Future Networks will constitute a complex, highly miscellaneous, decentralized and dynamic environment, the requirements of which cannot be handled by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of governance framework of service and network management, which targets at guidance of the behavior of autonomic and legal network entities and resources, based on specific service demands and business goals. Governance framework will enable the realization of overall control of multi-vendor environment and resources, coherent network behavior, programmability and control autonomy, through policies. To this effect, this paper presents the main challenges of governance framework; the specification of the operators' high level objectives for the determination of the behavior of the managed elements/resources, and the final realization of these from the targeted elements, as well as, the interaction between human operator and network infrastructures. Based on their elaboration, the focus is placed on existing concepts that can constitute the basis for the design of a proper governance framework. In this context, the paper presents the design of a proper interface between the human operator and the network infrastructures, and of suitable functions and techniques for realization of the operator's objectives from the targeted elements, along with implementation information.

SUMMARY Academic and industrial research initiatives have sought to make fully autonomic networks a reality. Some of these initiatives pursued a holistic approach, while others focused on setting up functionalities for specific networking domains. These efforts did not succeed in being extensively deployed, because the goals of network operators were not satisfactorily met. These goals include unification of management operations, enablement of end‐to‐end management and enhancement of the overall system performance in a trusted way, while reducing management cost. In this paper, we analyse a set of existing autonomic management architectures and frameworks with respect to a selected set of criteria. We then identify missing parts and challenges and propose a framework to unify the most promising attributes towards a novel approach of realization of autonomic networking management. We call this proposal Unified Management Framework (UMF). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In D6.1 deliverable project dissemination, exploitation and training plans, as well as standardization & regulatory approach strategy was presented. The D6.2 reported on the necessary updates of these strategies and the actions taken by the partners in line with them, as well as the obtained results. In this D6.3 deliverable, a full set of project dissemination activities, standardization & regulatory contributions as well as an operator’s “cook book” outlining steps necessary for full deployment of ON functionality and services, are presented.

The increasing dynamism, complexity and challenges of networks and services cannot be handled by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of autonomic network and service management. In this context, the UniverSelf research project proposes a promising solution, called Unified Management Framework (UMF) with the goal to unify and establish autonomics in the management of networks and services. UMF provides the processes, tools and methods for achieving unification of diverse autonomic solutions, governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, and “plug and play” of autonomic solutions within existing and future management ecosystems. Despite the soundness of UMF vision from the research point of view, careful and well planned roadmap towards standardization is required in order to boost its deployability and operator adoption. Accordingly, this paper first describes the approach followed for the design of UMF and the set of functional blocks derived as an outcome of this approach. Based on the elaboration and evolution of these functional blocks, the focus is then placed on three components namely, governance, knowledge, coordination, which comprise the so called UMF core and will monopolize the effort towards deriving the upcoming releases of UMF. The standardization opportunities of UMF can be actually indentified while looking into these components and their associated interfaces.

Future Internet (FI) constitutes a complex and dynamic environment, the requirements of which cannot be adrressed by traditional management schemes. The alternative is the approach of autonomic network and service management. In this context, the UniverSelf research project proposes a promising solution, called Unified Management Framework (UMF), which targets the unification of autonomic network and service management. UMF addresses FI challenges by exploiting governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, unification of diverse autonomic solutions, and adaptation to rapidly changing environment with respect to managed system properties and service and user's requirements. Accordingly, this paper presents the UMF core blocks, namely Governance, Coordination and Knowledge blocks, including a description of their underlying mechanisms. The paper also describes the Network Empowerment Mechanisms (NEM) that empower networks with autonomic algorithms/solutions and can be embedded into existing and future systems in a “plug and play” way.

Future Internet (FI) constitutes a demanding environment that requires joint management of networks and services. It is also widely believed that autonomic/cognitive management systems offer a suitable and viable choice for confronting the problems of the complex FI. In this regard, Unified Management Framework (UMF), is an extensible management framework with the goal to unify and establish autonomics in the management of networks and services, it is developed within UniverSelf research project and appears to be a promising solution. UMF provides the processes, tools and methods for achieving unification of diverse autonomic solutions, governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, and “plug and play” of autonomic solutions within existing and future management ecosystems. This paper describes the approach followed for the design of UMF, whereas it also details the set of functional blocks that comprise the first UMF functional view as a result of this design approach. Based on the elaboration and evolution of these functional blocks, three components namely, governance, knowledge, coordination are introduced as the so called UMF core that will monopolize the effort towards deriving the upcoming releases of UMF.

SUMMARYFuture networks will need to accommodate a significantly augmented user demand, mainly stemming from the wireless and mobile domains. In general, the emerging radio landscape will comprise multiple, collaborating radio access networks (RANs) able to operate a plethora of diverse radio access technologies (RATs), variant types of mobile terminals (MTs), with the ability to choose among various supported RANs/RATs and, in addition, both devices and networks with dynamic spectrum access capabilities that allow the sharing and/or optimization of spectrum usage among different systems. The above will stress network operators for developing mechanisms to confront the challenges and to leverage the opportunities posed by such a versatile radio environment. In particular, the situation calls for adaptive and flexible management paradigms that are able to dynamically manage network elements and terminals, thus ensuring the great availability and efficient usage of spectrum and other radio resources. Framed within the above, this paper considers a cognitive network management architecture, which is destined for optimized management of future wireless networks operating in versatile radio environments, and presents a performance evaluation methodology, which was set up for measuring the signalling loads that the operation of the architecture will bring to the managed network. The methodology is analytically described, and useful results with respect to the signalling load produced for management signalling purposes in an indicative scenario are presented and analysed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Future mobile networks are expected to be complex heterogeneous systems. On the one hand this will enable users to take advantage of a number of different access technologies. On the other hand it will seriously affect network management procedures since more extensive operations and decisions will have to be dealt with. To tackle these challenges a number of new dynamic mechanisms need to be designed. It is imperative that certain network management tasks have to be performed without human intervention to reduce the OPEX costs and achieve faster responses in different events. To achieve this goal, the introduction of self‐x functionalities, combined with cognitive mechanisms and the ability to reconfigure network entities and terminals, is required. Moreover, the introduction of a new pilot channel needs to be considered to assist the terminals in selecting the most suitable radio access technology according to their requirements. We present the functional architecture of an evolved network that was designed in the context of the EU‐funded IP project ‘E 3 : End‐to‐End Efficiency’. This architecture aims to enhance existing procedures usually performed in traditional operation and maintenance systems (e.g. spectrum management, network planning, configuration actions). We explain the rationale of our design and provide specific examples to illustrate the role of the different functional entities and their interfaces. A considerable part of this architecture has recently been approved as a feasibility study by the ETSI Committee Reconfigurable Radio System. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The emerging and future radio landscape will consist of heterogeneous wireless networks, operating in the framework of diverse cooperative associations of network operators, for accommodation of the demands of users with multimode and/or multihoming enabled terminals. In this context, the optimized spectrum and radio resource utilization will be key factors for the accomplishment of the goals of both users and operators, namely the satisfaction of users' needs and the augmentation of operators' profits. The IEEE P1900.4 standardization group is working towards specifying architectures and functions that will enable network‐terminal distributed decision making for optimized radio resource usage in such heterogeneous wireless access networks. In alignment with the recently standardized P1900.4 management architecture, in this paper we (a) propose a functional architecture for the management and optimization of spectrum and radio resource utilization in heterogeneous wireless environments, (b) give a thorough description of the information that needs to be conveyed on the external interfaces of the proposed architecture, and (c) set up an experimentation platform and conduct indicative scenarios for both the demonstration and performance assessment of the proposed architecture. The assessment results show satisfactory behavior in terms of induced management signaling loads and time delays, that is equivalent to minimal intervention into the real network operation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Beyond 3G (B3G) radio landscape will consist of cognitive heterogeneous wireless networks, operating in the framework of diverse co-operative associations among different classes of operators and providers, for the accommodation of the demands of users with multimode and/or multihoming enabled terminals. In this context, the optimized spectrum and radio resource utilization will be key factor for accomplishment of the purposes of both users and operators/providers, namely the satisfaction of user's needs and the augmentation of profit, respectively. In this paper, we focus on an architecture for the management and optimization of spectrum and radio resource utilization in such composite wireless environments, and we analytically present the respective information flow among and from/to the functional entities involved in this architecture. The proposed management architecture can operate in the framework of different business scenarios and is based on related work that has been conducted within the IEEE 1900.4 standard.

In this article, we propose and describe a functional architecture (FA) for the efficient radio and spectrum resource management of the anticipated future compound communication systems. This work comprises an advancement of the FA that has been initially proposed within end-to-end reconfigurability - phase 2 (E2R II) project and has been enhanced to incorporate cognitive and self-x capabilities to address the newly born B3G challenges. Furthermore, the proposed FA is currently being elaborated within the Working Group 3 (WG3) of the Reconfigurable Radio Systems Technical Committee (RRS TC). This committee was created by European Standards Telecommunication Institute (ETSI) Board with the aim to study the feasibility of standardization activities related to reconfigurable radio systems (including software defined and cognitive radios). It should be also mentioned that a relevant functional architecture for optimized radio resource usage in heterogeneous wireless networks is currently under standardization within IEEE.

Next generation mobile and wireless systems will enhance the operators' network management capabilities and will considerably improve the users' experience. However, these systems form a complex heterogeneous environment that calls for new management techniques targeting efficiency, robustness and adaptability. Cognition techniques as well as the ability for network components to act autonomously are considered as the main tools to achieve these goals. In this paper we present the functional architecture (FA) for the management and control of reconfigurable radio systems of the EU funded IP project called “E3 — End to End Efficiency” that has been designed to enhance existing procedures usually performed in traditional O&M systems (e.g., spectrum management, network planning, configuration actions etc). We present the rational of our design and provide specific examples to illustrate the role of the different functional entities and their interfaces. A considerable part of this architecture has been recently approved as a feasibility study by ETSI Reconfigurable Radio System (RRS).