A Bandwidth Allocation Model Provisioning Framework with Autonomic Characteristics

The Bandwidth Allocation Models (MAM, RDM, G-RDM and AllocTC-Sharing) are management alternatives currently available which propose different resource (bandwidth) allocation strategies in multiservice networks. The BAM adoption by a network is typically a management choice and configuration task executed by the network operations and management system setup in a static or nearly static way. This paper proposes and explores the alternative of allowing BAM definition and configuration on a more dynamic way. In effect, one of the basic motivations towards BAM dynamic allocation is the fact that multiservice networks characteristics (traffic load) may change considerably in daily network operation and, as such, some dynamics in BAM allocation should be introduced in order to improve performance. A framework is presented supporting BAM dynamic allocation. The framework adopts an OpenFlow-based software-defined networking (SDN) implementation approach in order to support scalability issues with a centralized controller and management network view. The framework architecture also supports the implementation of some autonomic characteristics which, in brief, look for improving and facilitating the decision-making process involved with BAM provisioning in a multiservice network. A proof of concept is presented evaluating different BAM performance under different traffic loads in order to demonstrate the framework strategy adopted.