IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc)
Technical Committee on Communications Quality & Reliability (CQR)
Emerging Technology Reliability Roundtable 2019
(ETR-RT19)
Monday & Tuesday, August 26-27, 2019
The Majvik Congress Hotel
Majvikintie 1, 02430 Masala (near Helsinki), Finland
Scope of the Roundtable
- Discuss and identify the RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability*) challenges, requirements and methodologies in the emerging technology areas like the Cloud Computing, Wireless/Mobility (with focus on 5G technologies), NFV (Network Functions Virtualization), SDN
(Software Defined Networking), or similar large-scale distributed and virtualization systems. - Discuss the RAS requirements and technologies for mission-critical industries (e.g., airborne systems, railway communication systems, the banking and financial communication systems, etc.), with the goal to promote the interindustry
sharing of related ideas and experiences. - Identify potential directions for resolving identified issues and propose possible solution
*Serviceability: Focus on the technology, solutions and platforms which can improve Operation and Maintenance (O&M) ability, including Deployment, Monitoring, Upgrade/Patching, Adjustment, Troubleshooting, Fault Recovery, Data Configuration, etc. The target of Serviceability is to make the O&M work more Easily, Remotely, Automatically and Efficiently in order to achieve Low OPEX and High Customer Satisfaction.
Participants at the ETR-RT 2019 in Masala, Finland
[#00] Spilios Makris – Introduction
[#01] David Lu – Intelligent Resiliency for a Converged World
[#02] Pasi Hurri – Spime Containers: Internetworked Digital Twins
[#03] Chidung Lac – NFV Resiliency and 5G Network Slicing
[#05] Joachim Sachs – End to End Reliability in 5G Industrial Networks
[#06] Olli Salmela – Impact of Virtualization on Telecom Network Reliability
[#07] Marcus Brunner – Service Provider Thoughts, Use Cases and Requirements for Reliability
[#08] Diego Lopez – Automation in the Days of the Software Network
[#09] Nikolaos Papakonstantinou – Holistic Safety Security Approach for Complex Systems
[#10] Guangxia Xu – Innovative Application Analysis of Blockchain + 5G
[#11] David Lu – Serviceability Considerations for Reliability Engineers
[#12] Yubao He – AIOps Practice in Network Operation and Maintenance
2019 ETR-Roundtable_Summary_of_Findings_final
David H. Lu, Vice President, SDN Platform & Systems, AT&T Labs, USA
David Lu is responsible for development and engineering of AT&T’s next generation SDN (Software Defined Network) platform enabling AT&T network virtualization and OSS/operation process transformation which includes ECOMP platform and open source ECOMP (ONAP), API, micro-services, policy control & orchestration, hyper-automation, and advanced data analytics. David leads a multifaceted organization with more than 3,000 people across the globe.
David is a well-respected leader across multiple technology domains including: large scale, real time software architecture and development, network performance and traffic management, work flow and policy-controlled automation, large database and big data implementation (mining & analytics), machine learning, artificial intelligence, software reliability and quality, and network operations process engineering. David has led major software platform transformation initiatives from sales to network/service delivery/assurance, and billing platforms. Examples of his David’s achievements include large scale platforms he has both led and engineered that process annually: 984 Trillion network performance events and 348 Billion alarms with 99.99%+ automation; 60 Million dispatches with 14.4 Billion automated manual steps; and over 90 Billion API transactions.
Since joining AT&T Bell Labs in 1987, David has served in various leadership positions at AT&T. Over the past 15 years, David has led numerous automation initiatives that have resulted in multi-billion-dollar savings and in 2010 he received the CIO 100 Award for his efforts. David holds 45 patents and has frequently appeared as a guest speaker at technical and leadership seminars and conferences throughout the world. David has received numerous industry awards including the 2015 Chairman’s Award from the IEEE Communication Society for Network and Systems Quality and Reliability; and the 2017 CIE AAEOY (Asian America Engineer of Year) Award. David is tremendously active in community organizations and activities including AT&T APCA, DFW-CIE, the DFW Asian American Chamber of Commerce, and was recognized by AT&T APCA in 2015 with the Corporate Leadership Award.
David was accepted to the world-renowned Shanghai Conservatory of Music and came to the U.S. to complete his college education; an undergraduate degree in Music (majoring in cello performance), and a graduate degree in Computer Science.
TITLE: Intelligent Resiliency for A Converged World
ABSTRACT: Network traffic is growing exponentially, driven by the insatiable hunger for data consumption and the introduction of new technologies like AR/VR, massive IoT and 5G. Supporting this growth, as well as the tremendous architecture challenges posed by greater complexity, faster speeds and enhanced reliability necessitates a transition from a hardware-based network to an intelligent, flexible, software-defined network. AT&T will share how we are using a DevOps approach to build a highly scalable, agile configuration validation and proactive change management de-confliction, as well as network cloud site traffic migration and recovery automation.
Pasi Hurri, Chief Executive Officer, BaseN Corporation, Finland
Since establishing BaseN Corporation in 2001, Pasi Hurri has been holding the position of Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. Hurri is an expert speaker and senior Member of IEEE as well as a visiting lecturer at several Universities. Prior to founding BaseN, Mr. Hurri spent more than a decade in senior technology management positions. He presided over the engineering effort of the KPNQwest Eurorings network, then the largest pan-European carrier transporting more than 50% of the Internet traffic. Within Ahlstrom Corporation, Mr. Hurri managed the creation of a global IP network in the early 90`s.
With his strategic thinking inherited from the Finnish Air Force, Mr. Hurri has always emphasized the importance of deep situational awareness, according to Clausewitz principles. Mr. Hurri also holds the position of the Chairman for Industrial Internet of Things steering group of TEKES.
TITLE: Spime Containers – Internetworked Digital Twins
ABSTRACT: The Digital Twin concept has been adopted by the heavy industry and manufacturing, and factory production machines now routinely have their twin modeled for continuous process improvement. Some also push Digital Twins forward in their end products, such as jet engines and avionics systems. However, these commonly used Digital Twins are still separated islands with missing links. This is where spime containers step in, bringing Digital Twins into a continuous fabric of new digital reality.
Kathy Meier-Hellstern, Assistant Vice President – Inventive Science and AT&T Fellow, AT&T Labs, USA
Kathy Meier-Hellstern is an AT&T Fellow and Assistant Vice President in AT&T Labs Research, where she leads the Optimization, Reliability and Customer Analytics Department (ORCA). Kathy and her team are focused on optimization, performance and reliability and network and analytics for AT&T’s Next Generation Network Cloud. Her team designs and implements the optimization algorithms for AT&T’s SDN network, and is responsible for applying machine learning and data-powered analytics in the areas of virtualized services, network security, cloud infrastructure and 5G.
Kathy received her Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Delaware with a research focus in Applied Probability and Queueing Theory. She has been a visiting researcher at the University of Stuttgart, Technion, and Rutgers University Wireless Information Network Lab. Kathy is the author of numerous publications and patents in applied probability.
ABSTRACT: 5G is transforming the wireless edge with new services ranging from broad-scale IoT to high bandwidth AR/VR applications. Many of the new applications have highly demanding performance, reliability and security needs. The 5G network design with an open API Service-Based Architecture, SDN and NFV-based virtualization, and a 5G disaggregated RAN, gives service providers tremendous opportunities to deliver the required performance, reliability and security. In this talk we outline service design principles and examples that demonstrate how carriers can create automated end-to-end controls in a multi-vendor environment.
Marcus Brunner, Head of Standardization, Open Source, and Eco-System Development – Swisscom, Switzerland.
Marcus is active in research, development, and standardization since 25 years with experience in programmability of networks and services, cloud technology for IT and network service providers (NfV), and automation of network and IT including autonomic communication. He is involved in various international organizations on software-defined networking and the future telecommunication technologies like Network Function Virtualization and 5G networking.
TITLE: Service Provider thoughts, use cases and requirements for reliability
ABSTRACT: As Service Provider, reliability of our services is a major concern. Many times a country’s network is a mission critical infrastructure and whole national economies rely on smooth operation of a nationwide network. Big issues are measuring reliability, monetizing reliability, and implementing highly reliable systems.
Joachim Sachs, Ph. D., Principal Researcher – Ericsson Research, Sweden
Joachim Sachs studied electrical engineering in Germany, France, Norway, and Scotland. He received the Diploma degree from RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, and the Ph.D. degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Since 1997, he has been with Ericsson Research, Stockholm, Sweden, where he is currently a Principal Researcher. He was a Visiting Scholar with Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, in 2009. His current research interests include mobile networks, industrial IoT systems, and cross-industry research collaborations. Dr. Sachs has been active in the IEEE and the German VDE Information Technology Society since 1995, where he currently co-chairs the technical committee on communication networks and systems.
TITLE (tentative): End to end reliability in industrial 5G networks
ABATRACT: 5G is targeted to address novel use cases beyond consumer-centric mobile broadband services. One prominent example is the support of industrial 5G networks that enable critical Internet of Things connectivity and support the digitalization of industries. In my talk I will provide an overview of 5G standard features for ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC) that are needed for advanced industrial use cases and it will be explained how high reliability can be provided end-to-end.
Chidung Lac, Senior Researcher – Orange Labs, France
His research interests are centered on network and services resiliency. An important fraction of his activities the last 6 years was dedicated to the virtualization of network functions. He is currently an active contributor of the REL Working Group at the ETSI NFV ISG. Dr. Lac holds a Doctorat d’Etat-ès-Sciences Physiques from the University of Paris XI Orsay.
TITLE: NFV Resiliency and 5G Network Slicing
ABSTRACT: Beyond their new technical promises (e.g., increased bandwidth, reduced latency), 5G technologies aim to unify diverse applications and use cases within a single framework. To this end, costs optimization, among others, has led to the proposal of network slicing for sharing resources and mutualizing the management and orchestration of such networks. As the slicing approach will benefit from techniques derived of virtualization, this talk highlights different facets of the Network Function Virtualization framework to enable a resilient support of network slicing. It will consider different life cycle phases such as design, operations (i.e., scaling, migration, restoration with or without lack of resources) and upgrade.
Olli Salmela, 
Ph. D. – Reliability Engineering Manager, Nokia – Finland
Dr. Olli Salmela received his Master’s, Licentiate’s an Doctor’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Technical University of Helsinki in 1992, 1994 and 2005, respectively. He is currently working at Nokia Bell Labs as Reliability Engineering Manager. He also holds Adjunct Professor positions at Aalto University in Espoo and at University of Oulu.
His research interests include reliability testing, adaptation of new component technologies, and modeling of complex systems, including big data analytics. Dr. Salmela has authored or co-authored more than 30 refereed journal and conference papers. He has a co-authored “Reliability of
Microtechnology – Interconnects, Devices and Systems” published by Springer. He holds fourteen patents.
Dr. Salmela is a Senior Member of IEEE.
TITLE: Impact of Virtualization on Telecom Network Reliability
ABSTRACT: Virtualization of Network Functions has some profound impacts on reliability management, planning, testing, and analysis. Along adaptation of 5G, telecom networks are used in some mission-critical applications, where ultra-reliability is requested. At the same time, the change of focus from hardware to software has some impact on the methodologies that are applied in reliability analysis. Therefore, it is important that reliability engineers adapt at least some basic understanding of software and software reliability. Until now, the usual background for reliability engineers has quite often been on hardware.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence provide some new methods to run preventive maintenance procedures. However, it is important that subject matter experts are involved when these methodologies are implemented to telecom networks equipment and systems.
Prof. Guangxia Xu, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Dr. Xu is currently a Ph.D. Adviser, Vice Director of Network and Information Security Engineering Center of the Chongqing University Posts and Telecommunications. She is currently a Senior Member of the China Computer Federation (CCF), Blockchain Committee member, ACM and IEEE member, Vice Chairman of Information Security Association of Chongqing University, expert of National Natural Science Foundation and committee member of Technical Committee on Fault Tolerant Computing of CCF. She has served as the Director of Big Data Security and Intelligence Analytics Technology Innovation Team at Chongqing University. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA, and a Post-Doctor at the School of Communication and Information Engineering, Chongqing University.
Prof. Xu‘s research interests include Blockchain Technology and Application, Big Data Security and Analytics, Network Security and Management, IoT Security and AI Security. Extensive and novel results have been accomplished and most of them have already been published through high-quality journals, conference papers and projects. She is in charge of one sub-project of National Science and Technology Support Projects, two projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China, one sub-project of information Security Projects of National Development and Reform Commission, and many more. In addition, she is a reviewer for ACM Computing Surveys IEEE Access, Digital Communications and Networks, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, and member of the editorial board of the Journal of Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
TITLE: Innovative Application Analysis of Blockchain + 5G
ABSTRACT: What happens when 5G combine with blockchain? First, a new commercial ecology would be brought by 5G and blockchain. Second, equipment identification generated by public blockchains and corresponding communication protocol would be a supplement to current centralized control network, which can ease the exhaustion of existing MAC addresses. The talk will be presented from the following aspects: 1) Development Status of China’s Blockchain industry. 2) Typical innovative application of 5G + blockchain: remodeling supply chain and trade finance, reforming the automobile industry, promoting the future innovation of Internet of Things (IOT), accelerating high level of construction and management of a smart city, a new generation of an intelligent society driven by 5G, sustainable development of XR. 3) Blockchain makes the Internet from usual to reliable.
Kostas G. Vlahodimitropoulos, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Service Quality & Customer Network Experience, Cosmote SA, Greece
Since joining Cosmote Telecommunications in 1996, he has served in various network planning and optimization roles. Currently he is the Deputy Director of Service Quality & Customer Experience Management for Fixed & Mobile at Cosmote. He has been involved in several R&D projects including radio resource management, location based optimization, efficient algorithms for radio propagation, and fleet management. His research interests are in the design and implementation of network-wide big data like for the on-line analytics of network performance vs. customer experience, and interactive presentation techniques using powerful visualization tools. He also worked as a Software Engineer at the RAM Communications Consultants, a subsidiary of RAM Mobile Data in New Jersey, USA from 1992-1994.
Kostas received the Computer Engineering Diploma from the Technical University of Patra, Greece in 1989, the Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, in New Jersey, USA, in 1992, and Ph.D. in Mobile Telecommunications from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece in 2005.
Kostas is a member of the American Association of University Professors, the Technical Chamber of Greece, and the Greek Association of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers.
ABSTRACT: During the past decades, the traditional Performance Management Process in mobile networks has been gradually transforming to a customer-centric one, promoting the visibility of the customer aspect for the Quality of Service (QoS) they are enjoying. This has been driven by the fierce competition in the mobile communications market regarding price and quality. Superior customer experience is now considered as one of the most powerful leverages to reduce the churn and increase the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). The technological advances in the Big Data & Analytics technologies have been a key enabler that helped collect, process, and provide the relevant insights for the customer experience. This process now involves many stakeholders such as Strategy, Customer Care, CRM, SQM, SoC, etc. In this talk, we will focus on the key ingredients for enabling this transformation.
Yubao He, Technical Director of Huawei Serviceability Domain, China
Yubao He has worked in serviceability domain for more than 12 years in Huawei. He focuses on automatic operation and maintenance of communication products technical planning, research and innovation. He has led many company level serviceability projects in Huawei, such as serviceability strategic planning, automated configuration, network delivery technical innovation, etc. Currently, he is devoting more in model and knowledge driven network O&M technical research.
TITLE: AIOps Practice in Telecom Network Operation and Maintenance
ABSTRACT: With the increasing scale and complexity of telecom network, the operation and maintenance (O&M) are becoming more and more important but beyond the scope of human ability. Traditional O&M methods unable to meet the current requirements. AIOps aims at assisting people to deal with large-scale and uncertain problems in O&M through AI technology, to support simple and automatic O&M of networks. This topic introduces the application background, scenarios and some practices of AIOps.
Diego Lopez, Senior Technology Expert at Telefonica I+D, Chair of ETSI NFV and PDL ISGs, Germany
Since October 2011 Diego has been in charge of Technology Exploration at the Global CTO Unit, within Telefónica I+D. His responsibilities are related to the definition and coordination of research projects in the areas of new networking technologies and network infrastructures. He is directly involved in activities related to network virtualization, core optimization, AAA, traffic analysis, and infrastructure security.
He actively participates in the ETSI ISG on Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), which he chairs, is the representative of Telefónica in bodies related to network technologies, and chairing the IRTF NFV Research Group. Diego has been appointed by the European Commission as member of the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data e-Infrastructures (HLEG-SDI).
Diego received his MS from the University of Granada in 1985, and his PhD degree from the University of Seville in 2001, with a thesis related to AI and fuzzy logic, and their application to control problems. Since 1985 he has worked for several private and public organisations, developing and deploying communication services.
From 2000 to 2011, Diego was responsible for the Middleware Area of RedIRIS, the Spanish National Research and Educational Network. As part of these tasks, he actively participated in national and international working groups and projects, and collaborated in several versions of the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group White Paper, under the auspices of the EU Presidency, in areas related to security and digital identity services.
His current areas of interest are network middleware, network virtualization, infrastructural and mediation services, infrastructural security, the application of AI techniques to network management and security, and new network architectures.
TITLE: Automation in the Days of the Software Network
ABSTRACT: The application of the technologies related to the Software Network (essentially, NFV and SDN) promises to reduce the friction in the application of different automation techniques, from general closed-loop control to the most recent AI algorithms, in all tasks related to network management and operations. We will review the current status of Software Network technologies, how they enable a deeper automation in networks, and what the challenges to bring this automation to achieve its full potential are.
Nikolaos Papakonstantinou, Senior Scientist, Technical Research Center, VTT, Finland
Dr. Nikolaos Papakonstantinou was born in Athens in 1982. He has a Diploma in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Patras, Greece (2008) and a Doctorate degree in Information Technology in Automation from Aalto University, Finland (2012). Currently, he is a Senior Scientist at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland in the area of system modeling and simulations. He leads a substance node of 13 researchers. His research focuses on model and data-driven approaches to complex-system design, operation and maintenance, and industrial information interoperability. His current interests also include hybrid safety/security modelling and early assessments of complex systems. Since 2006, he has over 40 international peer-reviewed, mainly IEEE and ASME, conference and journal paper publications, leading most of them. He participates in international groups promoting standardization (DEXPI, THTH) and leads the DEXPI OPC UA companion specification Working Group (a joint effort of the DEXPI group and the OPC Foundation).
TITLE: A holistic model driven approach for addressing safety and security early design challenges of complex critical infrastructures
ABSTRACT: Security and reliability of complex critical infrastructures is very important for economic, environmental and social reasons throughout their lifecycle (design, operation, maintenance, decommission). The interdisciplinary and inter-system dependencies in these systems introduce difficulties in the identification of safety and security risks that emerge from emerging behavior. Late discovery of safety and security design weaknesses can lead to increased costs, additional system complexity and delays to the deployment of the system. 5G network technologies promise a new level and scope of networking, ranging from high speed connections to low power Internet of Things applications. With this high level of integration and connectivity, there is an increased need for methods and tools for early high level security and safety assessment. These assessments focus on concepts like resilience/survivability (e.g. defense in depth capabilities) and not on specific security or reliability/security technologies. It is assumed that regardless of the perceived level of security measures in place, a determined (motivated, capable and/or well-funded) attacker can find ways to penetrate a layer of defense and then the defense goal is transformed to how fast the attack can be detected, isolated, mitigated and tracked. In a similar way, regardless of a low calculated failure probability of a device based on known failure modes, there is always a risk that remains and unexpected interdisciplinary interactions can also contribute to this risk. This presentation will focus on a model-driven approach for early safety and security assessment of complex critical infrastructures.
Roundtable Chair: Spilios Makris, Ph.D., Director, Palindrome Technologies, USA and Ex-Chairman of the IEEE SRPSDVE Study Group
Spilios Makris is currently the Director of Network Resilience and Business Continuity Management (BCM) in Palindrome Technologies. Spilios has extensive experience in BCM and network resilience serving as Director and Senior Consultant at Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) for over 28 years, conducting studies and developing methodologies along with industry Best Practices for over 50 Tier 1&2 telecom companies, telecom vendors, and Telecom Regulatory Authorities (TRAs) worldwide. Spilios has served as Chair, Vice-Chair, Lead Contributor of the Standards T1A1.2 WG on “Network Survivability Performance” (was renamed PRQC Reliability Task Force) for 20 years. He successfully managed thebdevelopment and regular update of Telcordia Generic Reliability Requirements documents establishing them as the “de facto” industry standards (e.g., SR-332 on Reliability Prediction Procedure for Electronic Equipment).
Spilios recently served as the Chair of the IEEE Study Group for Security, Reliability, and Performance for Software Defined and Virtualized Ecosystems (e.g., SDN, NFV, etc.). (http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/srpsdv/meeting_information.html).
Spilios received his PhD in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Mass., MS in Engineering Management from Northeastern University, Boston, Mass., and Diploma (equiv. to MS) in Electrical & Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
He is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) by the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) and a Senior Member of IEEE.
Roundtable Advisor: Chi-Ming Chen, Ph.D., AT&T Labs (retired Oct. 2018), USA
Chi-Ming Chen joined AT&T in 1995. He was with the AT&T Labs architecture organization which designs the Enhanced Control Orchestration Management Platform (ECOMP) and Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP). Prior to joining AT&T, Chi-Ming was with the Quality Assurance Center of Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) from 1985 to 1995 and was a faculty member at Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan from 1975 to 1979.
He received his Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985; M.S. in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University in 1981; M.S. and B.S. in Physics from Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, in 1973 and 1971 respectively.
Chi-Ming Chen is a Life Senior Member of IEEE and Senior Member of the ACM. He is an Advisory Board Member of IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Technical Committee on Communications Quality & Reliability (CQR). He was a member of the IEEE GLOBECOM & ICC Management & Strategy (GIMS) Standing Committee and served as the GLOBECOM and ICC Site Selection Chair from 2012 to 2017. He has chaired the Industry Forums of several GLOBECOMs and ICCs and is serving as the GIMS Advisor for ICC 2019, Shanghai, China.
From 2015 to 2017, Chi-Ming was a Steering Committee member of the IEEE SDN Initiative and IEEE Big Data Initiative. Currently, he is co-chairing the 5G Roadmap Working Group of IEEE 5G Initiative. He has been a key Organizing Committee member of CyberC conference since it’s started in 2009. In addition, he also organizes the annual IEEE Emerging Technology Reliability Roundtable (ETR-RT) since 2014.
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