible, performance-unlimited virtual devices into the cloud. Virtual images can be applied both to fully dematerialized physical devices and provide all their functionalities by the cloud, and to add potentially infinite smartness and capacity to devices with performance- and functionality-constrained hardware platforms. Virtual and physical SDs will be made available to users at any time and at any place by means of virtual cloud-powered Personal Networks, which will constitute an underlying secure and trusted service model (Personal Network as a Service PNaaS). These Personal Networks will provide users with the perception of always being in their home Local Area Network with their own (virtual and physical) SDs, independently from their location.
The INPUT Approach The INPUT project will overcome current limitations in the cloud service design due to the underlying obsolete network paradigms and technologies, by: using the computing and storage capabilities of network appliances to allow users create private clouds in the network between user and data center; moving cloud services much closer to end-users and smart-devices, thus avoiding useless network infrastructure overloading. exploiting the energy consumed in network appliances more efficiently than in traditional cloud computing scenarios; Extending the programmability of network devices to make them able to host cloud service applications, which will cooperate with the ones in users terminals and datacenters to realize the aforementioned cloud services.
Enabling technologies Virtualization Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Software Defined Networks (SDN)
Stakeholders The INPUT services provision involves three main stakeholders: The (Telecom) Network Operator: It is in charge of providing Internet access, accounting and billing to their subscribers and providing the infrastructure/platform for supporting and deploying cloud services. The Service Providers: They are in charge of interacting through standard APIs with the INPUT Platform for defining personal cloud services, their computing and storage requirements and the service level agreement. They can directly create cloud services and/or allow users create/configure their own personal cloud network. The Users: they are the final consumers of the personal cloud services individuals or enterprise customers.
Personal network A Personal Network is a secure and trusted virtual overlay network that is able to interconnect the smart devices of a user with standard L2 protocols and operations equivalent to the ones today available in the user s home network, independently of their location (inside/outside the user s home) or their nature (physical/virtual). Considering the networking-related capabilities, Personal Networks will be realized by virtualising typical Network Functions provided by the user s home gateway, and transferring them into software instances (Net_Functions) running in commodity computing facilities deployed in the Telco Operator edge network. A Net_Function is a single software instance providing data- or control-plane network functionality (e.g., IP forwarding/routing, firewall, deep packet inspection, NAT, DHCP, Protocol Translations, Tunneling, etc.) able to run in commodity servers. A Service_App is a software instance running in a single execution container (e.g., a VM Virtual Machine) providing application level services. Service_Apps are meant to cooperate with applications residing in the users smart devices (User_Apps) and optionally in datacentres (DC_Apps)
The INPUT Architecture
The INPUT Architecture
Functional blocks and interfaces of the INPUT architecture
Main building blocks of the INPUT architecture Network and Service Management (NS-MAN) long-term configuration of the network, administrative configuration of the infrastructure, overlaying cloud services and personal networks, monitoring of the resources utilisation and power consumption of the INPUT infrastructure. reserving/releasing and managing the network and computing resources to properly satisfy bandwidth and quality levels required by the different cloud services instantiated over time. storing historical data received from the NS-OS and the network and computing elements (e.g., network/servers usage, users mobility, Service_Apps computational resources, etc.), for performing data analytics and providing trend estimates
Main building blocks of the INPUT architecture Network and Service Operating System (NS-OS) drives the real-time configuration of the programmable resources and the dynamic instantiation and migration of Service_Apps and Net_Functions according to users locations Consolidation in charge of calculating the optimal re-configuration of the infrastructure (e.g., the topology of the Personal Networks and the matching and action rules of the SDN switches) in terms of network paths/overlays and of the Service_Apps and Net_Functions locations, with the objective to match the required QoE/QoS and the estimated workload/traffic volumes with the minimum possible level of energy consumption Orchestration takes the re-configured set-up coming from the consolidation process as an input and instantiates/migrates Service_Apps and Net_Functions to the identified subset of devices/hardware resources, by changing the network configuration accordingly, without causing any service interruption or performance degradation Monitoring collects performance measurements and alerts, which include network-, App-, and power-aware performance indexes
Use cases Virtualisation of existing personal electronic devices and their content/functionalities Virtualisation of IoT services Replace existing mobile/portable devices with a virtual image of them provided as a service
Use cases Virtualisation of Entertainment Home device functionalities virtualize the physical domestic appliances such as, NAS (Network-Attached Storage), set-top-boxes and PCs, and provide a user with the virtual image of these appliances. In this way, the user will have full access to all of its home entertainment devices and features even when he is not in his physical LAN. Home Management System provide end-users a personal cloud service to monitor, manage and extend home devices and appliances related functions regarding automation, appliances and utilities breakdowns prevention, early detection of anomalies to mitigate impact (damages), and operational control. aims in managing the operation of home appliances by exploiting data from several IoT objects towards addressing (1) operational efficiency, (2) home safety and security, (3) home maintenance (breakdowns management) and (4) in-house comfort level.
Expected Impact of the INPUT Technologies Facilitate the creation of new complex services Provide for reduced CAPEX/OPEX for new services deployment Provide for less sophisticated user devices Reduced cost of ownership for new devices Significant Carbon Footprint Savings Several difficult technical and research problems to be addressed requiring solution in other areas of application as well
The INPUT Consortium
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