NETCOM Research Group

The second wave of cloud computing, named network cloudification, in the forms of SDN (Software Defined Networking), NFV (Network Function Virtualization), and 5G-MEC (Mobile Edge Computing), is to centralize and virtualize networking into data centers. It enables operators to offer NaaS (Networking as a Service) with much lower CAPEX and OPEX with larger flexibility because devices become simpler, the number of administrators is less, and service orchestration is easier. It turns parts of communications currently done in hardware into computing done in software. However, the host of these data centers would not be Google-like super data centers as they are too far away from subscribers. The latency requirement of 10ms and 1ms decentralizes cloud computing down to edge and fog computing with CORD (central offices re-architected as data centers) and cellular base stations for SDN-NFV and 5G-MEC, respectively. In this talk, we first argue why, where and when SDN, NFV, 5G-MEC would prevail, and then illustrate how to make it happen with OpenFlow, SC (Service Chaining), NSH (Network Service header), etc. Then we examine how latency requirement dominates this virtualization game by listing key questions to answer in resource allocation in the architectures of SDN, NFV, and 5G-MEC. Their answers are mostly unknown now but would benefit the architects and developers of OpenFlow switches, SDN controllers, SDN-NFV apps, NFV data centers, MEC-enabled base stations, and operator’s infrastructure in general.

About Ying-Dar Lin

YING-DAR LIN is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 1993. He served as the CEO of Telecom Technology Center in Taipei during 2010-2011 and a visiting scholar at Cisco Systems in San Jose during 2007–2008. Since 2002, he has been the founder and director of Network Benchmarking Lab (NBL, www.nbl.org.tw), which reviews network products with real traffic. NBL became a certified test lab of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) since July 2014. He also cofounded L7 Networks Inc. in 2002, which was later acquired by D-Link Corp. His research interests include design, analysis, implementation, and benchmarking of network protocols and algorithms, quality of services, network security, deep packet inspection, wireless communications, embedded hardware/software co-design, and recently network cloudification. His work on “multi-hop cellular” was the first along this line, and has been cited over 800 times and standardized into IEEE 802.11s, IEEE 802.15.5, WiMAX IEEE 802.16j, and 3GPP LTE-Advanced. He is an IEEE Fellow (class of 2013), an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (2014-2017), and a Research Associate of ONF. He has served or is serving on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, IEEE Computer (Associate Editor-in-Chief), IEEE Network, IEEE Communications Magazine - Network Testing Series, IEEE Wireless Communications, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, IEEE Communications Letters, Computer Communications, Computer Networks, Journal of Network and Computer Applications, and IEICE Transactions on Communications. He is currently the Editor-of-Chief of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials. He has guest-edited several Special Issues in IEEE journals and magazines, co-chaired symposia at Globecom’13 and ICC’15, and chairs workshops and symposia in Globecom’18 and Globecom’19. He published a textbook, Computer Networks: An Open Source Approach (www.mhhe.com/lin), with Ren-Hung Hwang and Fred Baker (McGraw-Hill, 2011). It is the first text that interleaves open source implementation examples with protocol design descriptions to bridge the gap between design and implementation.

This event will be conducted in English