arXiv subjects

Katina Kralevska

Publications and source records attributed to Katina Kralevska.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Securing the Management Plane in Intent-based Cellular Networks

IBN is an emerging network management paradigm that allows automated closed-loop control and management of network devices and services. Closed-loop control requires security primitives to avoid intrusive human impact on network policies, posing a serious security challenge. This paper addresses this critical problem by securing the management plane in IBN systems. We propose a novel security framework based on WireGuard that augments the existing standards to secure intent communication between intent stakeholders. The framework guarantees isolation through WireGuard tunnels and provides inherent authentication and access control mechanisms to avoid intrusion in IBN systems. This work contributes to developing secure, efficient, and flexible communication channels within the IBN ecosystem, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of network intents and operational data. Experimental results show the suitability and superiority of WireGuard compared to OpenVPN.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

Knowledge Graph Embedding in Intent-Based Networking

This paper presents a novel approach to network management by integrating intent-based networking (IBN) with knowledge graphs (KGs), creating a more intuitive and efficient pipeline for service orchestration. By mapping high-level business intents onto network configurations using KGs, the system dynamically adapts to network changes and service demands, ensuring optimal performance and resource allocation. We utilize knowledge graph embedding (KGE) to acquire context information from the network and service providers. The KGE model is trained using a custom KG and Gaussian embedding model and maps intents to services via service prediction and intent validation processes. The proposed intent lifecycle enables intent translation and assurance by only deploying validated intents according to network and resource availability. We evaluate the trained model for its efficiency in service mapping and intent validation tasks using simulated environments and extensive experiments. The service prediction and intent verification accuracy greater than 80 percent is achieved for the trained KGE model on a custom service orchestration intent knowledge graph (IKG) based on TMForum's intent common model.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

GRAND Massive Parallel Decoding Framework for Low Latency in Beyond 5G

We propose a massive parallel decoding GRAND framework. The framework introduces two novelties: 1. A likelihood function for $M$-QAM demodulated signals that effectively reduces the symbol error pattern space from $\mathcal{O}(5^{N/\log_2 M})$ down to $\mathcal{O}(4^{N/\log_2 M})$; and 2. A massively parallel matrix-vector multiplication for matrices of size $K\times N$ ($K \leq N$) that performs the multiplication in just $\mathcal{O}(\log_2 N)$ steps. We then apply the proposed GRAND approach to codes and operational modulation techniques used in the current 5G NR standard. Our framework is applicable not just to short codewords but to the full range of codewords from 32 bits up to 1024 bits used in the control channels of 5G NR. We also present simulation results with parity-check matrices of Polar codes with rate $R=1/2$ obtained from the 5G NR universal reliability sequence.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Direct-Conflict Resolution in Intent-Driven Autonomous Networks

As network systems evolve, there is an escalating demand for automated tools to facilitate efficient management and configuration. This paper explores conflict resolution in Intent-Based Network (IBN) management, an innovative approach that holds promise for effective network administration, especially within radio access domain. Nevertheless, when multiple intents are in operation concurrently, conflicts may emerge, presenting a significant issue that remains under-addressed in the current literature. In response to this challenge, our research expands the range of conflict resolution strategies beyond the established Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS), to incorporate the Weighted Nash Bargaining Solution (WNBS), the Kalai-Smorodinsky Bargaining Solution (KSBS), and the Shannon Entropy Bargaining Solution (SEBS). These methods are employed with the objective to identify optimal parameter values, aiming to ensure fairness in conflict resolution. Through simulations, it is demonstrated that distinct antenna tilt values are yielded as the respective solutions for each method. Ultimately, based on Jain Fairness Index, the KSBS is identified as the most equitable method under the given conditions.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2023

Knowledge-based Intent Modeling for Next Generation Cellular Networks

Intent-based networking (IBN) facilitates the representation of consumer expectations in a declarative and domain-independent form. However, mapping intents to service and resource models remains an open challenge. IBN requires handling existing system data in a structured yet flexible structure way. Knowledge graphs provide an efficient conceptual framework for constructing contexts and organizing known information. We utilize knowledge graphs to construct a knowledge-based for modeling of intents in the networking domain. In addition, this work also proposes a knowledge-based intent modeling and processing methodology, extending the standardized intent common model proposed by TM Forum for next-generation cellular networks and services. The proposed knowledge-based IBN approach is demonstrated for next-generation cellular services, validating its potential.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2023

Intent-driven autonomous network and service management in future cellular networks: A structured literature review

Intent-driven networks are an essential stepping stone in the evolution of network and service management towards a truly autonomous paradigm. User centric intents provide an abstracted means of impacting the design, provisioning, deployment and assurance of network infrastructure and services with the help of service level agreements and minimum network capability exposure. The concept of Intent Based Networking (IBN) poses several challenges in terms of the contextual definition of intents, role of different stakeholders, and a generalized architecture. In this review, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-art in IBN including the intent description models, intent lifecycle management, significance of IBN and a generalized architectural framework along with challenges and prospects for IBN in future cellular networks. An analytical study is performed on the data collected from relevant studies primarily focusing on the inter-working of IBN with softwarized networking based on NFV/SDN infrastructures. Critical functions required in the IBN management and service model design are explored with different abstract modeling techniques and a converged architectural framework is proposed. The key findings include: (1) benefits and role of IBN in autonomous networking, (2) improvements needed to integrate intents as fundamental policies for service modeling and network management, (3) need for appropriate representation models for intents in domain agnostic abstract manner, and (4) need to include learning as a fundamental function in autonomous networks. These observations provide the basis for in-depth investigation and standardization efforts for IBN as a fundamental network management paradigm in beyond 5G cellular networks.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2022

Secure Service Implementation with Slice Isolation and WireGuard

Network slicing enables the provision of services for different verticals over a shared infrastructure. Nevertheless, security is still one of the main challenges when sharing resources. In this paper, we study how WireGuard can provide an encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel as a service between network functions in 5G setting. The open source management and orchestration entity deploys and orchestrates the network functions into network services and slices. We create multiple scenarios emulating a real-life cellular network deploying VPN-as-a-Service between the different network functions to secure and isolate network slices. The performance measurements demonstrate from 0.8 Gbps to 2.5 Gbps throughput and below 1ms delay between network functions using WireGuard. The performance evaluation results are aligned with 5G key performance indicators, making WireGuard suited to provide security in slice isolation in future generations of cellular networks.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2022

Mission-Critical Public Safety Networking: An Intent-Driven Service Orchestration Perspective

Intent-based networking (IBN) provides a promising approach for managing networks and orchestrating services in beyond 5G (B5G) deployments using modern service-based architectures. Public safety (PS) services form the basis of keeping society functional, owing to the responsiveness and availability throughout the network. The provisioning of these services requires efficient and agile network management techniques with low-overhead and embedded intelligence. IBN incorporates the service subscribers in a model-driven approach to provision different user-centric services. However, it requires domain-specific and contextual processing of intents for abstracted management of network functions. This work proposes an intent definition for PS and mission critical (MC) services in beyond B5G networks, as well as a processing and orchestration architecture on top of MC push-to-talk (PTT) use case. The simulation results show that MC PTT services adhere to the key performance indicators of access time and mouth-to-ear latency bounded by approximately 250 and 150 milliseconds, respectively, with an additional overhead experienced during the intent processing in the range of 20- 40 milliseconds. This validates the premise of IBN in providing flexible and scalable management and service orchestration solution for PS next generation networks.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Slicing Scheduling for Supporting Critical Traffic in Beyond 5G

One of the most challenging services fifth-generation (5G) mobile network is designed to support, is the critical services in-need of very low latency, and/or high reliability. It is now clear that such critical services will also be at the core of beyond 5G (B5G) networks. While 5G radio design accommodates such supports by introducing more flexibility in timing, how efficiently those services could be scheduled over a shared network with other broadband services remains as a challenge. In this paper, we use network slicing as an enabler for network sharing and propose an optimization framework to schedule resources to critical services via puncturing technique with minimal impact on the regular broadband services. We then thoroughly examine the performance of the framework in terms of throughput and reliability through simulation.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Functional Broadcast Repair of Multiple Partial Failures in Wireless Distributed Storage Systems

We consider a distributed storage system with $n$ nodes, where a user can recover the stored file from any $k$ nodes, and study the problem of repairing $r$ partially failed nodes. We consider \textit{broadcast repair}, that is, $d$ surviving nodes transmit broadcast messages on an error-free wireless channel to the $r$ nodes being repaired, which are then used, together with the surviving data in the local memories of the failed nodes, to recover the lost content. First, we derive the trade-off between the storage capacity and the repair bandwidth for partial repair of multiple failed nodes, based on the cut-set bound for information flow graphs. It is shown that utilizing the broadcast nature of the wireless medium and the surviving contents at the partially failed nodes reduces the repair bandwidth per node significantly. Then, we list a set of invariant conditions that are sufficient for a functional repair code to be feasible. We further propose a scheme for functional repair of multiple failed nodes that satisfies the invariant conditions with high probability, and its extension to the repair of partial failures. The performance of the proposed scheme meets the cut-set bound on all the points on the trade-off curve for all admissible parameters when $k$ is divisible by $r$, while employing linear subpacketization, which is an important practical consideration in the design of distributed storage codes. Unlike random linear codes, which are conventionally used for functional repair of failed nodes, the proposed repair scheme has lower overhead, lower input-output cost, and lower computational complexity during repair.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2021

Transient Performance Modelling of 5G Slicing with Mixed Numerologies for Smart Grid Traffic

Network slicing enabled by fifth generation (5G) systems has the potential to satisfy diversified service requirements from different vertical industries. As a typical vertical industry, smart distribution grid poses new challenges to communication networks. This paper investigates the behavior of network slicing for smart grid applications in 5G radio access networks with heterogeneous traffic. To facilitate network slicing in such a network, we employ different 5G radio access numerologies for two traffic classes which have distinct radio resource and quality of service requirements. Three multi-dimensional Markov models are developed to assess the transient performance of network slicing for resource allocation with and without traffic priority. Through analysis and simulations, we investigate the effects of smart grid protection and control traffic on other types of parallel traffic sessions as well as on radio resource utilization.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Intent-based Network Management and Orchestration for Smart Distribution Grids

5G technology complements the enabling of communication services for different vertical industries such as smart distribution grids. Automation is an integral and necessary part of the power distribution grid operation and management. This paper postulates a framework by which the smart distribution grid can obtain service-oriented communication services using 5G network slicing and intent-based networking (IBN). IBN provides an interface to service users and network stakeholders to cooperate through a high level abstraction model of service provisioning in a network agnostic manner. The automation and adaptability of the distribution grid are facilitated by using the dynamic and closed-loop mechanism of IBN together with network slicing and network function virtualization for network management and orchestration. We identify the automation parts of the power distribution grid and illustrate the intent processing and its inclusion in the definition of network slice instances, service and network configuration models.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Small-Scale 5G Testbeds for Network Slicing Deployment: A Systematic Review

Developing specialized cloud-based and open-source testbeds is a practical approach to investigate network slicing functionalities in the fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. This paper provides a comprehensive review of most of the existing cost-efficient and small-scale testbeds that partially or fully deploy network slicing. First, we present relevant software packages for the three main functional blocks of the ETSI NFV MANO framework and for emulating the access and core network domains. Second, we define primary and secondary design criteria for deploying network slicing testbeds. These design criteria are later used for comparison between the testbeds. Third, we present the state-of-the-art testbeds, including their design objectives, key technologies, network slicing deployment, and experiments. Next, we evaluate the testbeds according to the defined design criteria and present an in-depth summary table. This assessment concludes with the superiority of some of them over the rest and the most dominant software packages satisfying the ETSI NFV MANO framework. Finally, challenges, potential solutions, and future works of network slicing testbeds are discussed.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2020

5G Network Slice Isolation with WireGuard and Open Source MANO: A VPNaaS Proof-of-Concept

The fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks aim to host different types of services on the same physical infrastructure. Network slicing is considered as the key enabler for achieving this goal. Although there is some progress in applying and implementing network slicing in the context of 5G, the security and performance of network slicing still have many open research questions. In this paper, we propose the first OSM-WireGuard framework and its lifecycle. We implement the WireGuard secure network tunneling protocol in a 5G network to provide a VPN-as-a-Service (VPNaaS) functionality for virtualized network functions. We demonstrate that OSM instantiates WireGuard-enabled services up and running in 4 min 26 sec, with potential the initialization time to go down to 2 min 44 sec if the operator prepares images with a pre-installed and up-to-date version of WireGuard before the on-boarding process. We also show that the OSM-WireGuard framework provides considerable enhancement of up to 5.3 times higher network throughput and up to 41% lower latency compared to OpenVPN. The reported results show that the proposed framework is a promising solution for providing traffic isolation with strict latency and throughput requirements.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2020

GDPR Compliance for Blockchain Applications in Healthcare

The transparent and decentralized characteristics associated with blockchain can be both appealing and problematic when applied to a healthcare use-case. As health data is highly sensitive, it is also highly regulated to ensure the privacy of patients. At the same time, access to health data and interoperability is in high demand. Regulatory frameworks such as GDPR and HIPAA are, amongst other objectives, meant to contribute to mitigating the risk of privacy violations in health data. Blockchain features can likely improve interoperability and access control to health data, and at the same time, preserve or even increase, the privacy of patients. Blockchain applications should address compliance with the current regulatory framework to increase real-world feasibility. This exploratory work indicates that published proof-of-concepts in the health domain comply with GDRP, to an extent. Blockchain developers need to make design choices to be compliant with GDPR since currently, none available blockchain platform can show compliance out of the box.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

VerifyMed -- A blockchain platform for transparent trust in virtualized healthcare: Proof-of-concept

Patients living in a digitized world can now interact with medical professionals through online services such as chat applications, video conferencing or indirectly through consulting services. These applications need to tackle several fundamental trust issues: 1. Checking and confirming that the person they are interacting with is a real person; 2. Validating that the healthcare professional has competence within the field in question; and 3. Confirming that the healthcare professional has a valid license to practice. In this paper, we present VerifyMed -- the first proof-of-concept platform, built on Ethereum, for transparently validating the authorization and competence of medical professionals using blockchain technology. Our platform models trust relationships within the healthcare industry to validate professional clinical authorization. Furthermore, it enables a healthcare professional to build a portfolio of real-life work experience and further validates the competence by storing outcome metrics reported by the patients. The extensive realistic simulations show that with our platform, an average cost for creating a smart contract for a treatment and getting it approved is around 1 USD, and the cost for evaluating a treatment is around 50 cents.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

A Cloud-based SDN/NFV Testbed for End-to-End Network Slicing in 4G/5G

Network slicing aims to shape 5G as a flexible, scalable, and demand-oriented network. Research communities deploy small-scale and cost-efficient testbeds in order to evaluate network slicing functionalities. We introduce a novel testbed, called 5GIIK, that provides implementation, management, and orchestration of network slices across all network domains and different access technologies. Our methodology identifies design criteria that are a superset of the features present in other state-of-the-art testbeds and determines appropriate open-source tools for implementing them. 5GIIK is one of the most comprehensive testbeds because it provides additional features and capabilities such as slice provision dynamicity, real-time monitoring of VMs, and VNF-onboarding to different VIMs. We illustrate the potentials of the proposed testbed and present initial results.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2019

Local Voting: A New Distributed Bandwidth Reservation Algorithm for 6TiSCH Networks

The IETF 6TiSCH working group fosters the adaptation of IPv6-based protocols into Internet of Things by introducing the 6TiSCH Operation Sublayer (6top). The 6TiSCH architecture integrates the high reliability and low-energy consumption of IEEE 802.15.4e Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) with IPv6. IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH defines only the communication between nodes through a schedule but it does not specify how the resources are allocated for communication between the nodes in 6TiSCH networks. We propose a distributed algorithm for bandwidth allocation, called Local Voting, that adapts the schedule to the network conditions. The algorithm tries to equalize the link load (defined as the ratio of the queue length plus the new packet arrivals, over the number of allocated cells) through cell reallocation by calculating the number of cells to be added or released by 6top. Simulation results show that equalizing the load throughout 6TiSCH network provides better fairness in terms of load, reduces the queue sizes and packets reach the root faster compared to representative algorithms from the literature. Local Voting combines good delay performance and energy efficiency that are crucial features for Industrial Internet-of-Things applications.

cs.NI↗