This chapter proposes a next-generation ubiquitous converged infrastructure to support cloud and mobile cloud computing services. The proposed infrastructure facilitates efficient and seamless interconnection of fixed and mobile end users with computational resources through a heterogeneous network integrating optical metro and wireless access networks. To achieve this, a layered architecture which deploys cross-domain virtualization as a key technology is presented. The proposed architecture is well aligned and fully compliant with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architecture and takes advantage of the associated functionalities and capabilities. A modeling/simulation framework was developed to evaluate the proposed architecture and identify planning and operational methodologies to allow global optimization of the integrated converged infrastructure. A description of the tool and some relevant modeling results are also presented.

VDC provisioning requires the coordinated configuration of several types of resources. We present a DC architecture for the orchestration and provisioning of VDC instances on top of DCs with optical DCN and experimentally validate the proposed architecture.

Programmable networks are a substantial part of current R&D on future internet (FI) in Europe and worldwide, with considerable impact generated by large-scale test bed infrastructures. In such test beds, researchers validate proof-of-concept prototypes for new algorithms and mechanisms for efficiently controlling and managing network resources. One of the key domains for FI research is software-defined networking (SDN), which creates innovations in existing Internet architectures by shifting the control and logic outside the network equipment to Data Centres. International cooperation among leading research centres in Europe, Americas and Asia is key to validate SDN foundations and tools. EU and Japan have jointly funded the FELIX project (federated test-beds for large-scale infrastructure experiments), which defines a common control and orchestration framework to manage federated FI test beds across continents. This framework enables an experimenter to (i) request and obtain resources across different test bed infrastructures dynamically; (ii) manage and control the network paths connecting the federated SDN test beds; (iii) monitor the underlying resources and (iv) use distributed applications executed on the federated infrastructures. This paper describes the high-level architecture of the FELIX framework and details six use cases that will be employed for validation. We present our analysis and end-user considerations, highlighting the necessity for resource accessibility and coherent use of physical connections over a large-scale test bed where different control technologies such as OpenFlow and the network service interface (NSI) are simultaneously used.