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Entanglement-based quantum networks can provide unconditionally secure communication by distributing entangled pairs between distant end nodes. To achieve end-to-end entanglement distribution, multiple operations of entanglement swapping in a quantum repeater chain are always required. However, due to the non-determinism of entanglement swapping caused by imperfect physical devices, the execution pattern of swapping operations has a direct impact on the performance of entanglement distribution, which can be categorized into an entanglement access control (EAC) problem. In this article, we attribute the EAC problem to two aspects: the matching optimization within quantum nodes, and the swapping conflict avoidance between quantum nodes. Accordingly, we propose an asynchronous entanglement distribution protocol which contains a custom weighted maximum matching algorithm, and a reliable signaling interaction mechanism to avoid a swapping conflict, respectively. Based on the proposed protocol, quantum repeaters autonomously decide their behaviors and spontaneously construct the end-to-end entangled pairs asynchronously. Simulation results show that our protocol can significantly improve the entanglement distribution rate and fidelity of end-to-end entangled pairs while simplifying the deployment and management process of the quantum networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Named Data Networking (NDN) architectural features, including multicast data delivery, stateful forwarding, and in-network data caching, have shown promise for applications such as video streaming and file sharing. However, collaborative applications, requiring multi-producer participation, introduce new NDN design challenges. in this article, we highlight these challenges in the context of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and one of its most widely-used deployments for NTP server discovery, the NTP pool project. We discuss the design requirements for the support of NTP and NTP pool and present general directions for the design of a time synchronization protocol over NDN, called Named Data Networking Time Protocol (NDNTP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosion of Internet of Things (IoT) applications makes the existing network structure insufficient because it is split by multiple non-cooperative operators, does not scale with the future development of IoT, and calls for novel networking concepts and protocols. The need for multi-operator IoT paradigms poses some unprecedented challenges, including trust considerations. To enable a multi-operator network without shared authentication, we propose a trustworthy grant-free IoT access protocol named Hash Access by leveraging a blockchain radio access network (B-RAN) architecture. B-RAN re-organizes multiple individual radio access networks into a joint multi-operator network based on a blockchain. B-RAN can establish trust among initially trustless operators and efficiently utilize resources across networks, matching and creating values for multiple participants. Furthermore, to mitigate the loss of network efficiency caused by selfish behavior among untrustworthy IoT devices, the proposed protocol can induce IoT devices to follow an access rule and control their data traffic. The proposed framework unifies the IoT access and the underlying B-RAN to reduce confirmation delays in traditional blockchains significantly. Numerical experiments illustrate the performance edge for the B-RAN-enabled Hash Access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-channel cognitive radio ad hoc networks (CRAHNs) and information-centric networking (ICN) will be indispensable for enabling envisioned multimedia-based smart services within the umbrella of smart cities. Cognitive radios enable the efficient and opportunistic use of spectrum bands by using vacant licensed channels, whereas information- centric networking improves content distribution by decoupling producers and consumers. In this work, we discuss the design of information-centric cognitive radio-based networking for multimedia- based applications in smart cities. We examine the potential of the joint design of CRAHNs and ICN, and thoroughly review fundamental aspects and challenges of CR and ICN for smart cities. Subsequently, we qualitatively study the capability of information-centric cognitive radio-based networking for improving network connectivity, content search and distribution, reliability and confined delay in smart city safety and infotainment-based applications. Finally, we highlight future research directions for the design of protocols for this envisioned network that will support smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of IoT devices has been growing significantly, and mobile network traffic is also increasing explosively. In order to meet the human desire to explore unknown areas, edgeless communications have always been one of the directions for the development of wireless networks. H-STIN is a promising solution to face the problem of large bandwidth requirement, massive machine type communication, and edgeless communication requirements. However, it is difficult to integrate communication protocols, routing problems, and resource allocation in the large-scale and heterogeneous network architecture. Therefore, this article proposes a potential H-STIN architecture based on the development trends of the Internet of Things, mobile networks, and satellite networks. Since TN has adequate computation resource and routing architecture, the backbone network is given to support an entire network, and AS is adopted to achieve regional self-optimization. The SSTIS is composed of the perception layer, the cognition layer, and the intelligence layer. It integrates IoT, SDN, and network functions virtualization technologies to achieve self-monitoring, crisis forecasting, and optimal control. Finally, the promising technical challenge, including integrated route planning and large-scale resource allocation, is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing CoAP primarily focuses on communication (i.e., client/server-based request/response interaction) between constrained devices in a constrained network. Constrained networks may have large latencies and constrained devices may not be able to respond in a timely manner. Therefore, incorporating delay awareness in the CoAP protocol may prove beneficial for communications between devices. This article presents a new method to support a delay-aware CoAP messaging model, where a Delay- Indicator is proposed to be contained in messages to reflect delay tolerance information. Furthermore, the DelayIndicator can be leveraged by CoAP Clients and CoAP Servers to improve their operations of entering sleep mode to save energy while not violating delay tolerances. With this new enabler, a timeout mechanism for CoAP Responses is put forward to enhance CoAP performance. Simulation results show that incorporating delay awareness in CoAP significantly improves messaging performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia cloud computing has appeared as a very attractive environment for the business world in terms of providing cost-effective services with a minimum of entry costs and infrastructure requirements. There are some architecture proposals in the related literature, but there is no multimedia cloud computing architecture with hybrid features specifically designed for mobile devices. In this article, we propose a new multimedia hybrid cloud computing architecture and protocol. It merges existing private and public clouds and combines IaaS, SaaS and SECaaS cloud computing models in order to find a common platform to deliver real time traffic from heterogeneous multimedia and social networks for mobile users. The developed protocol provides suitable levels of QoS, while providing a secure and trusted cloud environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fuel utilization efficiency and cost reduction are two major goals in designing in-vehicle networks. Aiming to address these two issues, we investigate in-vehicle networking protocols from both wired and wireless perspectives by first presenting representative solutions in each area, then identifying the challenges to current solutions, and finally advocating the use of the automotive Ethernet. Also, we propose a priority-based scheduler for the automotive Ethernet. Our preliminary experiments show that the proposed scheduler is effective and flexible, and thus is applicable to next-generation in-vehicle networks. We hope that further studies in this area can be inspired by our work and will be forthcoming in years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future Internet is expected to meet explosive traffic growth and extremely complex architecture, which tend to make the traditional NTC strategies inefficient and even ineffective. Inspired by the latest breakthroughs of AI and its power to address large-scale and complex difficulties, the network community has begun to consider shifting the NTC paradigm from legacy rule-based to novel AI-based. As an applied inter-discipline, design and implementation are important. Although there have been some preliminary explorations along this frontier, they are either limited by only envisioning the prospects, or too scattered to provide high-level insight into a general methodology. To this end, we start with the domain knowledge relationships of AI and NTC, summarizing a baseline workflow toward deep reinforcement learning, which will be the dominant method for the AI-NTC paradigm. On top of that, we argue that AI-NTC training and running must be carried out in online environments in closed-loop fashion for the purpose of putting ti into practice. A series of challenges and opportunities are discussed from a realistic viewpoint, and a set of new architecture and mechanism to enable the online and closed-loop AI-NTC paradigm are proposed. Hopefully, this work can help the AI community to better understand NTC and the NTC community to better live with AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IoVs have been envisioned to improve road safety and efficiency, and provide Internet access on the move, by providing a myriad of safety and infotainment applications to drivers and passengers. However, with limited spectrum resource, harsh wireless channel, and variable vehicle density, IoV communication faces severe challenges to achieve scalability, efficiency, and reliability. In this article, we propose a context-aware IoV paradigm design to enhance the communication performance, where the high-level contextual information is utilized to bring intelligence in the design. Specifically, through big data analytics on large-scale IoV communication traces collected from an extensive experiment conducted in Shanghai, we investigate the impacts of different contextual information on V2V communication performance. We reveal that among many types of contextual information, the NLoS link condition is a major one that significantly affects V2V link performance. Based on that observation, we discuss three critical but challenging communication paradigm designs with context awareness of V2V link conditions: smart medium resource allocation, efficient routing establishment, and reliable safety message broadcasting. Furthermore, we present a case study of a cooperative beaconing scheme, where machine learning methods are utilized to learn the real-time link contextual information, and vehicles in deep NLoS condition choose helpers to enhance the overall beaconing reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a novel networking paradigm called Small-world SSDNet, servicing applications such as public safety, proximity based services, and fog computing based on device-todevice multi-hop wireless communications. The "small-world" feature is determined by the service area, whose size is usually within a community level, and the well known small-world properties existing in SSDNets; the "super-dense" feature comes from the fact that the increased direct communication range and the popularity of 5G and IoT devices jointly result in a large number of devices within a single-hop communication range. This article first formally defines SSDNet. Then the challenges and the opportunities brought by the design and the implementation of the SSDNet protocols and applications are addressed. Finally, the broader discussions on issues relevant to modeling, engineering, and dissemination are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia cloud computing has appeared as a very attractive environment for the business world in terms of providing cost-effective services with a minimum of entry costs and infrastructure requirements. There are some architecture proposals in the related literature, but there is no multimedia cloud computing architecture with hybrid features specifically designed for mobile devices. In this article, we propose a new multimedia hybrid cloud computing architecture and protocol. It merges existing private and public clouds and combines IaaS, SaaS and SECaaS cloud computing models in order to find a common platform to deliver real time traffic from heterogeneous multimedia and social networks for mobile users. The developed protocol provides suitable levels of QoS, while providing a secure and trusted cloud environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunistic routing and network coding are two promising techniques that have been proposed for wireless networks. These techniques have significantly improved the performance of multi-hop wireless networks by utilizing the broadcast nature of wireless media and optimizing the capacity of lossy wireless networks. Recent research has shown that the combination of opportunistic routing and network coding in a single joint protocol outperforms each of them individually. This article explains the motivation and interaction effect of the joint protocols. We provide a taxonomy of joint protocols and illustrate the benefit and cost by highlighting their fundamental components and comparing different solutions. We also present a conclusion along with the outline of future research direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fuel utilization efficiency and cost reduction are two major goals in designing in-vehicle networks. Aiming to address these two issues, we investigate in-vehicle networking protocols from both wired and wireless perspectives by first presenting representative solutions in each area, then identifying the challenges to current solutions, and finally advocating the use of the automotive Ethernet. Also, we propose a priority-based scheduler for the automotive Ethernet. Our preliminary experiments show that the proposed scheduler is effective and flexible, and thus is applicable to next-generation in-vehicle networks. We hope that further studies in this area can be inspired by our work and will be forthcoming in years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RFID is one of the most important automatic identification techniques in the future IoT world. Compared with the other techniques, RFID has various advantages such as no requirement of line of sight, the capability of wireless communication, low cost, small size, and so on. This article discusses two types of anomaly tags, i.e., missing tags and unknown tags, which usually appear due to theft or product misplacement. Generally, there are two categories of anomaly tag pinpointing protocols: boolean detection, which aims at probabilistically determining whether there exist anomaly tags or not; and exact identification, which aims at identifying all anomaly tag IDs. This article first conducts a comprehensive survey of the existing anomaly tag pinpointing protocols, particularly emphasizing their evolution road. After that, we also conduct a taxonomy of the existing protocols and summarize their pros and cons. Finally, we discuss some technical challenges and problems that have not been covered yet, and point out the potential opportunities in RFID research and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, millions of physical devices are visible on the Internet through IP addresses, such as wearables, residential routers, cameras and industrial control devices. Users can access and control online devices, while attackers also target them, bringing potential security concerns. In this article, we propose a conceptual framework for discovering, recognizing and managing these online devices at the Internet-wide scale. It is the first work of Internet-wide device search, including three modules: network measurement, fingerprinting, and applications. We have implemented a prototype system and real-world experiments to illustrate the effectiveness of the framework. Furthermore, we explore the use and application of the system through searching camera devices in the whole IPv4 space. We deployed the system on Amazon EC2 to search for webcams and ICS devices nine times from April 2015 to April 2016, and we found 1.3 million webcams in total. In a comprehensive analysis of our dataset, we have characterized the use of online physical devices on the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

M2M communication is an important component for future wireless networks. M2M systems consist of a large number of devices that can operate with minimum or no human intervention. However, spectrum demand rises exponentially with the increase in the number of connected devices. Cognitive 5G networks are key to address the issue of spectrum scarcity. Further, use of multiple gateways in cognitive 5G networks for M2M communication can increase system throughput, coverage, and energy efficiency. Nevertheless, using multiple gateways for the secondary M2M devices may cause interference to the primary M2M devices. Existing gateway selection protocols for cognitive M2M communication mostly use single channel CSMA, and thus are not efficient in terms of reducing the interference. Thus, in this article, we propose a DGAP based on multi-channel CSMA for M2M communication in 5G networks. Further, we propose a Lo-DGAP, where each gateway transmits only the worst primary M2M device information rather than transmitting all neighboring primary M2M device information. The proposed Lo-DGAP increases the throughput of the system by reducing the message header payload and is also energy- efficient. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes in terms of network lifetime and energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the increasing demand on marine exploration, UWANs are confronted with the rigorous challenge of improving network throughput. To deal with this challenge, this article proposes to apply the IBFD technique to UWANs. The IBFD technique can potentially double link capacity by simultaneously transmitting and receiving on the same frequency band, which has been recently demonstrated to be feasible for wireless communications. In this article, novel MAC protocols are specifically proposed for the acoustic IBFD network to overcome the inherent issues in underwater acoustic communications, such as long packet delay, large node collision probability, and high power consumption. Numerical results verify that our proposals can effectively mitigate these effects and improve the overall performance of the UWANs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Injecting purposely-created probing traffic makes it possible to detect the presence and location of performance issues or faults, to reveal the topology of the network, and to investigate related properties. While researchers and network operators still rely on traditional tools (e.g., traceroute or ping) to shed light on the Internet, here we present six novel measurement techniques based on IP options. We show how IP options can still offer unforeseen ways to augment the knowledge about networks, potentially presenting both new threats and new opportunities for different stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Packet recording or capturing is one of the most useful tools for network forensics and surveillance. Since a storage system is of a limited size, de-duplication can be used to save disk space. In this article, we present a new scalable de-duplication engine for packet recording that can eliminate redundant contents over multiple packets. Unlike previous work, our proposed scheme is designed for packet-level de-duplication to support any kinds of network from the current Internet to emerging networks. We also present a new fast chunking method and a new indexing scheme that enable multiple engine instances to execute in parallel. We implement the de-duplication engine, and experimental results show that our proposed scheme can remove up to 65 percent of the packet contents in a real campus network. We also confirm that its throughput scalably increases with the number of CPU cores, which means that the proposed scheme can be implemented in a wide range of computing devices from small home gateways to high-end servers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coexistence of various protocols for current network equipment leads to extremely complex network systems, which not only limit the development of network technologies, but also cannot meet the growing demands for cloud computing, big data, and service visualization applications, just to name a few. As a new network architecture, parallel networks are expected to revolutionize this situation and meet the evolving demands for network services. The main idea of a parallel network is to leverage upon software-defined networking to construct artificial networks, and then effectively optimize the network system operations via the interactions between actual and artificial networks. The foundation of the parallel network is the theory of ACP, composed of artificial societies, computational experiments, and parallel execution. By the computational experiments and analysis of the artificial network, a control strategy based on network traffic flow can be continuously updated and tracked on a real-time basis; meanwhile, the collected operating status of the actual network can also be used to optimize the model of the artificial network. These strategies can be applied to all types of network equipment to control network operations at various levels; thus, it is possible to allocate the network resources more effectively, improve the management and utilization of resources, and then provide new network solutions to effectively address the constantly evolving network demands for network performance, scalability, and security. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Networks that lack continuous end-to-end connections among their nodes due to node mobility, constrained power sources, or limited data storage space are called DTNs. To overcome the intermittent connectivity, DTN nodes store and carry the data packets they receive until they come into communication range of each other. In addition, they spread multiple copies of the same packet on the network to increase the delivery probability. In recent years, several routing protocols have been developed specifically for DTNs. These protocols vary in the number of copies they spread and the information they use to guide the packets to their destinations. There have been some reviews of those protocols, but no performance comparison has been conducted. In this article, we study four well-known DTN routing protocols: EPIDEMIC, Spray-and-Wait, PROPHET, and MAXPROP. We introduce a procedural form to present the protocols. We measure the performance of the protocols in terms of packet delivery, delivery cost, and average packet delay. We compare the protocols' performance together with the results of optimal routing using real-life scenarios of vehicles and pedestrians roaming in a city. We conduct several simulation experiments to show the impact of changing buffer capacity, packet lifetime, packet generation rate, and number of nodes on the performance metrics. The article is concluded by providing guidelines to develop an efficient DTN routing protocol. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to provide a detailed performance comparison among the diverse collection of DTN routing protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographic routing has been considered as an attractive approach for wireless mobile ad hoc and sensor networks due to its effectiveness and scalability. Over the past few decades, numerous geographic routing protocols have been proposed extensively in 2D space. However, these protocols are no longer valid if ad hoc or sensor networks are distributed in 3D environments, such as space, atmosphere, and ocean. Because of the surprisingly difficulty of designing geographic routing protocols for 3D networks compared to 2D networks, only a few prior studies have focused on 3D geographic routing specifically designed for ad hoc and sensor networks. In this article, we first illustrate the principles of 3D geographic routing, and categorize current research work based on different criteria. Then we compare the 3DGR protocols under study through comprehensive analysis. Finally, we point out the open issues and opportunities for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although widely used, TCP has many limitations in meeting the throughput and latency requirements of applications in wireless networks, high-speed data center networks, and heterogeneous multi-path networks. Instead of relying purely on retransmission upon packet loss, coding has potential to improve the performance of TCP by ensuring better transmission reliability. Coding has been verified to work well at the link layer but has not been fully studied at the transport layer. There are many advantages but also challenges in exploiting coding at the transport layer. In this article, we focus on how to leverage end-to-end coding in TCP. We reveal the problems TCP faces and the opportunities coding can bring to improve TCP performance. We further analyze the challenges faced when applying the coding techniques to TCP and present the current applications of coding in TCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In OpenFlow, a network as a whole can be controlled from one or more external entities (controllers) using in-band or out-of-band control networks. In this article, we propose in-band control, queuing, and failure recovery functionalities for OpenFlow. In addition, we report experimental studies and practical challenges for implementing these functionalities in existing software packages containing different versions of OpenFlow. The experimental results show that the in-band control functionality is suitable for all types of topologies. The results with the queuing functionality show that control traffic can be served with the highest priority in in-band networks and hence, data traffic cannot affect the communication between the controller and networking devices. The results with the failure recovery functionality show that traffic can be recovered from failures within 50 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Telecommunications service providers are exploring the use of standard high-volume servers to reduce total cost of ownership while at the same time increasing flexibility, service velocity, and scalability of network functions. This article characterizes performance of general-purpose processors ? specifically x86 architecture processors ? for signaling and bearer processing representative of a wireless carrier?s call model for a Long Term Evolution Evolved Packet Core. A radio access network emulator was used to stimulate an Evolved Packet Core software stack running on an x86 server. The goal was to prove that standard high-volume servers can execute EPC functions per representative market call models, and that workloads can scale across bearer and control plane at line rate without acceleration technologies. A call model was developed to quantify the performance on Intel? Xeon? Processor based servers using an LTE traffic simulator and a commercial EPC software stack. The traffic models represent bidirectional real-world network traffic during different times of the day. The results were that the test EPC processed control and user plane traffic with 50,000 subscribers with a total payload of 10 Gb/s downlink + 4.8 Gb/s uplink traffic using five cores for the data plane and eight cores for the rest of the system; and the user plane throughput scaled in a single blade environment to 20 Gb/s per socket or 40 Gb/s for a dual socket blade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To develop and evaluate diverse ICN protocols and applications, large-scale and extensible testbeds that facilitate realistic evaluations must be designed and deployed. We propose a container-based unified testbed for ICN, called CUTEi, which employs the Linux container lightweight virtualization mechanism to build testbed nodes. CUTEi enables testbed users to run applications and protocols for ICN in two experimentation modes using two different container designs: application- level experimentation using a "common container," and network-level experimentation using a "user container." CUTEi also implements an "on-filesystem cache" to allocate caching data on a UNIX filesystem and share the cached data with multiple containers. Thus far we have deployed the CUTEi testbed on nine sites and performed experiments using CCNx components on the testbed. Consequently, we have found that it is easy to coordinate experiments on CUTEi; further, a comparison of its data fetch performance with that of PlanetLab indicates that CUTEi is more stable for ICN experiments than PlanetLab. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, many new Internet architectures are being proposed to solve shortcomings in the current Internet. A lot of these new architectures merely extend the current TCP/IP architecture and hence do not solve the fundamental cause of these problems. The Recursive Internet Architecture (RINA) is a true new network architecture, developed from scratch, building on lessons learned in the past. RINA prototyping efforts have been ongoing since 2010, but a prototype on which a commercial RINA implementation can be built has not been developed yet. The goal of the IRATI research project is to develop and evaluate such a prototype in Linux/OS. This article focuses on the software design required to implement a network stack in Linux/OS. We motivate the placement of, and communication between, the different software components in either the kernel or user space. The first open source prototype of the IRATI implementation of RINA will be available in June 2014 for researchers, developers, and early adopters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Off-the-shelf routing products are often constrained by being designed to meet specific needs, in terms of both software and hardware. Networking professionals may face problems that require customization of software, or additional processing facilities or data storage, which are not provided for by those products. The Quagga Routing Suite provides implementations of several common routing protocols, distributed over multiple processes communicating via IPC, and support for their development, with source code provided under a modification-friendly license. Quagga can help networking professionals build such custom solutions, in combination with other open source software packages. Quagga also provides a path for network researchers to increase the visibility of their work, making it available to a wider community for potential testing and use, increasing the impact of that research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a virtual client-based converged access architecture for IMS and web services. A virtual client transfers most of the signaling and session maintenance loads to a remote server named surrogate, which implements the IMS client. We describe how we have implemented an IMS-web hybrid service, Movieon- Demand (MoD), by deploying a simple IMS client and web server in a surrogate, and using an open-source implementation of a full IMS environment, from client to application server. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The control plane of the Internet relies entirely on BGP as the interdomain routing protocol to maintain and exchange routing information between large network providers and their customers. However, an intrinsic vulnerability of the protocol is its inability to validate the integrity and correctness of routing information exchanged between peer routers. As a result, it is relatively easy for people with malicious intent to steal legitimate IP blocks through an attack known as prefix hijacking, which essentially consists of injecting bogus routing information into the system to redirect or subvert network traffic. In this article, we give a short survey of visualization methods that have been developed for BGP monitoring, in particular for the identification of prefix hijacks. Our goal is to illustrate how network visualization has the potential to assist an analyst in detecting abnormal routing patterns in massive amounts of BGP data. Finally, we present an analysis of a real validated case of prefix hijacking, which took place between April and August 2011. We use this hijack case study to illustrate the ongoing work carried out in VIS-SENSE, a European research project that leverages visual analytics to develop more effective tools for BGP monitoring and prefix hijack detection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To explore the effectiveness of network protocols and services, it is desirable to deploy and evaluate them under a realistic network setting. However, experimentation in production networks is difficult in practice, since it may involve modifications of underlying routers or other hardware components and disrupt the normal operations of existing protocols. We propose VegaNet, a virtual network architecture that provides an experimental platform atop a physical production network. VegaNet uses a lightweight probing mechanism to provide a consistent connectivity view as in the underlying physical production network so that experimentation can be performed under realistic network conditions. It uses virtualization to host multiple experiments on a single physical machine, while reflecting the current connectivity status to each hosted experiment in an accurate and timely manner. We prototype VegaNet and empirically evaluate its effectiveness atop a real-life production network that is currently deployed nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an expandable and efficient destination-oriented multicast (DOM) protocol for next-generation Internet. It describes the DOM service model and explores related practical design issues such as the effect of asymmetric routing on the protocol and the capability of a fast group joining procedure. The performance analysis and simulation results of the Bloom-filter-based design used to realize DOM protocol in applied Internet are also presented.

The article offers information on the use of broadcast communication on vehicular networks. It provides several design considerations and new network protocols that can improve the networks' capability such as Multihop Vehicular Broadcast (MHVB), Traffic View, and Receipt Estimation Alarm Routing (REAR). Moreover, it suggests that future researchers on vehicular networks should integrate application requirements and traffic characteristics into the broadcasting network design.

The article presents a study about cost-efficient carrier-grade Ethernet. The study focuses on the reliability of Etherpath protection and Ethertunnel protection. It highlights the development of protection algorithms and analyzes the impact of trade-off from a computer network. It also focuses on the characteristics of developing next-generation carrier-grade Ethernet networks in terms of high-rate Etherpath with mixed line rates. It highlights the efficiency of the energy transfer PRNT (ETP) over the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP).

The article presents the recent developments on Internet Protocol (IP) authentication that can reduce the re-authentication delay. These newly developed protocols are the IEEE 802.11 r and the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) Re-authentication Protocol (ERP) for handover keying (HOKEY). These two protocols utilize the key hierarchies to avoid full authentication. The control and provisioning of wireless access points (CAPWAP) architecture was introduced to illustrate different optimizations.

The article offers information on the autonomous system-level (AS) which overlays network for Internet Protocol (IP) traceback. It mentions that the system controls with previous works as it does not require a theory knowledge of the network topology and allows single-packet traceback and incremental deployment. It notes that the proposed system suits for large-scale networks such as the Internet because it provides efficient traceback. Moreover, it determines a new community attribute for Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) that is responsible for disseminating the information about the ASs that have deployed the traceback system.

The article presents a study which examines the localization capability of ultra-wide band to provide a variety of location-based services (LBSs) in various assets of data centers and Information Technology environment. Discussions on localization technologies, wireless universal serial bus localization protocol, estimation method for location, and the accuracy of the localization protocol are provided. It discusses the necessity of enabling LBSs in data centers through virtualization and the services that can manipulate LBSs which include coarse grain localization, medium grain localization, and the dynamic migration of the virtual machines. It proposes a management framework for LBS using three layers for the maintenance of power/thermal equilibrium.

The article presents an approach to enabling middleboxes of mobility handling using the concept of personal networks (PNs). It says that PNs consist of dynamic conglomerations of terminal and middlebox devices that are tasked to facilitate the delivery of information to and from a single human user. Meanwhile, it notes that the said concept creates the potential to view mobility handling as a path selection problem because there may be multiple valid terminal device and middlebox configurations that can successfully carry a given communication session. The authors present details and an evaluation of the approach, based on an extension of the Host Identity Protocol, which demonstrate its simplicity and effectiveness.

The article focuses on network address translation (NAT) issues in the management of home network devices. Particularly, the authors discuss efforts relating to standardization and present their proposal to deploy device management (DM) services for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) devices behind NATs. It says that by slightly changing the behavior of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers and agents and by defining additional management objects (MOs) to gather NAT binding information, the authors stress that they could solve the NAT traversal problem under a symmetric NAT. They likewise propose an enhanced method to search for the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) hole binding time of the NAT box.

The article discusses the deficiencies of using existing network address translation (NAT) methods for Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), a new Internet Engineering Task Force transport protocol, and describes a new SCTP-specific NAT concept. It says that the said concept is analyzed in detail for several important network scenarios, including peer-to-peer, transport layer mobility, and multihoming. It notes that NAT is widely deployed in the Internet and supports the Transmission Control Protocol and the User Datagram Protocol as transport layer protocols. In addition, NAT is a common method for separating private networks from global networks by translating private Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to global IP addresses.

The article reports on the significance of WhozThat protocol to computer users in the U.S. The mobile social networking revolution is prevalent, thus paving the way in enriching local social interaction among users. Online social networks is important because it provide a wealth of personal contextual information including name, picture, contact information, gender, relationship status/interests and friendship information concerning user interconnection. WhozThat is motivated by the idea that the rich contextual information from online social networks into the real world of local human interactions, thus enriching local social interaction. Such protocol is advantageous due to its simplicity, energy/bandwidth efficiency, agnosticism and extensibility.

The article discusses the study which advocates the design of a new network layer that can support multihop communications efficiently in Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks and that can fully exploit the features of the WiMAX standards. The study identifies services that are important for broadband wireless network providers and investigates the requirements for different services. It also illustrates how to design WiMAX networks by considering issues of efficiency, security, and reliability.

The article discusses the study that focuses on wireless mesh networking and the insights into the related standardization efforts in IEEE 802. The study illustrates the draft wireless local area network (WLAN) mesh standard IEEE 802.11s and identifies challenges for medium access control in multihop communication. Derived from the study's proposal to 802.11s, its draft incorporates an optional medium access scheme that circumvents a performance gap. It also compares the performance of both solutions and provide an outlook for future 802 wireless systems that will be more reliable.

The article discusses the need for access point power saving in solar powered wireless local area network (WLAN) mesh networks. These WLAN mesh networks have been used to deploy wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) coverage in a wide variety of outdoor applications. It is noted that the conventional WLAN mesh nodes for the networks are required to be operated using continuous electrical power connections, but the said requirement is often expensive especially when the network includes expansive outdoor wireless coverage areas. An alternative has been discussed which is to operate some of the WLAN mesh nodes using an energy sustainable source, such as solar or wind power.

The article offers information on the proposed quality of service differentiation scheme for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 wireless mesh networks. According to the article, WMN is becoming an important architecture of future generations of wireless communications systems wherein the quality of service provisioning provides an essential role in optimizing its performance. It provides a detailed discussion on the system model, frame structure, different scheduling schemes and collocated topology. It also discusses the different relevant issues and potential performances associated with the approach.

The article discusses the concept of cooperative game theory in the optimization of medium access control (MAC) protocol of wireless mesh networks (WMN) communication infrastructure performance. Accordingly, the game theory estimates the available nodes which will be adjusted to its equilibrium strategy to be repeated for several times, and for an effective analysis, a carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol was integrated which allows mode switching. The author concludes that a CSMA/CA based game theory provides an effective simulation result that ameliorates throughput and decreases delay, jitter and packet loss rate.

The article focuses on the alternative routing paradigm for the optimization of large multihop wireless mesh networks (WMN). According to the author, routing protocols of wireless mesh networks must take advantage of the specific topology and traffic pattern with scalability and gateways for an advanced functionality. It also discusses the concept of HEAT, field-based unicast temperature routing protocol that provides robust routes with mobile nodes in a faster and quicker speed that is suitable for use in large and dense networks. It also presents a comparison on the performance of HEAT with ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) and optimized link state routing (OLSR) applications

The article reports on the study which classifies eight typical Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-friendly schemes according to their underlying policies on fairness, aggressiveness and responsiveness. It states that the schemes are evaluated to verify whether they meet TCP-equivalence and TCP-equal share. It adds that simulation results show that one of the selected schemes, TCP-friendly rate control (TFRC), meets both criteria under more testing scenarios than the others. Moreover, the results under nonperiodic losses, low-multiplexing, two-state losses, and bursty losses reveal the causes that bring fault cases to the schemes.

The article presents a survey of several quality of service (QoS)-aware unicast routing protocols for mobile ad hoc network (MANETs). It compared the routing protocols in terms of their support for node mobility, their routing overhead, their requirements for extra node hardware, and their support for scaling of the network. The authors also pointed out the open issues that must be addressed in QoS-aware routing in terms of bandwidth/delay estimation, route discovery, resource reservation, and route maintenance.