Fixed Networking

As the data flows and requirements of the current Internet keep on rising, the limitations of the Internet are looming. Research on new paradigms is crucial to overcome these limits.

IDLab focuses on several aspects in Future Internet research

• Network Function Virtualization (NFV) allows to increase the flexibility with which new services can be deployed, while Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provides the interfaces to realize this in a programmable way on commodity network equipment.
• Clean-slate network paradigms (e.g. Recursive InterNetwork Architecture RINA) to drastically redesign the Internet structure inspired by the idea that networking is inter-process communication.
• Improving the energy-efficiency of networking.
• Design of powerful network algorithms.

Examples

In the IoT world, NFV can be used to virtualize wireless access technologies (typically with low power) on heterogeneous and multi-provider networks to enhance mobility, load balancing, QoS control and reliability.

The NFV/SDN principles can be applied to optimize QoE for over-the-top video streaming using HTTP Adaptive Streaming technologies. NFs can be introduced in the network to reduce play-out delays (e.g. by caching or pushing initial video segments close to users), to optimize the overal QoE (e.g. by introducing fairness in concurrent TCP sessions) or to minimize video freezes (e.g. by prioritizing video segments in case of client buffer underruns).