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ROBUST-Robuste nett. Kjernekompetanse

Robuste nett senteret

Awarded: NOK 39.0 mill.

Centre for Resilient Networks performs long-term research and innovation within resilience and reliability of communication networks and applications. The centre collaborates closely with the Ministry for Transportations and Communications and the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority (NPTA), and authors an annual report on the state of the Norwegian communication infrastructure to NPTA. The centre has in addition other assignments given a mandate from the ministry. The centre continued in 2015 its efforts in measurements and analysis of Norwegian telecom infrastructures. This years report is based on active and passive measurements of mobile broadbands from 5 different operators in Norway: Telenor, Netcom, Tele2, Network Norway and Ice. The measurements are performed continuously through the whole of 2014 from measurement nodes distributed over most of the country, with an emphasis on urban areas and bigger cities. The data set consists of measurements from 859 connections distributed over 281 nodes in 83 communes. One main observation is that the user's experience of stability in the Norwegian mobile networks has improved from 2013 to 2014. The measurements shows fewer breaches on connection, lower package loss and higher and more stable performance. In March 2015 started the centre up the EU project MONROE. Simula is coordinator, and the project assembles important actors in European telecom industry and research with a goal of establishing a similar measurement infrastructure in Europe as we now have established in Norway. A central element is to invite third party experimenters in open calls to use this technology. In 2015, the centre has therefore intensified the focus on technology development, and separated the technology development from the research activity by outsourcing this to a technology oriented subsidiary of Simula.

The Internet has been adapted as a transport medium for a wide range of communication services, and the consequences of malfunctions in the infrastructure are severe. Networks are tightly integrated as critical components in many systems of vital importan ce for the society, such as financial systems, healthcare applications, monitoring and control systems, and emergency communications. At the same time, the move from elastic to real-time applications has decreased tolerance for even short-lived network fa ilures. The proliferation of interactive applications like videoconferencing, financial trading systems and online gaming puts higher and higher requirements on the stability and survivability of the underlying network infrastructure. To support this incr easingly diverse set of services, a well-functioning networking infrastructure must be resilient against large number of challenges, ranging from physical threats like fibre cuts and power failures, through logical failures in network configurations or ce ntral support systems, to challenges posed by attacks and rapid changes in user behaviour and traffic patterns. These requirements are complicated by the rapid growth in both traffic volumes and user base, and the increasingly complex interaction of diffe rent routing protocols and management systems. The purpose of the Resilient Networks 2 (RN2) project is to develop and demonstrate protocols and methods for routing and self-configuration that increases the resilience a network has against a number of ch allenges ranging from failing components and unexpected traffic patterns. A particular focus in RN2 will be on methods that allow applications and end users to better exploit the existing diversity in the underlying network infrastructure. This includes s tudying, developing, deploying and testing methods for dynamic multilink access from mobile terminals, simultaneous use of multiple network connections from the home or office, and better exploitation of multi-homing in the core of the network.

Funding scheme:

ROBUST-Robuste nett. Kjernekompetanse

Funding Sources