Special Issue "QoS in Wired and Wireless IP Networks"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Fernando Cerdán
Department of Information Technologies and Communications, Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Antiguo Cuartel de Antigones (Campus Muralla del Mar), Plaza del Hospital 1, 30202 Cartagena, Spain
Website: http://www.tic.upct.es/fernando.cerdan/
E-Mail:
Interests: QoS in wired and wireless IP networks; deployment of ubiquitous services and applications; engineering education

Dear Colleagues,

Today, QoS is undoubtedly a key element in any packet network technology. Despite of important advances in QoS in communication networks, IP QoS is still an issue that challenges the scientific community. Current networks are deeply heterogeneous as well as future networks. The IP protocol, the main piece of Internet, plays a decisive role, since has been chosen to provide the interconnection framework among the multiple existing and emerging technologies. QoS requires a study end to end by access networks and their interconnections. Service convergence and integration needs a network able to match user contracts with traffic control and traffic management in the global IP network, even when the user moves changing the access technology. Apart from original papers in basic research for providing IP end to end QoS over wired and wireless networks, this special issue also will pay special attention to papers providing studies on efficiently support applications such as voice over IP (VoIP), video streaming, music downloading and many others, and studies devoted to performance evaluation on QoS architectures for emerging networks such as IPTV, body networks and wearable networks.

Prof. Dr. Fernando Cerdán
Guest Editor

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to futureinternet@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Internet is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first few issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

to be added soon

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Experimental Evaluation of IP Multimedia Traffic over a Wimax Testbed
Author: Fernando Cerdan

Type of Paper: Article
Title: QoS Provisioning Techniques for Future Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) Access Networks
Authors: Martin Maier and Navid Ghazisaidi
Affiliation: Optical Zeitgeist Laboratory, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) - ÉMT 800, de la Gauchetière Ouest, Montréal, QC, H5A 1K6, Canada; E-Mail: maier@emt.inrs.ca
Abstract: to be added

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Anticipation of traffic demands to guarantee QoS in wavelength-switched, all-optical networks
Author: Carolina Pinart
Affiliation: Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia, Building B4 - Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss 7, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain; E-Mail: carolina.pinart@cttc.cat
Abstract: Traffic in the network IP backbone is expected to grow above a few Tbit/s in 2020. To cope with this, operators are moving to next generation network based architectures, where IP is the convergence layer for all services. On the other hand, the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of future applications encompass the individualization of services and stricter quality parameter such as latency, jitter or capacity. In other words, future optical networks not only will transport more IP data, but also with differentiated QoS requirements and traffic patterns. Finally, some emerging applications, e.g., the Grid, need greater flexibility in the usage of network resources, which involves establishing and releasing connections as if they were virtualized resources that can be controlled by other elements or layers. In this context, traffic-driven lightpath provisioning arises as a very interesting candidate solution to solve the above challenges. This work reviews the concepts of selfmanaged optical networks, service plane, elephant flows and cooperation between the IP and optical layers. Then, it relates them with one another to propose a lightpath-provisioning scheme, residing in the service management layer, which shall be capable of offering flowaware networking in the sense that traffic demands will be anticipated in a suitable way to guarantee QoS in the scenario of wavelengthswitched, all-optical networks.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Deficit Round Robin with Fragmentation Scheduling to Achieve Generalized Weighted Fairness for Resource Allocation in IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX Networks
Authors: Chakchai So-In, Raj Jain and Abdel-Karim Al Tamimi
Affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130 USA; E-mail: jain@cse.wustl.edu
Abstract: Deficit Round Robin (DRR) is a fair packet-based scheduling discipline commonly used in wired networks where link capacities do not change with time. However, in wireless networks, especially wireless broadband networks, i.e., IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX, the resource is allocated per Mobile WiMAX frame. To achieve full frame utilization, Mobile WiMAX allows packets to be fragmented. Due to a high variation in wireless channel conditions, the link/channel capacity can change over time and location. These three considerations violate the packet-based service concept for DRR. Therefore, we introduce the Deficit Round Robin with Fragmentation (DRRF) to allocate resources per Mobile WiMAX frame in a fair manner by allowing for varying link capacity and for transmitting fragmented packets. Similar to DRR and General Processor Sharing (GPS), DRRF achieves perfect fairness. DRRF results in a higher throughput than DRR while causing less overhead than GPS. In addition, in Mobile WiMAX, the QoS offered by service providers is associated with the price paid. This is similar to a cellular phone system; the users may be required to pay air-time charges. Hence, we have also formalized the Generalized Weighted Fairness (GWF) criterion which equalizes the weighted sum of service time units or slots, temporal fairness, and transmitted bytes, throughput fairness, for customers who are in poor channel condition or at a far distance versus for those who are with near the base stations or with good channel condition. We use DRRF to demonstrate the application of GWF. These fairness criteria are basically used to satisfy a basic requirement for resource allocation especially for non real-time traffic. Therefore, we also extend DRRF to support other QoS requirements, such as minimum reserved traffic rate, maximum sustained traffic rate, and traffic priority. For real-time traffic, i.e., video traffic, we demonstrate the effect of DRRF with deadline constraint and Earliest Deadline First (EDF). The results show DRRF outperforms EDF and maintains fairness under overload scenario.
Keywords: Deficit Round Robin; Fragmentation; DRRF; Temporal Fairness, Throughput Fairness; Generalized Weighted Fairness; GWF; WiMAX; IEEE 802.16; Mobile WiMAX; IEEE 802.16e; Scheduling; Resource Allocation; QoS; Fairness; Earliest Deadline First; EDF

Type of Paper: Article
Title: QoS Management in Hybrid Optical Access Networks
Authors: Alessandro Valenti (1), Francesco Matera (1), Marco Giuntini (1), Giorgio Tosi Beleffi (2), Angelo Coiro (3)
Affiliation: (1) Fondazione Ugo Bordoni via B. Castiglione 59, 00142 Rome; E-mail: avalenti@fub.it
(2) Istituto Superiore delle Comunicazioni e delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione
(3) University of Rome “La Sapienza”, INFOCOM Dept, via Cavour 256, 00184 Rome, Italy
Abstract: In this work, we propose to manage Quality of Service by means of the Virtual Private LAN Service technique. We implement VPLS in a core-metro and access networks; access networks contains fibre, twisted pair and radio access architectures. The tests were carried out in the experimental GMPLS test bed with GbE core routers linked with long (tens of kilometers) GbE G.652 fiber links. The access part consists of Ethernet Passive Optical Network and an ADSL2+ system. Furthermore, WIMAX tests were carried out by means of OPNET code. The results show that by means of the combination of VPLS technique, that allows us to define End to End logical paths, it is possible to assure bandwidth and QoS also in accesses with a capacity bottleneck.
Keywords: VPLS, GMPLS, VPN, GbE, router, ADSL2+

Type of Paper: Review Paper
Title: A Survey of QoS Multicast in Ad hoc Networks
Authors: Viet Do Thi Minh, Lars Landmark, and Øivind Kure
Affiliation: Q2S, NTNU, Norway; E-mail: okure@unik.no
Abstract: This survey on QoS in multicast ad hoc networks use a framework based on the mechanisms in three important elements; resource estimations, multicast tree building and multicast routing. Our contribution is an exploration of the design space and identification of areas that have not fully explored.
We discuss the design space of central mechanisms and classify proposed QoS multicast schemes according to the mechanisms used. In addition, the scemes are also classified according the scenario they primarily were designed for, and evaluated for Furthermore, it identifies issues, mechanisms, and scenarios which have not been fully investigated in existing works. The paper benefits readers in the way that it provides coherent understanding of design principles, conceptual operation, and evaluated scenarios of schemes designed for QoS multicast application in MANETs. Last, it outlines new areas for future research in this field.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Dynamic Resource Allocation and QoS Control Capabilities in Japanese Academic Backbone Network
Authors: Shigeo Urushidani, Kensuke Fukuda, Michihiro Koibuchi, Motonori Nakamura, Shunji Abe, Yusheng Ji, Michihiro Aoki, and Shigeki Yamada
Affiliation: National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-8430, Japan; E-Mail: urushi@nii.ac.jp
Abstract: This paper describes dynamic resource allocation and QoS control capabilities in the Japanese academic backbone network, called SINET3, which accommodates a variety of academic applications requiring different transfer properties such as bandwidth and quality of service.
Some of leading-edge applications need assured huge end-to-end bandwidths between sites, and some of mission-critical applications or video-based applications need priority-based QoS control. The paper presents hybrid QoS control capabilities in our real network, using next-generation SDH devices, IP/MPLS routers, and a bandwidth-on-demand server, and shows some evaluations of the performance of the capabilities.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Requirement-driven Design and Verification of Functionalities in a Marketplace-based Virtualization Environment.
Authors: Stylianos Georgoulas, Klaus Moessner, Mehrdad Dianati and Rahim Tafazolli.
Affiliation: Centre for Communication Systems Research, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; E-mail: s.georgoulas@surrey.ac.uk.
Abstract: Network virtualization has been receiving steadily increasing interest during the past few years as an approach capable of helping to overcome the limitations of the current Internet in terms of Quality of Service support. This is done by enabling the construction of highly flexible and dynamic network configurations; these are configurations able to support on-demand applications and services with different and changing Quality of Service requirements. The underlying concept is to intelligently ‘slice’ and abstract physical network resources of heterogeneous nature so that they finally appear “homogeneous” within each individual virtual network implementation in terms of management, control, and Quality of Service support. This heterogeneity at the physical level can, however, cause mismatches and incompatibilities that need to be accounted for. In this article we first present a generic marketplace-based framework for efficiently acquiring and managing the physical resources to be used in virtual network implementations. We identify the entities and the roles involved in this framework and we show the benefits it can bring to network virtualization. We then present the results of our initial study on how Architecture Description Languages can be used within this framework in order to enable “on-the-fly” validation of the desired properties of virtual networks during their design phase so as to detect potential design flaws. We show that the use of Architecture Description Languages is inline with the operations and roles of the entities in the marketplace-based framework and that they can act as a complementary design tool to traffic engineering tools. This is due to their ability to express, capture and error check against design objectives, which may not be easily expressed through traffic engineering formulas and optimizations; however, if not met, they can hinder the proper operation of virtual networks and, ultimately, their ability to support Quality of Service after their actual deployment.
Keywords: Architecture Description Languages; Network Virtualization; Quality of Service, Marketplace-based Resource Management.