Communication networks have evolved from circuit-switched and hop-by-hop routed systems into hybrid data/optical networks using the Internet as a common backbone carrying narrow- and broad-band traffic offered by a multitude of access networks. This data/optical backbone is built around a multi-technology/multi-protocol routing architecture which runs the IP protocols in a collapsed IP stack where ATM and SONET/SDH have been replaced by the suite of Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) protocols. A further evolution referred to as ``IP over Photons'' or ``All IP - All Optical'' is expected where ``redundant intermediate layers'' will be eliminated to run IP directly on top of optical cross-connects (OXCs) with the expectation of achieving savings on operation expenditures (OPEX) and capital expenditures (CAPEX). ``IP over Photons'' has been stalled by the immaturity in the control and data plane technologies leading to complex and time-consuming manual network planning and configurations which require a group of ``layer experts'' to operate and maintain a hybrid data/optical network. By making the status of each link and node of a data/optical network visible to a common control, GMPLS protocols have opened the way for automated operation and management allowing the different layers of an IP stack to be managed by a single network operator. GMPLS protocols provide the potential to make more efficient use of the IP backbone by having network management techniques such as Traffic Engineering (TE) and Network Engineering (NE), once the preserve of telecommunications, to be reinvented and deployed to effect different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements in the IP networks. NE moves bandwidth to where the traffic is offered to the network while TE moves traffic to where the bandwidth is available to achieve QoS agreements between the current and expected traffic and the available resources. However,several issues need to be resolved before TE and NE be effectively deployed in emerging and next generation IP networks. These include (1) the identification of QoS requirements of the different network layer interfaces of the emerging and next generation IP stack (2) the mapping of these QoS requirements into QoS routing mechanisms and network control strategies and (3) the deployment of these mechanisms and strategies within and beyond an Internet domain's boundaries to maximize the engineering and economic efficiency. Building upon different frameworks and research fields, this thesis revisits the issue of Traffic and Network Engineering (TE and NE) to present and evaluate the performance of different QoS routing mechanisms and network control strategies when deployed at different network layer interfaces of a hybrid data/optical network where an IP over MPLS network is layered above an MP λS/Fiber infrastructure. These include mechanisms and strategies to be deployed at the IP/MPLS, MPLS/MP λS and MP λS/Fiber network layer interfaces. The main contributions of this thesis are threefold. First we propose and compare the performance of hybrid routing approaches to be deployed in IP/MPLS networks by combining connectionless routing mechanisms used by classical IGP protocols and the connection oriented routing approach borrowed from MPLS. Second, we present QoS routing mechanisms and network control strategies to be deployed at the MPLS/MP λS network layer interface with a focus on contention-aware routing and inter-layer visibility to improve multi-layer optimality and resilience. Finally, we build upon fiber transmission characteristics to propose QoS routing mechanisms where the routing in the MPLS and MP λS layers is conducted by Photonic characteristics of the fiber such as the availability of the physical link and its failure risk group probability. / QC 20100630

<p>The GSM network technology has been developed and improved during several years which have led to an increased complexity. The complexity results in more network parameters and together with different scenarios and situations they form a complex set of configurations. The definition of the network parameters is generally a manual process using static values during test execution. This practice can be costly, difficult and laborious and as the network complexity continues to increase, this problem will continue to grow.This thesis presents an implementation of an automated performance optimization algorithm that utilizes genetic algorithms for optimizing the network parameters. The implementation has been used for proving that the concept of automated optimization is working and most of the work has been carried out in order to use it in practice. The implementation has been applied to the Link Quality Control algorithm and the Improved ACK/NACK feature, which is an apart of GSM EDGE Evolution.</p> / <p>GSM-nätsteknologin har utvecklats och förbättrats under lång tid, vilket har lett till en ökad komplexitet. Denna ökade komplexitet har resulterat i fler nätverksparameterar, tillstånd och standarder. Tillsammans utgör de en komplex uppsättning av olika konfigurationer. Dessa nätverksparameterar har hittills huvudsakligen bestämts med hjälp av en manuell optimeringsprocess. Detta tillvägagångssätt är både dyrt, svårt och tidskrävande och allt eftersom komplexiteten av GSM-näten ökar kommer problemet att bli större.Detta examensarbete presenterar en implementering av en algoritm för automatiserad optimering av prestanda som huvudsakligen använder sig av genetiska algoritmer för att optimera värdet av nätverksparametrarna. Implementeringen har använts för att påvisa att konceptet med en automatiserad optimering fungerar och det mesta av arbetet har utförts för att kunna använda detta i praktiken. Implementeringen har tillämpats på Link Quality Control-algoritmen och Improved ACK/NACK-funktionaliteten, vilket är en del av GSM EDGE Evolution.</p>

<p>The new mobile standard Long Term Evolution delivers high data rates, small delay and a more efficiently utilized RF spectrum. A solution to maintain this performance in user dense areas or areas with bad reception is the deployment of so-called femtocells. Femtocells are small base stations that are deployed indoors and share the RF spectrum with the whole mobile network. The idea is that femtocells will increase mobile operators network coverage and capacity while it at the same time increase users data throughput. There are several challenges with femtocells, both technical and economical ones. The most debated issues is how femtocells should schedule users while operating in an environment where other femtocells and base stations are interfering. In this work we developed a simulation tool to simulate the scheduling interaction between femtocells and base stationsin order to show the performance of radio resource schedulers. This rapport also aims to evaluate an approach to a femtocell scheduler to solve this issue in a satisfying way. The report gives a description of the structure of the implemented simulation tool together with some reflections on how future designs of similar or more complex simulation environments could be done.</p>

The GSM network technology has been developed and improved during several years which have led to an increased complexity. The complexity results in more network parameters and together with different scenarios and situations they form a complex set of configurations. The definition of the network parameters is generally a manual process using static values during test execution. This practice can be costly, difficult and laborious and as the network complexity continues to increase, this problem will continue to grow.This thesis presents an implementation of an automated performance optimization algorithm that utilizes genetic algorithms for optimizing the network parameters. The implementation has been used for proving that the concept of automated optimization is working and most of the work has been carried out in order to use it in practice. The implementation has been applied to the Link Quality Control algorithm and the Improved ACK/NACK feature, which is an apart of GSM EDGE Evolution. / GSM-nätsteknologin har utvecklats och förbättrats under lång tid, vilket har lett till en ökad komplexitet. Denna ökade komplexitet har resulterat i fler nätverksparameterar, tillstånd och standarder. Tillsammans utgör de en komplex uppsättning av olika konfigurationer. Dessa nätverksparameterar har hittills huvudsakligen bestämts med hjälp av en manuell optimeringsprocess. Detta tillvägagångssätt är både dyrt, svårt och tidskrävande och allt eftersom komplexiteten av GSM-näten ökar kommer problemet att bli större.Detta examensarbete presenterar en implementering av en algoritm för automatiserad optimering av prestanda som huvudsakligen använder sig av genetiska algoritmer för att optimera värdet av nätverksparametrarna. Implementeringen har använts för att påvisa att konceptet med en automatiserad optimering fungerar och det mesta av arbetet har utförts för att kunna använda detta i praktiken. Implementeringen har tillämpats på Link Quality Control-algoritmen och Improved ACK/NACK-funktionaliteten, vilket är en del av GSM EDGE Evolution.

The new mobile standard Long Term Evolution delivers high data rates, small delay and a more efficiently utilized RF spectrum. A solution to maintain this performance in user dense areas or areas with bad reception is the deployment of so-called femtocells. Femtocells are small base stations that are deployed indoors and share the RF spectrum with the whole mobile network. The idea is that femtocells will increase mobile operators network coverage and capacity while it at the same time increase users data throughput. There are several challenges with femtocells, both technical and economical ones. The most debated issues is how femtocells should schedule users while operating in an environment where other femtocells and base stations are interfering. In this work we developed a simulation tool to simulate the scheduling interaction between femtocells and base stationsin order to show the performance of radio resource schedulers. This rapport also aims to evaluate an approach to a femtocell scheduler to solve this issue in a satisfying way. The report gives a description of the structure of the implemented simulation tool together with some reflections on how future designs of similar or more complex simulation environments could be done.

<p>This thesis aims to investigate a method and tool for emulation of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) core network needed as an environment to test the routing functionality. GPRS is the most widely adopted mobile packet data delivery technology in the world. It utilizes an Intranet Protocol (IP)-based core network and involves significant changes to the way the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) air interface is structured. It also forms the basis of the future structure of mobile network transmission and switching.</p><p>The Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) is the most fundamental node in GPRS. Ericsson produces and manages an increasing number of SGSN nodes in the world. One of main functionalities of SGSN node is to forward IP packets according to the destination address in the IP header on IP core network.</p><p>In each new release of SGSN, or when implementation or upgrades have been done on routing application on SGSN, design and test engineers at Ericsson need to emulate the IP core network. This must be done with use of many routers to generate huge amounts of data that can simulate the real world IP core network.</p><p>The major goal of this thesis was to analyze and verifying the use of a suitable and economical solution to emulating IP Core Network of the GPRS system for testing of different functionality of the routing application running in SGSN , instead of building up a physical Core Network with different infrastructure and many routers.</p><p>The method chosen for emulating the IP core network with many routers, and investigated in the thesis, is based on a Cisco simulator called “Dynamips”, which runs many actual Cisco Internetwork Operating Systems (IOS) with many different models of Cisco products in a virtual environment on Windows or Linux platforms. With this simulator, engineers at Ericsson will be able to use this simulator to emulate IP core network easily and efficiently to accomplish system test cases.</p><p>A conclusion of this work is that Dynamips could be used to emulate many complicated IP core network scenarios, with many routers to generate huge amounts of data to simulate the real world IP core network. The emulated system fulfils its purpose for testing of the routing application of SGSN regarding different functionality and characteristics. This is done to ensure and verify that SGSN routing application meets its functional and technical requirements, and also helps to find undiscovered errors as well as helps to ensure that the individual components of routing application on SGSN are working correctly.</p>