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Chemnitz, August 30th, 2017: The ITG Working Group 5.2.1 did meet in the workshop “Performance Analysis and Optimization of SDN/NFV-based Networks” at the Chemnitz University of Technology. Three of the overall six talks were about different aspects of the optimization of SDN/NFV based networks:
- „A multi-objective heuristic for the optimization of Virtual Network Function chain placement“, A. Grigorjew (Universität Würzburg)
- „Optimum placement of Virtual Network Functions with traffic dependent resource requirements“, A. Timm-Giel (TU Hamburg-Harburg)
- „QoS-driven function placement reducing expenditures in NFV deployments“, P. Stoisavljevic (TU München)
The presentation of Prof. Timm-Giel contained results of the research project VokuS, whereas the other two talks highlighted new potentialities for the optimization of the planning of Virtual Network Functions. Such aspects will have an influence on the future development of planning modules like NETx of TQG it vision GmbH.
Dresden, October 21st , 2016: The 30th FFV-ComNets (www.comnets.de) ComNets Workshop “Mobil- und Telekommunikation” was held at the TU Dresden. ComNets Dresden is new FFV-partner since this year and did arrange the workshop for the very first time. The extraordinary achievements of ComNets Dresden lead by Frank Fitzek in “Novel technologies to enable 5G” are an enrichment of the community. The workshop did essentially focus on such 5G base technologies, with speeches about SDN/NFV, Machine Learning and Network Coding. The VokuS partners TUHH and 7P presented their ongoing work.
As a résumé for requirements for future 5G network planning once more the huge difference compared to former transitions of generations (from 2G to 3G to 4G) became obvious. TQG it vision GmbH will use these findings for the strategic product planning to be able to provide future-proof planning components in the 2020s.
Hamburg, August 31st, 2016: Accompanying to the “Summer School on Performance Evaluation” of the ITG working group 5.2.1 hosted by the Institute of Communication Networks (ComNets) of Hamburg University of Technology, a working group meeting took place. The workshop “Network Performance Analysis and Optimization“consisted of 13 presentations broadly dealing with the subject. The research project VokuS was presented in the talk “Optimize the migration to SDN with respect to costs“. Here Maciej Mühleisen presented the status of this aspect of the project vivid and clearly. Also other presentations had manifold optimization aspects around virtual network functions as topics. Some examples are
- „An optimization model for placement decisions of virtual network functions in data centers wrt. energy consumption and traffic variation“, Tuan Khai Nguyen (TU Chemnitz)
- „Optimum placement of VNF chains with delay bounds under traffic uncertaincies“, Varun S. Reddy (TU Chemnitz)
- „Performance modeling of softwarized network functions using discrete time analysis“, Steffen Gebert (University of Würzburg)
The manifold optimization aspects broaden the view on the big topic “Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)” and therefore also on VokuS. The question arises if the selected optimization aspects of VokuS support network planning in a meaningful and sufficient way. For sure there is much potential beyond VokuS for software driven optimization of planning and operation of VNFs. VokuS will provide an important basis for network planning.
Hamburg, May, 23rd, 2016: The first half of the project ended with a status meeting with participants from TQG, TUHH, 7P AG and the project executing organization AiF GmbH. The partners presented and discussed the current status of their work and the agenda was enriched by the presentation “Quo vadis OSS? The impact of SDN and NFV on solution architectures and network operational processes “ (Christian Schäfer, 7P AG).
The jointly developed framework was presented as well as the results of the working package „Changes in network planning process“. The development of novel planning methods did start with the definition of the planning problem and the mathematical formulation of the problem. Scenarios for energy saving and traffic engineering with theoretical and real network topologies were presented. For the topic “Integration of the network planning and optimization algorithms” the software architecture, the design of the user interface but also new planning functions like the modeling of physical and virtual network functions were presented. Another part was the flexible modeling and integration of processes into a network planning tool.
Moreover administrative issues like the project intermediate report were part of the agenda.
Hamburg, March 9th, 2016: First experiences and insights from the VokuS project were contributed to a white paper of the European Technology Platform "NetWorld2020" by Hamburg University of Technology. NetWorld2020 gathers players of the communications networks sector: industry leaders, innovative SMEs, and leading academic institutions.
The white paper "Service Level Awareness and open multi-service internetworking - Principles and potentials of an evolved Internet ecosystem" gives an indication of future networks and lists major challenges for research and development in this field. This includes real-time end-to-end Quality of Experience (QoE) measurement and cross-domain network optimization to assure and improve QoE. SDN and NFV as well as further developments of those technologies and intelligent algorithms will play a crucial role in achieving that. Such algorithms are developed within the VokuS project.
The document is available here. The public is requested to provide comments on it until the 4th of April 2016. The suggestions will be considered for the final version of the document.
Aachen, March 4th, 2016: The FFV-ComNets (www.comnets.de) did invite for the 29th ComNets Workshop “Mobil- und Telekommunikation” at the RWTH Aachen. Beside awards for extraordinary Master and Bachelor thesis’ representatives of telecommunication industry presented topics around Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN), standardization and OpenSource initiatives. In addition to the presentations demonstrators have been set up to give the audience deeper inside into the research subjects. The VokuS partners TUHH and 7P contributes demonstrators with the topics “Optimal SDN node placement for energy saving in off-peak hours“ and “NFV testbed LTE RAN and EPC“.
There was a consensus concerning the complexity of the overall topic NFV and of derived technological options. A conclusion was that single companies could not proceed on their own but need the common work with research institutes in according projects. Also the development and usage of open source solutions will make an important contribution to the topic.
Heidelberg, February 5th, 2016: The meetings of the ITG working groups 5.2.1 "Traffic Engineering and System architecture" and 5.2.4 "IP and Mobility" took place at NEC Laboratories in Heidelberg. The workshop with the title "Network Virtualization, SDN and beyond" was attended by participants of the telecommunications industry and of German universities. It consisted of 14 speeches which looked at the topic from very different perspectives. The VokuS partners have had the opportunity to present their project and to discuss it with the audience. Following a short introduction TQG it vision GmbH presented changes in the network planning process, originated by the migration to NFV/SDN controlled networks. First results from simulations on basis of optimization algorithms have been presented by TUHH with the speech “Brownfield planning of SDN enabled networks”. For VokuS we gained valuable information from the discussions during the workshop and from the contents of the other presentations.
Hamburg, December 2nd, 2015: Co-operation agreed with 7P-group, a member of the ETSI NFV group. 7P works in the project “NFV & 7P” at a test environment to demonstrating “LTE RAN and EPC” and offers trainings and consulting in NFV. The co-operation focuses on common questions like for instance:
- For which network functions NFV is already used and for which it will be used?
- How will the introduction of NFV/SDN change the processes at network operators?
The latter question also is the topic of the current working package in VokuS and we are very happy and looking forward to the co-operations and exchange with 7P.