Syftet med examensarbetet är att analysera, implementera och utvärdera metoder för nätverksövervakning av trådlös kommunikationsutrustning i företaget Fibras nätverk. I dag sköts driften av cirka 2300 accesspunkter i Västerås stads trådlösa nätverk av Fibra. I nätverket ingår ett antal Wireless LAN Controller (WLC), vars uppgift är att hantera och konfigurera alla accesspunkter. Varje WLC kan hantera upp till 400 accesspunkter och sköter exempelvis autentiseringen av användarna. Dessutom finns det en Whats Up Gold server, vars uppgift är att samla in information om det trådlösa nätverket. Själva nätverksövervakningen presenteras i ett webbgränssnitt för drift personalen på Fibra. Examensarbetet utvärderar vilka delar av nätverket som bör övervakas, vilken information som ska samlas in och hur resultatet av övervakningen ska presenteras för drift personalen på Fibra. Dessutom görs en utvärdering av hur kommunikationen mellan Whats Up Gold servern och WLC sker bäst. Det nätverksövervakningsprogram som Fibra valt använda är Whats Up Gold. Examensarbetet inkluderar dock samtliga aspekter av nätverksövervakningsproblemet, inte bara de som ingår i programmet Whats Up Gold. Resultatet av implementationen innebär att driftpersonalen på Fibra får en särskild vy i Whats Up Gold webbgränssnitt. Den används för att felsöka och för att få en översikt av det trådlösa nätverket. Personalen får också tillgång till en larmvy, där WLC och berörda accesspunkter visas vid eventuella driftstörningar. Larmfunktionen i WLC skickar automatiskt SMS och e-mail till personal som har beredskap. Lösningen för att göra kommunikationen möjlig mellan server och WLC görs med en PBR (Policy Based Routing). En PBR är en teknik för att göra routing beslut baserat på diverse kriterier som är konfigurerade av en administratör. Genom att Fibra inför bra nätverksövervakning kommer antalet oplanerade driftstopp minska och tillgängligheten öka. Det innebär också att eventuella nätverksfel upptäcks snabbare och felsökningen i nätverket blir betydligt lättare. Nätverksövervakning sparar följaktligen både pengar och tid för ett företag som Fibra. / The purpose of this study is to analyse, implement and evaluate methods for network monitoring of wireless communication in the company Fibra. Today, Fibra managed the operation of around 2,300 access points in Västerås. The network includes a number of Wireless LAN Controller (WLC), whose task is to manage and configure all access points. Each WLC can have up to 400 access points and manage, for example, authentication of users. A servers job is to collect information from the wireless network and monitoring the result and present it in a web interface for the administrators. The thesis evaluates which parts of the network that should be monitored and what information should be gathered and how the results of the monitoring will be presented to the user. There should also be an evaluation of how the communication between the server and the WLC should be done. The network monitoring tools Fibra select to use is Whats Up Gold. The work, however, includes all aspects of the network management problem, not just those included in the program Whats Up Gold. The result of implementation means that the operating staff at Fibra received a special view of Whats Up Gold's web interface, used to troubleshoot and get an overview of the wireless network. The staff will also have access to an alarm view, where the WLC and the access points displayed on any incident. The alarm function of the WLC automatically sends SMS and e-mail to personal on duty. The solution to make communication possible between the server and the WLC is made with a PBR (Policy Based Routing). A PBR is a technology to make routing decisions based on various criteria that are configured by an administrator. By implementing network monitoring, the number of unplanned downtime is reduced and availability increased. It also means that any network failure is detected faster and troubleshooting the network becomes much easier. Network Monitoring consequently saves both money and time to a company such as Fibra.

One of the major advances that has been happening in the use of communication technologies, is the gradual replacement of IPv4 by the IPv6. This change provides several enhancements, although the transmission performance is relatively low, by considering the new addressing standard, which becomes 128 bits in IPv6, compared to 32 bits in IPv4, increasing the size of the resultant header and the communication overhead. This work has as main objective the development of a method for the minimization of the IPv6 header, seeking to increase the performance of data transmission in a local area network. Practical tests have shown that the proposed solution enables an improvement in network performance, increasing data throughput, in addition to decreasing latency and bandwidth utilization in the transmission of packets between two devices. / Um dos principais avanços que vem ocorrendo na utilizazação de tecnologias de comunicação, é a substituição gradativa do protocolo IPv4 pelo IPv6. Essa mudança apresenta diversas melhorias, embora o desempenho na transmissão seja relativamente menor ao considerar o novo padrão de endereçamento, que passa de 32 bits no IPv4, para 128 bits no IPv6, aumentando o tamanho do cabeçalho resultante e o overhead de comunicação. Este trabalho tem como principal objetivo o desenvolvimento de um método para a minimização do cabeçalho IPv6, buscando o aumento de desempenho na transmissão de dados em uma rede local. Testes práticos demonstraram que a solução proposta permite uma melhora de desempenho na rede, com o aumento da vazão de dados, além da diminuição da latência e da utilização de banda na transmissão de pacotes entre dois dispositivos.

Switch Nordic Green AB (Nordic Green Energy) is an energy company with about 40 employees. The customer service department is in-house and a lot of the work, by all departments, is done by programs running on remote servers.  Today most of the network traffic is through a wired local area network, although there is a wireless guest network which is very unstable. While planning a move to a smaller office the company is planning to implement a more extensive wireless local area network. This bachelor thesis will provide a basis for implementing the local area network and wireless local area network for the company's new office. The thesis will also establish the network platform for an eventual move of a department within the company located in Finland. This documentation will enable the company to save both time and money.  With a local area network, designed and implemented for the new office, the employees will have the best possibility to improve their work and it will also increase the efficiency of the company. / Switch Nordic Green AB (Nordic Green Energy) är ett elbolag med cirka 40 anställda. Kundtjänsten sköts internt och mycket av arbetet, även på de andra avdelningarna, sker mot fjärrservrar. Idag ligger majoriteten av nätverkstraffien på ett trådat lokalt nätverk, men det finns även ett trådlöst gästnätverk, som dock är väldigt instabilt. När företaget ska flytta till ett mindre kontor planerar de att implementera ett mer omfattande trådlöst nätverk. Den här kandidatexamenauppsatsen kommer användas som grund för implementationen av både trådat och trådlöst lokalt nätverk på det nya kontoret. Uppsatsen ska upprätta en nätverksplattform som kan användas vid en eventuell framtida flytt av företagets kontor i Finland. Med denna dokumentation tillgänglig kan företaget spara både tid och pengar.  Med ett lokalt nätverk som är designat och implementerat för det nya kontoret har de anställda möjlighet att förbättra sin arbetainsats och företagets effektivitet.

Network failures can originate from or be located in any one of several network layers as described by the OSI model. This investigation focuses on the role of physical topological design parameters in determining network reliability and performance as can be expected from the point of view of a typical client-server based connection in an Ethernet local area network. This type of host-to-host IP connection is found in many commercial, military and industrial network based systems. Using Markov modelling techniques reliability and performability models are developed for common network topologies based on the redundancy mechanism provided by IEEE spanning tree protocols. The models are tested and validated using the OPNET network simulation environment. The reliability and performability metrics calculated from the derived models for different topologies are compared leading to the following conclusions. The reliability of the entry-nodes into a redundant network is a determining factor in connection availability. Redundancy mechanisms must be extended from the entry-node to the connecting hosts to gain a significant benefit from redundant network topologies as network availability remains limited to three-nines. The hierarchical mesh network offers the highest availability (sevennines) and performability. Both these metrics can be accurately predicted irrespective of the position of the entry-node in the mesh. Ring networks offer high availability (five to sevennines) and performability if the ring remains small to medium sized, however for larger rings (N≥32) the availability is highly dependant on the relative position of the entry-node in the ring. Performability also degrades significantly as the ring size increases. Although star networks offer predictable and high performability the availability is low (four-nines) because of the lack of redundancy. The star should therefore not be used in IP networked systems requiring more than four-nines availability. In all the topologies investigated the reliability and performability can be increased significantly by introducing redundant links instead of single links interconnecting the various nodes, with the star topology availability increasing from four-nines to seven-nines and performance doubling. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Network failures can originate from or be located in any one of several network layers as described by the OSI model. This investigation focuses on the role of physical topological design parameters in determining network reliability and performance as can be expected from the point of view of a typical client-server based connection in an Ethernet local area network. This type of host-to-host IP connection is found in many commercial, military and industrial network based systems. Using Markov modelling techniques reliability and performability models are developed for common network topologies based on the redundancy mechanism provided by IEEE spanning tree protocols. The models are tested and validated using the OPNET network simulation environment. The reliability and performability metrics calculated from the derived models for different topologies are compared leading to the following conclusions. The reliability of the entry-nodes into a redundant network is a determining factor in connection availability. Redundancy mechanisms must be extended from the entry-node to the connecting hosts to gain a significant benefit from redundant network topologies as network availability remains limited to three-nines. The hierarchical mesh network offers the highest availability (sevennines) and performability. Both these metrics can be accurately predicted irrespective of the position of the entry-node in the mesh. Ring networks offer high availability (five to sevennines) and performability if the ring remains small to medium sized, however for larger rings (N≥32) the availability is highly dependant on the relative position of the entry-node in the ring. Performability also degrades significantly as the ring size increases. Although star networks offer predictable and high performability the availability is low (four-nines) because of the lack of redundancy. The star should therefore not be used in IP networked systems requiring more than four-nines availability. In all the topologies investigated the reliability and performability can be increased significantly by introducing redundant links instead of single links interconnecting the various nodes, with the star topology availability increasing from four-nines to seven-nines and performance doubling. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

<p>Large-scale deployment of IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs) remains a significant challenge. Many access points (APs) must be deployed and interconnected without a-priori knowledge of the demand. We consider that the deployment should be iterative, as follows. At first, access points are deployed to achieve partial coverage. Then, usage statistics are collected while the network operates. Overloaded and under-utilized APs would be identified, giving the opportunity to relocate, add or remove APs. In this thesis, we propose extensions to the WLAN architecture that would make our vision of iterative deployment feasible.</p><p>One line of work focuses on self-configuration, which deals with building a WLAN from APs deployed without planning, and coping with mismatches between offered load and available capacity. Self-configuration is considered at three levels. At the network level, we propose a new distribution system that forms a WLAN from a set of APs connected to different IP networks and supports AP auto-configuration, link-layer mobility, and sharing infrastructure between operators. At the inter-cell level, we design a load-balancing scheme for overlapping APs that increases the network throughput and reduces the cell delay by evenly distributing the load. We also suggest how to reduce the handoff time by early detection and fast active scanning. At the intra-cell level, we present a distributed admission control that protects cells against congestion by blocking stations whose MAC service time would be above a set threshold.</p><p>Another line of work deals with self-deployment and investigates how the network can assist in improving its continuous deployment by identifying the reasons for low cell throughput. One reason may be poor radio conditions. A new performance figure, the Multi-Rate Performance Index, is introduced to measure the efficiency of radio channel usage. Our measurements show that it identifies cells affected by bad radio conditions. An additional reason may be limited performance of some AP models. We present a method to measure the upper bound of an AP’s throughput and its dependence on offered load and orientation. Another reason for low throughput may be excessive distance between users and APs. Accurate positioning of users in a WLAN would permit optimizing the location and number of APs. We analyze the limitations of the two most popular range estimation techniques when used in WLANs: received signal strength and time of arrival. We find that the latter could perform better but the technique is not feasible due to the low resolution of the frame timestamps in the WLAN cards.</p><p>The combination of self-configuration and self-deployment enables the autonomic operation of WLANs.</p>

As bandwidth constraints on LAN/WAN environments decrease, the demand for distributed services will continue to increase. In particular, the proliferation of user-level applications requiring high-capacity distributed file storage systems will demand that such services be universally available. At the same time, the advent of high-speed networks have made the deployment of application and communication solutions based upon an Intelligent Mobile Agent (IMA) framework practical. Agents have proven to present an ideal development paradigm for the creation of autonomous large-scale distributed systems, and an agent-based communication scheme would facilitate the creation of independently administered distributed file services. This thesis thus outlines an architecture for such a distributed file system based upon an IMA communication framework.

Avec l’émergence de l’informatique dans les nuages, la capacité d’hébergement des centres de données ne cesse d’augmenter afin de répondre à une demande de plus en plus forte. La gestion, appelée l’administration, d’un centre de données entraîne des opérations fréquentes sur des machines virtuelles (VM) ainsi que sur des serveurs. De plus, chaque VM hébergée possède des besoins spécifiques au regard de sa qualité de service, de ses ressources et de son placement qui doit être compatible avec les mécanismes de tolérance aux pannes et la configuration réseau. Les outils de « l’Infrastructure As A Service » tels que Open Nebula et Vmware vSphere simplifient la création et le déploiement de VM. Cependant, l’administration d’une infrastructure virtualisée repose encore sur des changements manuels décidés par les administrateurs. Cette approche n’est plus pertinente pour la gestion d’infrastructures virtualisées de milliers de VM. En effet, les administrateurs ne peuvent pas manipuler des ensembles importants de VM tout en assurant la compatibilité des reconfigurations exécutées avec les besoins des VM. De nouvelles approches d’administration d’infrastructures proposent l’automatisation de certaines tâches d’administration. L’outil décrit dans ce document utilise des langages dédiés pour répondre aux besoins d’administration infrastructures virtualisées de taille conséquente. Dans un premier temps, l’outil propose aux administrateurs des opérations d’introspection pour observer l’organisation des ressources déployées sur l’infrastructure et les reconfigurations habituelles comme le démarrage, l’arrêt et le redémarrage de VM et de serveurs. Dans un second temps les administrateurs définissent le placement des VM à partir de règles de placement. À partir de ces règles, l’outil d’administration vérifie chaque reconfiguration et chaque ajout de règles exécutés par l’administrateur. Si une reconfiguration ou une règle est invalide, l’outil détecte un conflit et avertit l’administrateur de l’échec de l’opération. L’outil d’administration, à l’aide d’algorithmes d’ordonnancement peut calculer un plan de reconfigurations résolvant les conflits. Ces algorithmes peuvent aussi être utilisés pour mettre en place des politiques d’ordonnancement comme la consolidation ou l’équilibrage de charge. / With the emergence of cloud computing, the hosting capacity of the data centers has been continuously growing to support the non stop increasing clients demand. Managing a data center implies to regularly manipulate both virtual machines (VM) and servers. Each hosted VM has specific expectations regarding its quality of service, its resource requirements and its placement that may be compatible with fault tolerance mechanisms and the networking configuration. Infrastructure As A Service solutions such as Open Nebula and VMWare vSphere extremely simplify creations and deployments of VM but virtualized infrastructure management is still relying on manual changes on the environment. This approach is no longer compatible with an infrastructure composed of thousand of VM. Indeed, a system administrator can not manipulate a large set of VMinsuring that its reconfigurations are compatible with the expected VM requirements. This situation has led to new approaches for the infrastructure management employing automation to replace the traditional manual approach. The tool described in this document deals with VM management from Domain Specific Languages. On the one hand, this tool proposes to administrators introspection operations to monitor the infrastructure resources and common reconfigurations including starting, halting, rebooting, of serversand VM. On the other hand, administrators define the VM placement from placement rules. Then, the system checks, according to active rules, the validity of all reconfigurations and rules performed by administrators. If a reconfiguration or a rule is invalid, the administrative tool detects conflicts and warns administrators. To resolve a conflict, the system, by interacting with scheduling algorithms, computes a reconfiguration plan that satisfies all rules.The reconfiguration plan can also apply scheduling policies as consolidation or load balancing with respect to placement rules.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / As the need to send larger amounts of information increases, the military is looking into viable solutions to push this information throughout the battle space. IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN network presents an attractive high-speed solution by providing data rates up to 54 Mbps. At the same time, wireless LAN introduces increased security risk due to its vulnerability to exploitation of the wireless LAN physical layer. This research will develop a prototype system using low cost hardware and software solution to detect and process wireless IEEE 802.11a signals. Using the prototype, performance data will be collected to determine whether IEEE 802.11a is a feasible option as a high-speed information network for military use. Additionally, the performance data collected will provide a good basis for predicting the expected performance in an operational scenario and provide valuable information for proper deployment planning. / Major, Republic of Singapore Air Force

The convenience of IEEE 802.11-based wireless access networks has led to widespread deployment. However, these applications are predicated on the assumption of availability and confidentiality. Error-prone wireless networks afford an attacker considerable flexibility to exploit the vulnerabilities of 802.11-based mechanism. Two of most famous misbehaviors are selfish and malicious attacks. In this thesis we investigate two attacks: Spurious CTS attack (SCTS) and Jamming ACK attack (JACK). In the SCTS, malicious nodes may send periodic Spurious CTS packets to force other nodes to update their NAV values and prevent them from using the channel. In the JACK, an attacker ruins legitimate ACK packets for the intention of disrupting the traffic flow and draining the battery energy of victim nodes quickly. Correspondingly, we propose solutions: termed Carrier Sensing based Discarding (CSD), and Extended Network Allocation Vector (ENAV) scheme. We further demonstrate the performance of our proposed schemes through analysis and NS2 simulations.