NOVI’s research objectives can be classified within four closely related areas within the NOVI Innovation Cloud: (1) Monitoring Architectures (passive and active monitors of virtualized resources in a federated environment, accessible to a specific user-slice and/or the federated infrastructure administrator), (2) Semantic Resource Description (formal description of virtualized network and cloud computing objects in a complex environment, assisted by semantic methods and ontologies), (3) Virtual Resource Brokerage (virtual resource allocation algorithms to meet service requirements of user-slices, e.g. reproducibility of experiments) and (4) Federated Virtualization Technologies (open architectures enabling the formation and control of isolated slices across local and wide area multi-domain networking environments).

Key Objectives

- To formally describe virtualized network and cloud computing objects in a complex environment, assisted by semantic methods and ontologies

- To enable interoperable operations of virtualization mechanisms across federated heterogeneous platforms

- To allocate virtual resources with QoS attributes and set up federated monitoring systems to allow for accountable, predictable Future Internet services

- To enrich the FIRE facility with federated models and methods enabling comprehensive and reproducible experiments

The NOVI consortium aspires to advance European know-how within the global environment for Future Internet research; its results are expected to enrich the FIRE facility with federated models and methods, enabling comprehensive and reproducible experiments. This is manifested by the concerted effort of academic researchers and operators of advanced public e-Infrastructures (NRENs & GÉANT, FEDERICA, PlanetLab Europe) in partnership with a pioneer vendor in Internet technologies (Cisco). As such, it is expected to contribute in evolving standardization efforts and provide pre-normative research and proofs of concept on federated virtualized solutions to vendors and service providers.

Research prototypes will be developed according to the spiral methodology. In NOVI’s first phase (Cycle 1) early prototypes will be designed and implemented. Validations of an integrated prototype will follow in the second phase (Cycle 2) over existing FIRE facilities, notably PlanetLab Europe & FEDERICA. Further experiments may be jointly planned with related initiatives in Europe (FIRE projects, National Research & Education Networks – NRENs & GÉANT) and FI researchers in North America and Asia – Pacific.

An external Consultancy Committee, consisting of FI stakeholders in Europe and beyond, will provide continued feedback in evaluating the progress of NOVI activities. Its views together with internal and EC project reviews will guide appropriate choices of concepts and prototypes for further refinements and subsequent integration.

European Future Internet (FI) experiments, both academic and industrial, will profit from NOVI’s research by having the capability to assemble a rich basket of heterogeneous resources at various protocol layers, discovered within interworked testbeds via context aware information models. NOVI will develop and validate its results on a federated testbed, deploying prototypes with measurable and predictable composite services; this will pave the way for reproducible FI experiments over a foreseen FIRE federated facility. The initial testbed will be a combined PlanetLab Europe & FEDERICA platform; extensions will consider expanded federations with various National, European and global testbeds that address specific aspects of the FI, e.g. data repositories and cloud computing infrastructures, optical, wireless and autonomic experimental facilities. Use of NREN services will provide high-bandwidth advanced connectivity, suitable for establishing isolated virtual networking; at the same time it will strengthen human networking between the FIRE and the GÉANT communities.