Collaborative Research Project within the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7)

Alcatel Lucent France, France
Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG, Germany
Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany
Ericsson Canada Inc., Canada
Ericsson GmbH, Germany
France Telecom, France
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Germany
Fundación Robotiker, Spain
Groupe des Ecoles des Télécommunications, France
Instituto Superior Técnico - Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Sweden
Lancaster University, United Kingdom
NEC Europe Ltd, United Kingdom
Nokia Siemens Networks GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
Nokia Siemens Networks Oy, Finland
Oy LM Ericsson Ab, Finland
Portugal Telecom Inovação, SA, Portugal
Rutgers University, USA
SICS, Swedish Institute of Computer Science AB, Sweden
Siemens Program and System Engineering SRL Brasov - Punct de lucru Cluj, Romania
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Technische Universität Berlin , Germany
Telecom Italia S.p.A., Italy
Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo, Sociedad Anónima Unipersonal, Spain
Telekomunikacja Polska S.A., Poland
Universität Basel, Switzerland
Universität Bremen, Germany
Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany
Universität Paderborn, Germany
Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, France
University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus, Finland
Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland

January 2008 to June 2010

Today's network architectures are stifling innovation, restricting it mostly to the application level, while the need for structural change is increasingly evident. The absence of adequate facilities to design, optimize and interoperate new networks currently forces a convergence to an architecture that is suboptimal for many applications, and that cannot support innovations within itself, the Internet. We have reached a critical point in the impressive development cycle of the Internet that now requires a major change.

4WARD overcomes this impasse through a set of radical architectural approaches, in a framework that allows the coexistence, inter-operability, and complementarity of several network architectures in an integrated fashion, avoiding pitfalls like the current Internet's "patch on a patch" approach. 4WARD will enable the co-existence of multiple networks on common platforms through carrier-grade virtualization of networking resources. It will enhance the utility of networks by making them self-managing, and increase their robustness and efficiency by leveraging diversity. Finally, 4WARD will improve application support by a new information-centric paradigm in place of the old host-centric approach. These solutions will embrace the full range of technologies, from fibre backbones to wireless and sensor networks.

NEC is leading the design of a new architectural framework to manage networks of the Future Internet based on the novel paradigm of in-network management . Discovery of network capabilities and adaptation of management operations to current working conditions are key elements in this novel management paradigm. NEC develops novel concepts and principles of a lean architecture for in-network management, and designs scalable and robust mechanisms with low complexity to operate new services in the Future Internet.

Traditional Networks: Management As External Processes

In traditional Internet management, the management functionality resides outside the network , in dedicated management stations and servers. In commercial networks, interactions between these elements often occur out-of-band, through special communication networks. For emerging large-scale, dynamic network environments however, the approach turned out to be inadequate and alternative approaches must be developed.

In-Network Management: A New Management Paradigm

In-network management is a new paradigm for network management, where management functions come as embedded capabilities of the devices. With this approach, network elements have embedded "default-on" management capabilities, consisting of several autonomous components which interact with each other in the same device and with components in neighbouring devices. Glued together with a set of discovery and self-organizing algorithms, the network elements form a thin "management plane" embedded in the network itself.

The In-network management paradigm can be interpreted as pushing management intelligence into the network, and, as a consequence, making the network more intelligent: as a consequence, objectives and costs of management operations can be adapted according to local working conditions. The network, which now includes the management plane as a part, can execute end-to-end management functions on its own and perform, for instance, reconfigurations in an autonomous fashion. It reports results of management actions to an external management system, and it triggers alarms if intervention from outside is needed.

The architecture of in-network management first of all models how management capabilities are embedded inside the services of a node. On this basis, it is then possible to compose them, in such a way that the embedded functions are coordinated with each other. Out of smaller autonomous components, more complex management functions can be constructed in the management plane.

Please find the project's publications at the official 4WARD web site.

Official 4WARD Web Site