Keynotes and tutorials

Stefano Salsano (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata)

Wednesday, 16th – 10:00

Tutorial: Segment Routing, IPv6 Segment Routing (SRv6) and the SRv6 Network Programming model

Abstract: Segment Routing (SR) is a modern variant of source routing, which is being developed within the SPRING and IPv6 working groups of the IETF. Segment Routing gives the possibility to include a list of instructions (called segments) in the packet headers. This list of segments influences the forwarding path of the packets and can also provide instructions to be performed on a packet in a given node. There are two variants of the Segment Routing architecture, as it can be implemented using either the MPLS or the IPv6 data plane for packet forwarding. With MPLS, the segment IDs (SID) are expressed using MPLS labels. In the IPv6 case, the SIDs are expressed using IPv6 addresses and the segment list is carried in a new type of IPv6 Routing Extension Header called SR Header. Considering the huge IPv6 addressing space, it is easier to encode instructions and not only locations in an IPv6 SID. With IPv6 Segment Routing (SRv6), we will discuss how it is possible to extend the source routing concept from the simple steering of packets across nodes to a general and powerful network programming approach. Finally, some use cases for SRv6 will be presented.


Elio Salvadori (FBK CREATE-NET Research Center, Trento)

Thursday, 17th – 9:35

Keynote: Walking through the fog (computing): trends, use-cases and open issues

Abstract: Despite its huge success in many IT-enabled application scenarios, cloud computing has demonstrated some intrinsic limitations that may severely limit its adoption in several contexts where constraints like e.g. preserving data locally, ensuring real-time reactivity or guaranteeing operation continuity despite lack of Internet connectivity (or a combination of them) are mandatory. These distinguishing requirements fostered an increased interest toward computing approaches that inherit the flexibility and adaptability of the cloud paradigm, while acting in proximity of a specific scenario. As a consequence, the emergence of this “proximity computing” approach has exploded into a plethora of architectural solutions (and novel terms) like fog computing, edge computing, dew computing, mist computing but also cloudlets, mobile cloud computing, mobile edge computing (and probably few others I may not be aware of…). The talk will initially make an attempt to introduce some clarity among these “foggy” definitions by proposing a taxonomy whose aim is to help identifying their peculiarities as well as their overlaps. Afterwards, the most important components of a generalized proximity computing architecture will be explained, followed by the description of few research works and use cases investigated within our Center and based on this emerging paradigm. An overview of open issues and interesting research directions will conclude the talk.


Emilio Calvanese Strinati (CEA-LETI, MINATEC, Grenoble)

Thursday, 17th – 17:00

Keynote: Empowering 5G and Beyond Cloudification with Millimeter Waves Communications

Abstract: Two key enablers of the 5G of mobile communication systems are the high data rates achievable with millimeter-wave (mmWave ) radio signals and the cloudification of the mobile edge of the network made possible also by Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). In 5G networks, user devices may exploit the high capacity of their mobile connection and the powerful computing capabilities of the edge cloud to offload computational tasks to MEC servers to run their applications. Nevertheless, a major drawback of mmWave communications is their vulnerability to blocking events due to obstacles or beam collision. When a blocking event occurs, the communication is interrupted and information is lost. This may cause severe unreliability to 5G services. With this talk we will discuss on challenges, solutions and open research questions for counteracting blocking events, improve service reliability and to reduce power consumption while meeting service latency constraints.


Falko Dressler (Paderborn University)

Friday, 18th – 9:10

Keynote: Monitoring of Bats in the Wild Using Next Generation Ultra Low Power Sensor Networks

Abstract: We discuss challenges and solutions to enable ultra low power communication systems. In the field of sensor networks, this question has been investigated for multiple decades now. However, only the combination of technological and algorithmic methods eventually helps designing next generation systems. Using the application scenario of wildlife monitoring, in particular bats, explore the need for novel solutions given the high reliability requirements and weight restrictions. We go step-wise through a series of hardware, signal processing, and coding solutions that we developed. Our concepts have been explored both in large-scale simulation as well as in first field experiments.