We present platooning as a special case of crowd-sensing framework. After offering a policy that governs platooning, we review common scenarios and components surrounding platooning. We present a prototype that illustrates efficiency of road usage and vehicle travel time derived from platooning. We have argued that beyond the commonly reported benefits of platooning, there are substantial savings in acquisition and processing of sensory data sharing the road. Our results show that data transmission can be reduced to low of 3% compared to normal data transmission using a platoon formation with sensor sharing.

Cloud VR/AR/MR (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality) services representa high-level architecture that combines large scale computer resources in a data-center structurestyle set up to render VR/AR/MR services using a combination of very high bandwidth, ultralow latency, high throughput, latest 5G (5th Generation) mobile networks to the end users.  VR refers to a three-dimensional computer-generated virtual environment made up ofcomputers, which can be explored by people for real time interaction. AR amplifies humanperception of the real world through overlapping of computer-generated graphics or interactivedata on a real-world image for enhanced experience.  According to the Virtual Reality Society’s account of the history of VR, it started from the360-degree murals from the nineteenth century [18]. Historically, live application of AR wasdisplayed when Myron Kruger used a combination of video cameras and projector in aninteractive environment in 1974. In 1998, AR was put into live display with the casting of avirtual yellow line marker during an NFL game. However, personal, and commercial use ofVR/AR was made possible starting with release of a DIY (Do it Yourself) headset calledGoogle Cardboard in 2014 by Google, which made use of a smartphone for the VR experience.In 2014, Samsung also introduced Gear VR which officially started the competition for VRdevices. Subsequently In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR with the major aim ofdominating the high-end spectrum of VR headset [18]. Furthermore, wider adoption of ARbecame enhanced with the introduction of Apple’s ARKit (Augmented Reality Kit) whichserves as a development framework for AR applications for iPhones and iPads [18].  The first application of VR devices in the health industry was made possible due to healthworkers’ need to visualize complex medical data during surgery and planning of surgery in1994. Since then, commercial production of VR devices and availability of advanced networkand faster broadband have increased the adoption of VR services in the healthcare industryespecially in planning of surgery and during surgery itself [16]. Overall, the wide availabilityof VR/AR terminals, displays, controllers, development kits, advanced network, and robustbandwidth have contributed to making VR and AR services to be of valuable and importanttechnologies in the area of digital entertainment, information, games, health, military and soon. However, the solutions or services needed for the technology required an advancedprocessing platform which in most cases is not cost efficient in single-use scenarios.  The kind of devices, hardware, software required for the processing and presentation ofimmersive experiences is often expensive and dedicated to the current application itself.Technological improvement in realism and immersion means increase in cost of ownershipwhich often affected cost-benefit consideration, leading to slower adoption of the VR services[14] [15]. This is what has led to development of cloud VR services, a form of data-centerbased system, which serves as a means of providing VR services to end users from the cloudanywhere in the world, using its fast and stable transport networks. The content of the VR isstored in the cloud, after which the output in form of audio-visuals is coded and compressedusing suitable encoding technology, and thereafter transmitted to the terminals. The industrywide acceptance of the cloud VR services, and technology has made available access to payper-use-basis and hence access to high processing capability offered, which is used in iipresenting a more immersive, imaginative, and interactive experience to end users [11] [12].However, cloud VR services has a major challenge in form of network latency introduced fromcloud rendering down to the display terminal itself. This is most often caused by otherperformance indicators such as network bandwidth, coding technology, RTT (Return TripTime) and so on [19]. This is the major problem which this thesis is set to find out.  The research methodology used was a combination of empirical and experimental method,using quantitative approach as it entails the generation of data in quantitative form availablefor quantitative analysis. The research questions are: Research Question 1 (RQ1): What are the latency related performance indicators ofnetworked immersive media in mobile health applications? Research Question 2 (RQ2): What are the suitable network structures to achieve an efficientlow latency VR health application?  The answers gotten from the result analysis at the end of the simulation, show thatbandwidth, frame rate, and resolution are very crucial performance indicator to achieve theoptimal latency required for hitch-free cloud VR user experience, while the importance of otherindicators such as resolution and coding standard cannot be overemphasized. Combination ofedge and cloud architecture also proved to more efficient and effective for the achievement ofa low-latency cloud VR application functionality.  Conclusively, the answer to research question one was that, the latency relatedperformance indicators of networked immersive media in mobile health applications arebandwidth, frame rate, resolution, coding technology. For research question two, suitablenetwork structures includes edge network, cloud network and combination of cloud and edgenetwork, but in order to achieve an optimally low-latency network for cloud VR mobile healthapplication in education, combination of edge and cloud network architecture is recommended

A computação em nuvem é um paradigma que tem atraído uma grande quantidade de clientes por meio do oferecimento de recursos computacionais através de um modelo de pagamento pelo uso. Entretanto, o compartilhamento da rede interna da nuvem por todos os locatários possibilita que usuários utilizem de forma egoísta ou maliciosa os recursos da rede, ocasionando ataques contra a privacidade e a integridade dos dados e a disponibilidade dos recursos. Os algoritmos de alocação atuais não impedem que a disponibilidade dos recursos de rede seja afetada por ataques ou resultam em subutilização de recursos. Nessa dissertação, é proposta uma estratégia para a alocação de recursos que aumenta a segurança no compartilhamento da rede da nuvem entre as aplicações de locatários. Esse objetivo é alcançado por meio do agrupamento de aplicações provenientes de usuários mutuamente confiáveis em domínios logicamente isolados, compostos por um conjunto de máquinas virtuais interconectadas por uma rede virtual (infraestruturas virtuais – VIs), além de considerar-se a quantidade de tráfego gerada pela comunicação entre VMs da mesma aplicação. Devido à complexidade do problema de alocação de recursos em nuvens computacionais, a estratégia é decomposta em duas etapas. Na primeira, dado um conjunto pre-estabelecido de VIs, alocam-se as mesmas no substrato físico, enquanto a segunda distribui e mapeia as aplicações no conjunto de infraestruturas virtuais. O uso de VIs provê um maior nível de isolamento entre locatários e, consequentemente, maior segurança. Contudo, o agrupamento pode resultar em fragmentação e afetar negativamente o grau de utilização dos recursos. Dessa forma, estuda-se esse compromisso e a factibilidade da abordagem proposta. Os resultados mostram os benefícios da estratégia de alocação proposta, que oferece maior proteção aos recursos de rede com baixo custo extra. Em particular, a segurança aumenta logaritmicamente de acordo com o número de VIs, enquanto a fragmentação de recursos cresce linearmente de acordo com o aumento do número de VIs oferecidas pelo provedor. / Cloud computing can offer virtually unlimited resources without any upfront capital investment through a pay-per-use pricing model. However, the shared nature of multi-tenant cloud datacenter networks enables unfair or malicious use of the intra-cloud network by tenants, allowing attacks against the privacy and integrity of data and the availability of resources. Recent research has proposed resource allocation algorithms that cannot protect tenants against attacks in the network or result in underutilization of resources. In this thesis, we introduce a resource allocation strategy that increases the security of network resource sharing among tenant applications. This is achieved by grouping applications from mutually trusting users into logically isolated domains composed of a set of virtual machines as well as the virtual network interconnecting them (virtual infrastructures - VIs), while considering the amount of traffic generated by the communication between VMs from the same application. Due to the hardness of the cloud resource allocation problem, we decompose the strategy in two steps. The first one allocates a given set of VIs onto the physical substrate, while the second distributes and maps applications into the set of virtual infrastructures. The use of VIs provides some level of isolation and higher security. However, groups may lead to fragmentation and negatively affect resource utilization. Therefore, we study the associated trade-off and feasibility of the proposed approach. Evaluation results show the benefits of our strategy, which is able to offer better network resource protection against attacks with low additional cost. In particular, the security can be logarithmically increased according to the number of VIs, while internal resource fragmentation linearly grows as the number of VIs offered by the provider increases.

A computação em nuvem é um paradigma que tem atraído uma grande quantidade de clientes por meio do oferecimento de recursos computacionais através de um modelo de pagamento pelo uso. Entretanto, o compartilhamento da rede interna da nuvem por todos os locatários possibilita que usuários utilizem de forma egoísta ou maliciosa os recursos da rede, ocasionando ataques contra a privacidade e a integridade dos dados e a disponibilidade dos recursos. Os algoritmos de alocação atuais não impedem que a disponibilidade dos recursos de rede seja afetada por ataques ou resultam em subutilização de recursos. Nessa dissertação, é proposta uma estratégia para a alocação de recursos que aumenta a segurança no compartilhamento da rede da nuvem entre as aplicações de locatários. Esse objetivo é alcançado por meio do agrupamento de aplicações provenientes de usuários mutuamente confiáveis em domínios logicamente isolados, compostos por um conjunto de máquinas virtuais interconectadas por uma rede virtual (infraestruturas virtuais – VIs), além de considerar-se a quantidade de tráfego gerada pela comunicação entre VMs da mesma aplicação. Devido à complexidade do problema de alocação de recursos em nuvens computacionais, a estratégia é decomposta em duas etapas. Na primeira, dado um conjunto pre-estabelecido de VIs, alocam-se as mesmas no substrato físico, enquanto a segunda distribui e mapeia as aplicações no conjunto de infraestruturas virtuais. O uso de VIs provê um maior nível de isolamento entre locatários e, consequentemente, maior segurança. Contudo, o agrupamento pode resultar em fragmentação e afetar negativamente o grau de utilização dos recursos. Dessa forma, estuda-se esse compromisso e a factibilidade da abordagem proposta. Os resultados mostram os benefícios da estratégia de alocação proposta, que oferece maior proteção aos recursos de rede com baixo custo extra. Em particular, a segurança aumenta logaritmicamente de acordo com o número de VIs, enquanto a fragmentação de recursos cresce linearmente de acordo com o aumento do número de VIs oferecidas pelo provedor. / Cloud computing can offer virtually unlimited resources without any upfront capital investment through a pay-per-use pricing model. However, the shared nature of multi-tenant cloud datacenter networks enables unfair or malicious use of the intra-cloud network by tenants, allowing attacks against the privacy and integrity of data and the availability of resources. Recent research has proposed resource allocation algorithms that cannot protect tenants against attacks in the network or result in underutilization of resources. In this thesis, we introduce a resource allocation strategy that increases the security of network resource sharing among tenant applications. This is achieved by grouping applications from mutually trusting users into logically isolated domains composed of a set of virtual machines as well as the virtual network interconnecting them (virtual infrastructures - VIs), while considering the amount of traffic generated by the communication between VMs from the same application. Due to the hardness of the cloud resource allocation problem, we decompose the strategy in two steps. The first one allocates a given set of VIs onto the physical substrate, while the second distributes and maps applications into the set of virtual infrastructures. The use of VIs provides some level of isolation and higher security. However, groups may lead to fragmentation and negatively affect resource utilization. Therefore, we study the associated trade-off and feasibility of the proposed approach. Evaluation results show the benefits of our strategy, which is able to offer better network resource protection against attacks with low additional cost. In particular, the security can be logarithmically increased according to the number of VIs, while internal resource fragmentation linearly grows as the number of VIs offered by the provider increases.

A computação em nuvem é um paradigma que tem atraído uma grande quantidade de clientes por meio do oferecimento de recursos computacionais através de um modelo de pagamento pelo uso. Entretanto, o compartilhamento da rede interna da nuvem por todos os locatários possibilita que usuários utilizem de forma egoísta ou maliciosa os recursos da rede, ocasionando ataques contra a privacidade e a integridade dos dados e a disponibilidade dos recursos. Os algoritmos de alocação atuais não impedem que a disponibilidade dos recursos de rede seja afetada por ataques ou resultam em subutilização de recursos. Nessa dissertação, é proposta uma estratégia para a alocação de recursos que aumenta a segurança no compartilhamento da rede da nuvem entre as aplicações de locatários. Esse objetivo é alcançado por meio do agrupamento de aplicações provenientes de usuários mutuamente confiáveis em domínios logicamente isolados, compostos por um conjunto de máquinas virtuais interconectadas por uma rede virtual (infraestruturas virtuais – VIs), além de considerar-se a quantidade de tráfego gerada pela comunicação entre VMs da mesma aplicação. Devido à complexidade do problema de alocação de recursos em nuvens computacionais, a estratégia é decomposta em duas etapas. Na primeira, dado um conjunto pre-estabelecido de VIs, alocam-se as mesmas no substrato físico, enquanto a segunda distribui e mapeia as aplicações no conjunto de infraestruturas virtuais. O uso de VIs provê um maior nível de isolamento entre locatários e, consequentemente, maior segurança. Contudo, o agrupamento pode resultar em fragmentação e afetar negativamente o grau de utilização dos recursos. Dessa forma, estuda-se esse compromisso e a factibilidade da abordagem proposta. Os resultados mostram os benefícios da estratégia de alocação proposta, que oferece maior proteção aos recursos de rede com baixo custo extra. Em particular, a segurança aumenta logaritmicamente de acordo com o número de VIs, enquanto a fragmentação de recursos cresce linearmente de acordo com o aumento do número de VIs oferecidas pelo provedor. / Cloud computing can offer virtually unlimited resources without any upfront capital investment through a pay-per-use pricing model. However, the shared nature of multi-tenant cloud datacenter networks enables unfair or malicious use of the intra-cloud network by tenants, allowing attacks against the privacy and integrity of data and the availability of resources. Recent research has proposed resource allocation algorithms that cannot protect tenants against attacks in the network or result in underutilization of resources. In this thesis, we introduce a resource allocation strategy that increases the security of network resource sharing among tenant applications. This is achieved by grouping applications from mutually trusting users into logically isolated domains composed of a set of virtual machines as well as the virtual network interconnecting them (virtual infrastructures - VIs), while considering the amount of traffic generated by the communication between VMs from the same application. Due to the hardness of the cloud resource allocation problem, we decompose the strategy in two steps. The first one allocates a given set of VIs onto the physical substrate, while the second distributes and maps applications into the set of virtual infrastructures. The use of VIs provides some level of isolation and higher security. However, groups may lead to fragmentation and negatively affect resource utilization. Therefore, we study the associated trade-off and feasibility of the proposed approach. Evaluation results show the benefits of our strategy, which is able to offer better network resource protection against attacks with low additional cost. In particular, the security can be logarithmically increased according to the number of VIs, while internal resource fragmentation linearly grows as the number of VIs offered by the provider increases.

Although cloud network flows are similar to conventional network flows in many ways, there are some major differences in their statistical characteristics. However, due to the lack of adequate public datasets, the proponents of many existing cloud intrusion detection systems (IDS) have relied on the DARPA dataset which was obtained by simulating a conventional network environment. In the current thesis, we show empirically that the DARPA dataset by failing to meet important statistical characteristics of real-world cloud traffic data centers is inadequate for evaluating cloud IDS. We analyze, as an alternative, a new public dataset collected through cooperation between our lab and a non-profit cloud service provider, which contains benign data and a wide variety of attack data. Furthermore, we present a new hypervisor-based cloud IDS using an instance-oriented feature model and supervised machine learning techniques. We investigate 3 different classifiers: Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. Experimental evaluation on a diversified dataset yields a detection rate of 92.08% and a false-positive rate of 1.49% for the random forest, the best performing of the three classifiers. / Graduate

L'informatique en nuage (Cloud Computing) a émergé comme un nouveau paradigme pour offrir des ressources informatiques à la demande et pour externaliser des infrastructures logicielles et matérielles. Le Cloud Computing est rapidement et fondamentalement en train de révolutionner la façon dont les services informatiques sont mis à disposition et gérés. Ces services peuvent être demandés à partir d’un ou plusieurs fournisseurs de Cloud d’où le besoin de la mise en réseau entre les composants des services informatiques distribués dans des emplacements géographiquement répartis. Les utilisateurs du Cloud veulent aussi déployer et instancier facilement leurs ressources entre les différentes plateformes hétérogènes de Cloud Computing. Les fournisseurs de Cloud assurent la mise à disposition des ressources de calcul sous forme des machines virtuelles à leurs utilisateurs. Par contre, ces clients veulent aussi la mise en réseau entre leurs ressources virtuelles. En plus, ils veulent non seulement contrôler et gérer leurs applications, mais aussi contrôler la connectivité réseau et déployer des fonctions et des services de réseaux complexes dans leurs infrastructures virtuelles dédiées. Les besoins des utilisateurs avaient évolué au-delà d'avoir une simple machine virtuelle à l'acquisition de ressources et de services virtuels complexes, flexibles, élastiques et intelligents. L'objectif de cette thèse est de permettre le placement et l’instanciation des ressources complexes dans des infrastructures de Cloud distribués tout en permettant aux utilisateurs le contrôle et la gestion de leurs ressources. En plus, notre objectif est d'assurer la convergence entre les services de cloud et de réseau. Pour atteindre cela, nous proposons des algorithmes de mapping d’infrastructures virtuelles dans les centres de données et dans le réseau tout en respectant les exigences des utilisateurs. Avec l'apparition du Cloud Computing, les réseaux traditionnels sont étendus et renforcés avec des réseaux logiciels reposant sur la virtualisation des ressources et des fonctions réseaux. En plus, le nouveau paradigme d'architecture réseau (Software Defined Networks) est particulièrement pertinent car il vise à offrir la programmation du réseau et à découpler, dans un équipement réseau, la partie plan de données de la partie plan de contrôle. Dans ce contexte, la première partie propose des algorithmes optimaux (exacts) et heuristiques de placement pour trouver le meilleur mapping entre les demandes des utilisateurs et les infrastructures sous-jacentes, tout en respectant les exigences exprimées dans les demandes. Cela inclut des contraintes de localisation permettant de placer une partie des ressources virtuelles dans le même nœud physique. Ces contraintes assurent aussi le placement des ressources dans des nœuds distincts. Les algorithmes proposés assurent le placement simultané des nœuds et des liens virtuels sur l’infrastructure physique. Nous avons proposé aussi un algorithme heuristique afin d’accélérer le temps de résolution et de réduire la complexité du problème. L'approche proposée se base sur la technique de décomposition des graphes et la technique de couplage des graphes bipartis. Dans la troisième partie, nous proposons un cadriciel open source (framework) permettant d’assurer la mise en réseau dynamique entre des ressources Cloud distribués et l’instanciation des fonctions réseau dans l’infrastructure virtuelle de l’utilisateur. Ce cadriciel permettra de déployer et d’activer les composants réseaux afin de mettre en place les demandes des utilisateurs. Cette solution se base sur un gestionnaire des ressources réseaux "Cloud Network Gateway Manager" et des passerelles logicielles permettant d’établir la connectivité dynamique et à la demande entre des ressources cloud et réseau. Le CNG-Manager offre le contrôle de la partie réseau et prend en charge le déploiement des fonctions réseau nécessaires dans l'infrastructure virtuelle des utilisateurs / Cloud computing emerged as a new paradigm for on-demand provisioning of IT resources and for infrastructure externalization and is rapidly and fundamentally revolutionizing the way IT is delivered and managed. The resulting incremental Cloud adoption is fostering to some extent cloud providers cooperation and increasing the needs of tenants and the complexity of their demands. Tenants need to network their distributed and geographically spread cloud resources and services. They also want to easily accomplish their deployments and instantiations across heterogeneous cloud platforms. Traditional cloud providers focus on compute resources provisioning and offer mostly virtual machines to tenants and cloud services consumers who actually expect full-fledged (complete) networking of their virtual and dedicated resources. They not only want to control and manage their applications but also control connectivity to easily deploy complex network functions and services in their dedicated virtual infrastructures. The needs of users are thus growing beyond the simple provisioning of virtual machines to the acquisition of complex, flexible, elastic and intelligent virtual resources and services. The goal of this thesis is to enable the provisioning and instantiation of this type of more complex resources while empowering tenants with control and management capabilities and to enable the convergence of cloud and network services. To reach these goals, the thesis proposes mapping algorithms for optimized in-data center and in-network resources hosting according to the tenants' virtual infrastructures requests. In parallel to the apparition of cloud services, traditional networks are being extended and enhanced with software networks relying on the virtualization of network resources and functions especially through network resources and functions virtualization. Software Defined Networks are especially relevant as they decouple network control and data forwarding and provide the needed network programmability and system and network management capabilities. In such a context, the first part proposes optimal (exact) and heuristic placement algorithms to find the best mapping between the tenants' requests and the hosting infrastructures while respecting the objectives expressed in the demands. This includes localization constraints to place some of the virtual resources and services in the same host and to distribute other resources in distinct hosts. The proposed algorithms achieve simultaneous node (host) and link (connection) mappings. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to address the poor scalability and high complexity of the exact solution(s). The heuristic scales much better and is several orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of convergence time towards near optimal and optimal solutions. This is achieved by reducing complexity of the mapping process using topological patterns to map virtual graph requests to physical graphs representing respectively the tenants' requests and the providers' physical infrastructures. The proposed approach relies on graph decomposition into topology patterns and bipartite graphs matching techniques. The third part propose an open source Cloud Networking framework to achieve cloud and network resources provisioning and instantiation in order to respectively host and activate the tenants' virtual resources and services. This framework enables and facilitates dynamic networking of distributed cloud services and applications. This solution relies on a Cloud Network Gateway Manager and gateways to establish dynamic connectivity between cloud and network resources. The CNG-Manager provides the application networking control and supports the deployment of the needed underlying network functions in the tenant desired infrastructure (or slice since the physical infrastructure is shared by multiple tenants with each tenant receiving a dedicated and isolated portion/share of the physical resources)