The third generation of mobile communication systems introduce interactive Multicast and Unicast multimedia services at a fast data rate of up to 2 Mbps and is expected to complete the globalization of the mobile telecommunication systems. The implementation of these services on satellite systems, particularly for broadcast and multicast applications to complement terrestrial services is ideal since satellite systems are capable of providing global coverage in areas not served by terrestrial telecommunication services. However, the main bottleneck of such systems is the scarcity of radio resources for supporting multimedia applications which has resulted in the rapid growth in research efforts for deriving efficient radio resource management techniques. This issue is addressed in this thesis, where the main emphasis is to design a dynamic scheduling framework and algorithm that can improve the overall performance of the radio resource management strategy of a UMTS compatible satellite network, taking into account the unique characteristics of wireless channel conditions. This thesis will initially be focused on the design of the network and functional architecture of a UMTS -compatible satellite network. Based on this architecture, an effective scheduling framework is designed, which can provide different types of resource assigning strategies. A functional model of scheduler is defined to describe the behaviours and interactions between different functional entities. An OPNET simulation model with a complete network protocol stack is developed to validate the performance of the scheduling algorithms implemented in the satellite network. Different types of traffic are considered for the OPNET simulation, such as the Poisson Process, ONOFF Source and Self Similar Process, so that the performance of scheduling algorithm can be analyzed for different types of services. A novel scheduling algorithm is proposed to optimise the channel utilisation by considering the characteristics of the wireless channel, which are bursty and location dependent. In order to overcome the channel errors, different code rates are applied for the user under different channel conditions. The proposed scheduling algorithm is designed to give higher priority to users with higher code rate, so that the throughput of network is optimized and at the same time, maintaining the end users' service level agreements. The fairness of the proposed scheduling algorithm is validated using OPNET simulation. The simulation results show that the algorithm can fairly allocate resource to different connections not only among different service classes but also within the same service class depending on their QoS attributes.

The InfiniBand Architecture (IBA) network has been proposed as a new industrial standard with high-bandwidth and low-latency suitable for constructing high-performance interconnected cluster computing systems. This architecture replaces the traditional bus-based interconnection with a switch-based network for the server Input-Output (I/O) and inter-processor communications. The efficient Quality-of-Service (QoS) mechanism is fundamental to ensure the import at QoS metrics, such as maximum throughput and minimum latency, leaving aside other aspects like guarantee to reduce the delay, blocking probability, and mean queue length, etc. Performance modelling and analysis has been and continues to be of great theoretical and practical importance in the design and development of communication networks. This thesis aims to investigate efficient and cost-effective QoS mechanisms for performance analysis and improvement of InfiniBand networks in cluster-based computing systems. Firstly, a rate-based source-response link-by-link admission and congestion control function with improved Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) packet marking scheme is developed. This function adopts the rate control to reduce congestion of multiple-class traffic. Secondly, a credit-based flow control scheme is presented to reduce the mean queue length, throughput and response time of the system. In order to evaluate the performance of this scheme, a new queueing network model is developed. Theoretical analysis and simulation experiments show that these two schemes are quite effective and suitable for InfiniBand networks. Finally, to obtain a thorough and deep understanding of the performance attributes of InfiniBand Architecture network, two efficient threshold function flow control mechanisms are proposed to enhance the QoS of InfiniBand networks; one is Entry Threshold that sets the threshold for each entry in the arbitration table, and other is Arrival Job Threshold that sets the threshold based on the number of jobs in each Virtual Lane. Furthermore, the principle of Maximum Entropy is adopted to analyse these two new mechanisms with the Generalized Exponential (GE)-Type distribution for modelling the inter-arrival times and service times of the input traffic. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted to validate the accuracy of the analytical models.

The aim of the theses is to design a methodology for centralized monitoring of data traffic in an ISP network that would detect individual connection with connectivity problems, and evaluate these problems. The methodology should at least evaluate packet loss and latency between a centrally located monitoring point and endpoints at user premises. A further goal is to implement this methodology, test it and evaluate the results.

L’apparition récente de petits capteurs peu couteux fonctionnant sur batteries, capables de traiter les données acquises et de les transmettre par ondes radio ont le potentiel de révolutionner les applications de surveillance traditionnelles. Les réseaux sans fils composés de nœuds capteurs autonomes proches de la cible à surveiller permettent des tâches de surveillance précises allant du contrôle de la température dans des bâtiments jusqu`a la détection de feux de forêt. Récemment, de nouvelles applications de réseaux de capteurs sans fil telles que des applications multimédia ou dans le domaine de la santé ont émergé. Les réseaux sous-jacents déployés pour ces applications sont souvent compos´es de nœuds hétérogènes comportant différents capteurs et doivent fournir un niveau de service conforme aux exigences des différents types de trafic en s’adaptant à la charge variable. Cependant, concevoir des protocoles efficaces adaptés à ces applications tout en s’accommodant des ressources limitées des réseaux de capteurs est une tâche difficile. Dans cette thèse, nous nous focalisons sur le support de la qualité de service au niveau de la couche MAC, car cette couche conditionne et détermine largement les performances du réseau étant donné qu’elle est responsable de l’organisation de l’accès au canal. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions les contraintes spécifiques des applications ayant des exigences fortes ainsi que des applications hétérogènes et nous examinons les travaux proposés dans la littérature. Etant donné l’inadéquation des solutions existantes en présence d’un trafic important, nous proposons AMPH, un protocole MAC adaptatif avec qualité de service pour les réseaux de capteurs sans fil hétérogènes. Notre solution consiste en une méthode d’accès au canal hybride basée sur le multiplexage temporel, dans laquelle tous les nœuds peuvent accéder au canal à chaque division de temps en utilisant un nouveau mécanisme de compétition qui favorise le trafic prioritaire. Grâce à ces techniques, AMPH utilise efficacement le canal quelque soit la charge de trafic et assure une latence faible au trafic temps réel. Nous vérifions les performances d’AMPH à l’aide de simulations et d’un modèle mathématique. / The availability of small, low-cost, battery operated devices capable of sensing, performing simple processing and transmitting data via wireless communications have the potential to revolutionize traditional monitoring applications. Wireless networks composed of autonomous sensor nodes enable ubiquitous monitoring tasks from environmental control of office buildings to the detection of forest fires. Recently, new applications for wireless sensor networks such as healthcare and multimedia applications have emerged. These applications often have heterogeneous sensing capabilities and require that the network supports different types of QoS-constrained traffic at variable rates. However, designing efficient protocols that provide an appropriate level of performance to these applications while coping with the limited resources of sensor networks is a challenging task. In this thesis, we focus on QoS provisioning at the MAC layer. Since this layer is responsible for the organization of channel access, it determines to a large extent the overall performance of the network. We start by studying the specific requirements of demanding and heterogeneous applications, then we discuss related work of the literature. Given the inadequacy of existing solutions in the presence of important traffic loads, we propose AMPH, an adaptive MAC protocol with QoS support for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. Our solution is a hybrid channelaccess method based on time division where all nodes may contend to access the channel at each time slot using a new contention mechanism which favors high priority traffic. Through these efficient techniques, AMPH achieves high channel utilization under variable traffic loads and provides low latency to real-time traffic. We verify the efficiency of AMPH through simulation experiments and a mathematical analysis.

The idea of a Future Internet platform is to deliver reusable and common functionalities to facilitate making wide ranges of software products and services.  The Future Internet platform, introduced by the Future Internet Public Private Partnership (FI-PPP) project, makes the common functionalities available through so-called Enablers to be instantly integrated into software products and services with less cost and complexity rather than a development from scratch. Quality assessment of software products and services and gaining insights into whether the quality fulfills users’ expectations within the platform are challenging. The challenges are due to the propagation of quality in the heterogeneous composite software that uses Enablers and infrastructure developed by third parties. The practical problem is how to assess the quality of such composite software as well as the impacts of the quality on users’ Quality of Experience (QoE). The research objective is to study an analytics-driven Quality-Impact approach identifying how software quality analytics together with their impact on QoE of users can be used for the assessment of software products and services in a Future Internet platform. The research was conducted with one systematic mapping study, two solution proposals, and one empirical study. The systematic mapping study is contributed to produce a map overviewing important analytics for managing a software ecosystem. The thesis also proposes a solution to introduce a holistic software-human analytics approach in a Future Internet platform. As the core of the solution, it proposes a Quality-Impact inquiry approach exemplified with a real practice. In the early validation of the proposals, a mixed qualitative-quantitative empirical research is conducted with the aim of designing a tool for the inquiry of user feedback. This research studies the effect of the instrumented feedback tool on QoE of a software product. The findings of the licentiate thesis show that satisfaction, performance, and freedom from risks analytics are important groups of analytics for assessing software products and services.  The proposed holistic solution takes up the results by describing how to measure the analytics and how to assess them practically using a composition model during the lifecycle of products and services in a Future Internet platform. As the core of the holistic approach, the Quality-Impact assessment approach could elicit relationships between software quality and impacts of the quality on stakeholders. Moreover, the early validation of the Quality-Impact approach parameterized suitable characteristics of a feedback tool. We found that disturbing feedback tools have negligible impacts on the perceived QoE of software products. The Quality-Impact approach is helpful to acquire insight into the success of software products and services contributing to the health and sustainability of the platform. This approach was adopted as a part of the validation of FI-PPP project. Future works will address the validation of the Quality-Impact approach in the FI-PPP or other real practices.

[pt] Em um país como o Brasil, de dimensões continentais e extensa costa litorânea, a navegação de cabotagem se apresenta como uma vocação natural para o transporte de cargas. Entretanto, durante muitos anos o modal rodoviário se consolidou na matriz de transportes do país, até o recente ressurgimento da oferta do serviço de cabotagem. O conhecimento dos atributos importantes para os usuários deste transporte motivou a realização deste estudo, que teve como principal objetivo analisar a avaliação dos clientes sobre o serviço de cabotagem. Para isto, foram utilizados como base os modelos de GAPS e SERVQUAL, propostos por Parasuraman et al (1985 e 1988), que buscam identificar lacunas entre a expectativa dos clientes e sua percepção sobre o serviço prestado. Os resultados indicaram que existem lacunas em algumas dimensões de qualidade na empresa pesquisada, assim como serviram para comprovar a potencialidade do modelo utilizado nesta dissertação para medição da qualidade na prestação de serviço de transporte de cabotagem. / [en] In countries like Brazil, with continental dimensions and an extensive coast, the coastal shipping becomes a natural way of transporting goods. Nevertheless, for many years in Brazil roads have been consolidated as the main way of doing so. Recently, however, the country has enjoyed a revival of the coastal shipping service. In order to compete with road transportation service, it is important to know the relevant attributes considered by the customers of coastal shipping services. This was one of the motivations for this study, as well as the evaluation of each variable ranked by the clients operating in Brazil. The method used was adapted from the models proposed by Parasuraman et al, GAPS (1985) and SERVQUAL (1988), which identify differences between the level of expectations and perception from customers about the service offered. A case study shows that from customer´s point of view there are gaps in some dimensions of quality of the service provided by the company analyzed. The results also reveal a potential application of the model proposed in the study to measure quality level of coastal shipping service in general.

Este trabalho propõe mecanismos de diferenciação de serviços para servidores Web, visando a melhorar o desempenho desses sistemas quando são consideradas as características das requisições Web nas políticas de atendimento. Optou-se por adotar o contexto do comércio eletrônico para a realização das pesquisas, uma vez que esse ambiente é um dos mais impactados negativamente quando há um comportamento inadequado do servidor em situações de sobrecarga. Para isso, foi realizada uma investigação das características das requisições Web típicas do e-commerce, para que tais características pudessem ser usadas como diretrizes para os mecanismos e melhorar o desempenho dos servidores. Em seguida, foram propostos um modelo de carga de trabalho e um modelo de simulação para a realização dos experimentos. Com isso, foi possível avaliar os resultados obtidos com a inserção dos diversos mecanismos no Servidor Web com Diferenciação de Serviços (SWDS), um modelo de servidor cuja arquitetura o torna capaz de fornecer serviços diferenciados a seus usuários e aplicações. Foram propostos novos mecanismos de escalonamento de requisições bem como novos mecanismos de controle de admissão. Diversas simulações foram realizadas e os resultados obtidos mostram que a exploração das características das requisições Web, além de ser fundamental para um bom entendimento do comportamento do servidor, possibilita a melhoria de desempenho do sistema / This work proposes differentiated services mechanisms for Web servers, aiming at improving their performance when the features of Web requests are considered. The electronic commerce (e-commerce) context was adopted to develop the researches once this environment is one of the most negatively influenced when there is an inadequate behavior of the server under overload situations. Thus, it was realized an investigation on the features of ecommerce Web requests, so that these features could be used both as guidelines for the mechanisms and to improve the performance of the servers. Afterwards, a workload model and a simulation model were proposed to implement the experiments. Thus, it was possible to evaluate the results obtained with the insertion of several mechanisms in the Web Server with Differentiated Services (WSDS), a server model with an architecture that makes it capable of supplying differentiated services to its users and applications. New request scheduling mechanisms were proposed as well as new mechanisms for admission control. Several simulations were realized and the obtained results show that the exploration of the Web request features, besides being fundamental for a good understanding of the server behavior, makes possible to improve the system performance

Esta dissertação de mestrado aborda a introdução de reconhecimento de sessões http em um modelo de servidor web com serviços diferenciados (SWDS). Algumas técnicas foram desenvolvidas com o objetivo de produzir diferenciação de serviços junto com garantias de que novas sessões poderiam ser aceitas no sistema. Esses objetivos constituem requisitos essenciais na Internet atual, especialmente para aplicações web modernas. Um novo esquema para controle de admissão de sessões foi desenvolvido e introduzido no modelo SWDS, considerando dois mecanismos para aceitar novas sessões, com garantia de nalização. O mecanismo que estima a capacidade do sistema de aceitar novas sessões, baseado em um modelo de sessão construído dinamicamente a partir da carga do sistema, é destacado. A proposta global deste trabalho também considera um controle de admissão de requisições, baseado em sessões, onde a nova política de atendimento criada mantém o sistema livre de sobrecargas e oferece atendimento diferenciado para as sessões. As políticas de negociação desenvolvidas para o controle de admissão de requisições tiveram um papel importante neste trabalho, contribuindo para a priorização do atendimento das sessões. Os resultados obtidos mostram que os controles propostos constituem estruturas fundamentais para a estabilidade do desempenho do sistema, tanto quanto os mecanismos desenvolvidos têm grande importância no atendimento das sessões e, portanto de seus clientes, através de uma abordagem baseada em diferenciação. / This MSc dissertation approaches the introduction of the HTTP sessions recognition in a web server model with diferentiated services (SWDS). Some techniques have been developed aiming at issuing diferentiation of services together with guarantees that new sessions could be accepted in the system. These aims constitute essential requirements for the current Internet, especially for modern web applications. A new scheme for the admission control system has been developed and introduced in the SWDS model, considering two mechanisms for accepting new sessions, with guarantee of their nalizations. The mechanism that estimates the system capacity of acceptance of a new session, based on a session model built dynamically from system workload information, is highlighted. The global propose of this work also considers a request admission control, based on sessions, where the new attendance polices created keep the system free from overloads and over diferentiated attendance for the sessions. The negotiation polices developed for request admission control had an important place in this work, contributing for the session attendance prioritization. The results reached show that the controls proposed comprise fundamental structures for system performance stability, as well as the mechanisms developed have great importance in attending sessions and, therefore, their clients by means of a diferentiation-based approach.

Este trabalho de doutorado tem como objetivo principal mostrar que a abstração de redes de sensores, por meio de arquiteturas orientadas a serviço, pode impor alguma degradação do desempenho, mas não inviabiliza a maioria das aplicações. A metodologia utilizada na condução deste trabalho consta de experimentos que realizam avaliações de desempenho que analisam o comportamento de diferentes mecanismos de exposição de redes de sensores, bem como avalia três dos principais serviços do modelo de interfaces do Sensor Web Enablement (SWE). Os resultados obtidos mostram diferenças de desempenho significativas entre os métodos de acesso considerados. Esses resultados ainda mostram que a sobrecarga gerada não é significativa se comparada com a frequência de obtenção de observações da maioria das redes de sensores. Visando minimizar os problemas de desempenho impostos pelo framework SWE é proposta e implementada uma arquitetura de provisão de qualidade de serviço (QoS), denominada Sensor Web Architecture (SWARCH). Um estudo de caso da SWARCH demonstra que é possível reduzir os tempos de resposta no acesso aos serviços do SWE por meio de um Broker que monitora constantemente diferentes provedores de serviços / This PhD work aims to show that the abstraction of sensor networks, by means of service-oriented architectures, may impose some performance degradation, but it does not invalidate most applications. The methodology used to conduct this research consists of experiments that realize performance evaluations that analyze the behavior of different mechanisms of exposure of sensor networks, and evaluates the three major services of the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) model interfaces. The results show significant differences in performance between the methods of considered access. The results also show that the generated overhead is not significant when compared with the frequency of obtaining observations of most wireless sensor networks. Aiming to minimize the performance issues imposed by the SWE framework, an architecture providing quality of service (QoS) called Sensor Web Architecture (SWARCH) is proposed and implemented. A case study of SWARCH demonstrates that it is possible to reduce response times when accessing the SWE services through a Broker that constantly monitors various service providers

Atualmente o acesso a um ambiente de computação em nuvem é fornecido sob demanda, o que permite que provedores ofereçam serviços de forma elástica aos clientes. Embora a nuvem permita uma abstração do comportamento da infraestrutura (lógica e física) dos provedores de serviços, nem sempre é possível oferecer serviços aos clientes de modo que os provedores consigam cumprir adequadamente os acordos de níveis de serviços. Para permitir o cumprimento desses contratos, provedores de serviços precisam de mecanismos que envolvam algoritmos de balanceamento de carga, com o objetivo de fornecer uma distribuição eficiente da carga para os recursos disponíveis. Entretanto, os trabalhos presentes na literatura não abordam de forma adequada o problema de equacionamento de recursos em função das necessidades dos clientes, pois consideram em sua maioria um conjunto limitado de objetivos a serem analisados e cumpridos. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste projeto de mestrado foi desenvolver e avaliar algoritmos disponíveis na literatura que abordem a otimização combinatória para o provisionamento de recursos computacionais, buscando otimizar o uso eficiente da infraestrutura e cumprir os acordos de nível de serviço definidos entre clientes e provedores. / Currently the access to a cloud computing environment is provided on demand, which allows providers to offer elasticity services to customers. Although the cloud allows an abstraction of the infrastructure behavior of the service providers (logical and physical), the fulfillment of the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is challenging, because according with the demand and system configuration, the providers cannot ensure the customers requirements. There is a necessity of mechanisms that consider load balancing algorithms to provide an efficient load distribution in the available resources. However, the papers available in the literature do not efficiently address the problem of resource equation considering the customers requirements, because they consider a limited set of objectives to be analysed and fulfilled. Therefore, this master project aims to develop and evaluate algorithms available in the literature that address the combinatorial optimization and the multi-objective approach to handle the computational resources during the execution time, trying to optimize the efficient use of the resources available in the infrastructure and fulfill the service level agreements defined between the clients and providers.