Advances in LTE network monitoring: A step towards an SDN solution

Abstract

Monitoring operations in today's mobile networks is becoming a more and more challenging task due to the higher bandwidth and technological complexity brought by LTE. The paper summarizes some relevant problems that arose in the tests of LTE equipment carried out at Telecom Italia Lab (TILAB, the R&D center of Telecom Italia), and presents an ongoing project that aims at realizing a flexible hardware/software platform to cope with these problems at reasonable costs. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a Software Defined Networking (SDN) measurements platform, which permits to easily and dynamically configure the measurement devices involved in the test and monitoring functions according to the requirements defined by the operator. Furthermore, the paper proposes the integration of the designed framework in a realistic lab environment, and discusses the improvements introduced to the actual architecture

A Compatible OpenFlow Platform for Enabling Security Enhancement in SDN

“…App-Ctrl Ctrl-Data PERM-GUARD [15] Cross-layer protection framework x x x VeriFlow [34] Verify and debug flow rules x CPRecovery [35] Controller response framework x x FortNOX [10] Controller framework x x FlowChecker [36] Configuration verification tool x x FRESCO [8] Anomaly diction and mitigation framework x x PermOF [37] Permission control system for Apps. x x Flover [38] Flow policy verification x x x OFTesting [39] OF Apps testing and debugging x SE-Floodlight [40] Conflict resolution, authorization, audit system x x x Mini-Cut placement [41] Controller reliability, switch-controller connectivity x x x Monitoring [42] Data plane connectivity monitoring x x POCO [43] Controller resilience and failure tolerance x x DCP [44] Dynamic controller provisioning, scalability, availability x x Resonance [45] Access control and dynamic policy enforcement x AVANT-GUARD [46] Controller plane security enhancement framework x [11] x NS3 [12] x OpenNet [47] x OMNET++ [48] x EstiNet [49] x Donatini et al [50] x Ariman et al [51] x OpenSample [52] x Mercury [53] x XSM [54] x and application plane of SDN as well as the interfaces in between. For instance, AVANT-GUARD [46] protects the control plane from a variety of attacks.…”

“…Physical device deployment. Donatini et al [50] introduced an approach to develop a SDN network measurement platform by using NetFPGA under the LTE network infrastructure. The SDN implementation part is based on OpenFlow and OpenSketch [64] projects.…”

SDN and Virtualization-Based LTE Mobile Network Architectures: A Comprehensive Survey

“…Monitoring Donatini et al [103] developed an SDN-based measurement platform, which is integrated into the mobile network. This platform allows easy configuration of measurement devices and monitoring functions following the requirements of the operators.…”

Security Awareness in Software-Defined Multi-Domain 5G Networks

“…OpenSAFE by Ballard et al [27] utilized OpenFlow-based SDN to route selected traffic to monitoring appliances for deeper analysis without impacting network performance. Donatini et al [33,34] developed an SDN-based monitoring platform for 4G networks to detect issues causing complexity and high bandwidth. Youssaf et al described technologies [35] These tools have mainly focused on quality and performance issues in general.…”