CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue on Software Defined Network, Software Defined Infrastructure, Network Functions Virtualization, Autonomous System & Network Management

http://www.manageability-at-scale.org/cfp

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems

(http://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=ijcnds)

Theme and Scope

For last few years there has been a tremendous growth in data traffic due to high adoption rate of mobile devices and cloud computing. Internet of things (IoT) will stimulate even further growth. This is increasing scale and complexity of telecom/internet service provider (SP) and enterprise data center (DC) compute and network infrastructures. As a result, managing these large network-compute converged infrastructures is becoming complex and cumbersome. To cope up, network and data center operators are trying to automate network operations and system management functions. By getting the human operator out of the management loop, improved operational and economic efficiencies and operational scalability is being achieved. Automation is reducing capital and operation expenditures, this in turn is driving down cost, stimulating service demand, increasing revenues and maintaining profitability. New paradigms like Software Defined Network (SDN), Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and automation of network and system management operations is helping in achieving these business objectives.

Centralization of control plane in a SDN controller avoids the need to have human operators to manage large number of network devices individually. By virtue of centralization, SDN can implement various automated network management and control plane logic. Similarly, many large internet application providers have implemented home grown non-traditional automated network and system management systems at their DCs. On the other hand, telecom SPs are proposing to address manageability-at-scale problems with virtual network devices running on generic hardware. This will replace large variety of specialized network device hardware, simplify and bring in operational efficiencies. For all these paradigms, the key success factors are intelligent software, its programmability to implement complex logic at low cost and scaling opportunities through elasticity at different time scales.

This special issue aims to show case and disseminate new ideas and high quality research for enabling automation, optimization and/or improving economics of network and system management and operations. We solicit original research articles, review papers, theoretical studies, practical software systems incorporating new paradigms, experimental prototypes, and insightful industry analysis with the above theme. Articles from industry authors will be given special consideration. Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer review process and are selected for publication based on quality, unique contribution and relevance to the theme of this special issue.

Topics of interest include:

- New ideas that improve network, compute and storage infrastructure economics, programmability and security

- New paradigms in network operations and management, converged network-compute and data center management

- Software Defined Network (SDN), abstraction, programmability, application Interface, south and northbound API

- Software Defined Infrastructure (storage, etc.)

- Network Function Virtualization (NFV), distributed control, virtual switches, routing virtualization

- Network & system management, orchestration, resource management and optimization, integration, interoperability

- Network operations & management related automation, troubleshooting and management tools

- Cloud based network and system management application paradigms

- Application of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), analytics and big data in network and system management

- Performance analysis & evaluation, simulation, QoS/QoE, benchmarking

- Security, privacy, authentication, trust, verification

- Insights about SDN, SDI, NFV, NMS architectural requirements & analysis

- Application and use cases: wireless and mobile networks, carrier ethernet, optical transport, converged optical & packet, data center networks, transitioning existing networks to SDN

- User experience, user interface design issues and challenges in NMS, ethnographic studies on network operations centers, usability studies of management applications

- Insights about telco (SP), enterprise DC business & industry trends related to SDN, SDI, NFV and NMS

Instructions for Manuscripts

Prospective authors should submit full manuscripts with MS Word format or PDF format, electronically at electronically at http://www.inderscience.com/info/inauthors/author_submit.php , and cc to [email protected]

Submissions should not exceed 25 double-spaced, 8.5x11-inch pages (including figures, tables, and references) in 10-12 point fonts. Include five to 10 keywords, email addresses of corresponding authors.

Important Dates

Full paper regular submission due: Jan 15, 2015

Notification of results: March 15, 2015 or earlier

Revision due: April 15, 2015

Notification of final acceptance: May 15, 2015 or earlier

Submission of final revised paper: June 15, 2015

Guest Editorial Team

Amitava Biswas

Cisco Systems, USA

Email: [email protected]

Kashinath Basu

Oxford Brookes University, UK

Email: [email protected]

Chen Liu

UtopiaCompression Corp., USA

Email: [email protected]

Michael Bredel

California Institute of Technology, CERN, Switzerland

Email: [email protected]

http://www.manageability-at-scale.org/cfp