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At least 19 records

Editorial [Special issue on software defined networks and infrastructures, network function virtualisation, autonomous systems and network management]

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 centre (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 DC operators are trying to automate network and system operations, administrations and management (OAM) functions. OAM includes all non-functional mechanisms which keep the network running.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A generative graph model for electrical infrastructure networks

We propose a generative graph model for electrical infrastructure networks that accounts for heterogeneity in both node and edge type. To inform the design of this model, we analyze the properties of power grid graphs derived from the U.S. Eastern Interconnection, Texas Interconnection, and Poland transmission system power grids. Across these datasets, we find subgraphs induced by nodes of the same voltage level exhibit shared structural properties atypical to small-world networks, including low local clustering, large diameter and large average distance. On the other hand, we find subgraphs induced by transformer edges linking nodes of different voltage types contain a more limited structure, consisting mainly of small, disjoint star graphs. The goal of our proposed model is to match both these inter and intra-network properties by proceeding in two phases: we first generate subgraphs for each voltage level and then generate transformer edges that connect these subgraphs. The first phase of the model adapts the Chung-Lu random graph model, taking desired vertex degrees and desired diameter as inputs, while the second phase of the model is based on a simpler random star graph generation process. We test the performance of our model by comparing its output across many runs to the aforementioned real data. In nearly all categories tested, we find our model is more accurate in reproducing the unusual mixture of properties apparent in the data than the Chung-Lu model. We also include graph visualization comparisons, as well as a brief analysis of edge-deletion resiliency. Ultimately, our model may be used to generate synthetic graph data, test hypotheses and algorithms at different scales, and serve as a baseline model on top of which further electrical network properties, device models, and interdependencies to other networks, may be appended.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Reliable Communication Models in Interdependent Critical Infrastructure Networks

Modern critical infrastructure networks are becoming increasingly interdependent where the failures in one network may cascade to other dependent networks, causing severe widespread national-scale failures. A number of previous efforts have been made to analyze the resiliency and robustness of interdependent networks based on different models. However, communication network, which plays an important role in today's infrastructures to detect and handle failures, has attracted little attention in the interdependency studies, and no previous models have captured enough practical features in the critical infrastructure networks. In this paper, we study the interdependencies between communication network and other kinds of critical infrastructure networks with an aim to identify vulnerable components and design resilient communication networks. We propose several interdependency models that systematically capture various features and dynamics of failures spreading in critical infrastructure networks. We also discuss several research challenges in building reliable communication solutions to handle failures in these models.

Lee, Sangkeun↗

HotSpots: Failure Cascades on Heterogeneous Critical Infrastructure Networks

Critical Infrastructure Systems such as transportation, water and power grid systems are vital to our national security, economy, and public safety. Recent events, like the 2012 hurricane Sandy, show how the interdependencies among different CI networks lead to catastrophic failures among the whole system. Hence, analyzing these CI networks, and modeling failure cascades on them becomes a very important problem. However, traditional models either do not take multiple CIs or the dynamics of the system into account, or model it simplistically. In this paper, we study this problem using a heterogeneous network viewpoint. We first construct heterogeneous CI networks with multiple components using national-level datasets. Then we study novel failure maximization problems on these networks, to compute critical nodes in such systems. We then provide HotSpots, a scalable and effective algorithm for these problems, based on careful transformations. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on real CIS data from multiple US states, and show that our method HotSpots outperforms non-trivial baselines, gives meaningful results and that our approach gives immediate benefits in providing situational-awareness during large-scale failures.

Chen, Liangzhe↗

Time-Varying, Multi-Scale Adaptive System Reliability Analysis of Lifeline Infrastructure Networks

The majority of current societal and economic needs world-wide are met by the existing networked, civil infrastructure. Because the cost of managing such infrastructure is high and increases with time, risk-informed decision making is essential for those with management responsibilities for these systems. To address such concerns, a methodology that accounts for new information, deterioration, component models, component importance, group importance, network reliability, hierarchical structure organization, and efficiency concerns has been developed. This methodology analyzes the use of new information through the lens of adaptive Importance Sampling for structural reliability problems. Deterioration, multi-scale bridge models, and time-variant component importance are investigated for a specific network. Furthermore, both bridge and pipeline networks are studied for group and component importance, as well as for hierarchical structures in the context of specific networks. Efficiency is the primary driver throughout this study. With this risk-informed approach, those responsible for management can address deteriorating infrastructure networks in an organized manner.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Reducing Cascading Failure Risk by Increasing Infrastructure Network Interdependence

Increased coupling between critical infrastructure networks, such as power and communication systems, has important implications for the reliability and security of these systems. To understand the effects of power-communication coupling, several researchers have studied models of interdependent networks and reported that increased coupling can increase vulnerability. However, these conclusions come largely from models that have substantially different mechanisms of cascading failure, relative to those found in actual power and communication networks, and that do not capture the benefits of connecting systems with complementary capabilities. In order to understand the importance of these details, this paper compares network vulnerability in simple topological models and in models that more accurately capture the dynamics of cascading in power systems. First, we compare a simple model of topological contagion to a model of cascading in power systems and find that the power grid model shows a higher level of vulnerability, relative to the contagion model. Second, we compare a percolation model of topological cascading in coupled networks to three different models of power networks coupled to communication systems. Again, the more accurate models suggest very different conclusions than the percolation model. In all but the most extreme case, the physics-based power grid models indicate that increased power-communication coupling decreases vulnerability. This is opposite from what one would conclude from the percolation model, in which zero coupling is optimal. Only in an extreme case, in which communication failures immediately cause grid failures, did we find that increased coupling can be harmful. Together, these results suggest design strategies for reducing the risk of cascades in interdependent infrastructure systems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Game Strategies for Entanglement Paths in Quantum Network Infrastructure

Entanglement distribution is a core function of quantum networks, and the paths used for this purpose are composed of quantum and conventional network components and are routed through physical facility sites. A game theoretic model is formulated for the defense of entanglement paths in a quantum network infrastructure by modeling the correlations and probabilities of reinforcement and failure of its components. A sum-form utility function is used to capture the cost-benefit trade-offs in reinforcing the entanglement path components to defend against their failures and attacks. Under Nash Equilibrium criteria, estimates of survival probabilities of entanglement paths are derived using the parameters and correlations of quantum, conventional, hybrid, and facility components. They provide insights into the dependencies of entanglement paths on its components, including cross-boundary effects of conventional, quantum, and facility components.

Rao, Nageswara [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000234085941)↗

Optimizing End-to-End Big Data Transfers over Terabits Network Infrastructure

While future terabit networks hold the promise of significantly improving big-data motion among geographically distributed data centers, significant challenges must be overcome even on today's 100 gigabit networks to realize end-to-end performance. Multiple bottlenecks exist along the end-to-end path from source to sink, for instance, the data storage infrastructure at both the source and sink and its interplay with the wide-area network are increasingly the bottleneck to achieving high performance. In this study, we identify the issues that lead to congestion on the path of an end-to-end data transfer in the terabit network environment, and we present a new bulk data movement framework for terabit networks, called LADS. LADS exploits the underlying storage layout at each endpoint to maximize throughput without negatively impacting the performance of shared storage resources for other users. LADS also uses the Common Communication Interface (CCI) in lieu of the sockets interface to benefit from hardware-level zero-copy, and operating system bypass capabilities when available. It can further improve data transfer performance under congestion on the end systems using buffering at the source using flash storage. With our evaluations, we show that LADS can avoid congested storage elements within the shared storage resource, improving input/output bandwidth, and data transfer rates across the high speed networks. We also investigate the performance degradation problems of LADS due to I/O contention on the parallel file system (PFS), when multiple LADS tools share the PFS. We design and evaluate a meta-scheduler to coordinate multiple I/O streams while sharing the PFS, to minimize the I/O contention on the PFS. Finally, with our evaluations, we observe that LADS with meta-scheduling can further improve the performance by up to 14 percent relative to LADS without meta-scheduling.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Sequence-Based Anomaly Detection in Critical Infrastructure Networks

United States critical infrastructure faces new cyber threats from adversarial nation-state actors in the form of malware-free attacks. Traditional cybersecurity techniques use rules-based methods to identify indicators of compromise on networks, often missing these sophisticated attacks. Our approach leverages multiple state of the art machine learning models in a pipeline to identify abnormal network events through sequential analysis. We combine both device and packet-level information into individual events to characterize anomalous network actions. The model is trained and tested on real network traffic from the Idaho National Lab High Performance Computing (HPC) with greater than 98% precision. It is capable of flagging malicious tactics used by adversaries in malware-free attacks, severe changes to the network, and abnormal user activity by network devices.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Dynamics of Multilayer Complex Infrastructure Networks

Our research effort models critical infrastructure systems as complex and interdependent networks, allowing for dynamic analysis of the resilience and robustness of these connected systems.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Game-Theoretic Strategies for Quantum-Conventional Network Infrastructures

Fundamentally and practically, quantum networks and conventional networks are inextricably tied, since the basic quantum protocols such as teleportation require both networks and the conventional network fiber is also used for the quantum network. A Recursive System of Systems (RSOS) model is developed for quantum-conventional (QC) networks by modeling the correlations at various levels based on the failure and attack modes of quantum, conventional and hybrid components and the propagative effects across QC boundaries. A game-theoretic formulation is developed to capture the cost-benefit trade-offs of the provider in defending against component attacks, using sum-form utility functions. By applying the Nash Equilibrium results, the conditions and sensitivity functions of the survivalprobabilities of a QC network at different levels are derived using the strong dependencies between quantum and conventional infrastructures. The results provide insights into the dependenciesbetween conventional and quantum networks, including cross QC boundary effects in terms of disruption impact of conventional networks on quantum networks, and vice versa.

Rao, Nageswara↗

Grid-Enhanced, Mobility-Integrated Network Infrastructures for Extreme Fast Charging (GEMINI-XFC)

Review of the FY20 and FY21 progress for the Grid-Enhanced, Mobility-Integrated Network Infrastructures for Extreme Fast Charging (GEMINI-XFC) project. GEMINI-XFC will use first-of-a-kind integrated high-fidelity grid and transport modeling to identify effective pathways for widespread electrification, to design and evaluate integrated vehicle-grid control schemes, and to optimize electric vehicle integration at a full regional scale with individual customer resolution.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,POWER TRANSMISSION AND↗

Security-Oriented and Load-Balancing Wireless Data Routing Game in the Integration of Advanced Metering Infrastructure Network in Smart Grid

Ensuring flexible and reliable data routing is indispensable for the integration of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) networks, we propose a secure-oriented and load-balancing wireless data routing scheme. A novel utility function is designed based on security routing scheme. Then, we model the interactive security-oriented routing strategy among meter data concentrators or smart grid meters as a mixed-strategy network formation game. Finally, such problem results in a stable probabilistic routing scheme with proposed distributed learning algorithm. One contributions is that we studied that different types of applications affect the routing selection strategy and the strategy tendency. Another contributions is that the chosen strategy of our mixed routing can adaptively to converge to a new mixed strategy Nash equilibrium (MSNE) during the learning process in the smart grid.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

A tri-level optimization model for interdependent infrastructure network resilience against compound hazard events

Resilient operation of interdependent infrastructures against compound hazard events is essential for maintaining societal well-being. To address consequence assessment challenges in this problem space, we propose a novel policy-guided tri-level optimization model applied to a proof-of-concept case study with fuel distribution and transportation networks – encompassing one realistic network; one fictitious, yet realistic network; as well as networks drawn from three synthetic distributions. Mathematically, our approach takes the form of a defender-attacker-defender (DAD) model—a multi-agent tri-level optimization, comprised of a defender, attacker, and an operator acting in sequence. Here, in this study, our notional operator may choose proxy actions to operate an interdependent system comprised of fuel terminals and gas stations (functioning as supplies) and a transportation network with traffic flow (functioning as demand) to minimize unmet demand at gas stations. A notional attacker aims to hypothetically disrupt normal operations by reducing supply at the supply terminals, and the notional defender aims to identify best proxy defense policy options which include hardening supply terminals or allowing alternative distribution methods such as trucking reserve supplies. We solve our DAD formulation at a metropolitan scale and present practical defense policy insights against hypothetical compound hazards. We demonstrate the generalizability of our framework by presenting results for a realistic network; a fictitious, yet realistic network; as well as for three networks drawn from synthetic distributions. Additionally, we demonstrate the scalability of the framework by investigating runtime performance as a function of the network size. Steps for future research are also discussed.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Grid-Enhanced, Mobility-Integrated Network Infrastructures for Extreme Fast Charging (GEMINI-XFC)

Increasing vehicle electrification will require extensive use of extreme fast charging (XFC), especially for larger vehicles. Uncoordinated XFC can create grid challenges, particularly at the distribution level. Two strategies can support widespread XFC: gold-plate the grid (i.e., upgrade all systems to enable worst-case, fully coincident loads) or use integrated planning to codesign a smart system based on advanced controls that leverage load flexibility and distributed energy resources. With the right design and control, XFC can simultaneously support both mobility and grid operations. Fully realizing the potential of XFC, however, will require unprecedented coordination among the charging infrastructure, grid, and vehicles. GEMINI-XFC combines high-fidelity grid and transport modeling at an unprecedented level of resolution and codesigns a smart system based on advanced controls that leverage load flexibility and distributed energy resources to optimize the integration of extreme fast charging (XFC) across a full regional scale with individual customer resolution.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Cookie-Jar: An Adaptive Re-configurable Framework for Wireless Network Infrastructures

5G advancements like Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) bring high capacity and low latency, but also intensify interference challenges. Static and dynamic coordination techniques address this, often at the cost of increased power draw. We introduce Cookie-Jar (CJ), an interference coordination (IC) framework using reinforcement learning for multi-goal optimization. By dynamically adjusting network, power, and topology parameters based on real-time conditions, CJ improves Signal to Noise and Interference Ratio (SINR) while minimizing power consumption. Simulated 5G experiments showcase CJ's potential, achieving a 15% SINR improvement with near-identical power draw compared to existing methods.

Network↗

NUMA-Aware Thread Scheduling for Big Data Transfers over Terabits Network Infrastructure

The evergrowing trend of big data has led scientists to share and transfer the simulation and analytical data across the geodistributed research and computing facilities. However, the existing data transfer frameworks used for data sharing lack the capability to adopt the attributes of the underlying parallel file systems (PFS). LADS (Layout-Aware Data Scheduling) is an end-to-end data transfer tool optimized for terabit network using a layout-aware data scheduling via PFS. However, it does not consider the NUMA (Nonuniform Memory Access) architecture. In this paper, we propose a NUMA-aware thread and resource scheduling for optimized data transfer in terabit network. First, we propose distributed RMA buffers to reduce memory controller contention in CPU sockets and then schedule the threads based on CPU socket and NUMA nodes inside CPU socket to reduce memory access latency. We design and implement the proposed resource and thread scheduling in the existing LADS framework. Experimental results showed from 21.7% to 44% improvement with memory-level optimizations in the LADS framework as compared to the baseline without any optimization.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on 'Advanced Signal Processing Techniques and Telecommunications Network Infrastructures for Smart Grid Analysis, Monitoring, and Management'

Electrical power systems are undergoing a radical change in structure, components, and operational paradigms, and are progressively approaching the new concept of smart grids (SGs). Future power distribution systems will be characterized by the simultaneous presence of various distributed resources, such as renewable energy systems (i.e., photovoltaic power plant and wind farms), storage systems, and controllable/non-controllable loads. Control and optimization architectures will enable network-wide coordination of these grid components in order to improve system efficiency and reliability and to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, the energy flows will be bidirectional from large power plants to end users and vice versa; producers and consumers will continuously interact at different voltage levels to determine in advance the requests of loads and to adapt the production and demand for electricity flexibly and efficiently also taking into account the presence of storage systems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗