Testbeds 2012 - Special Session Modelling Tools, Network Empowerment Mechanisms & Testbeds for Future Service -& Operator- oriented Internet

The internet of today is evolving towards the highly dynamic, pervasive, environment of Future Networks, where the pace of new and emerging technologies, the numbers of users' devices, the traffic/information flows as well as the interconnected real and virtual resources accelerate at a fast rate with unmet scalability levels. The mastering of the underlying complexity driven by the heterogeneity of the technologies and the vast proliferation in the number and sophistication of communication services and applications has also dominated this complex environment. Such developments arise major challenges ranging from network performance, scalability, openness, automation and efficient resource utilisation to dynamic service provisioning.
In order to evolve towards profitable Future Networks, it is unevitable that Service and Network Operators need to counterbalance between solutions to ensure the abovementioned requirements and at the same time maximise their profits. To this end, the optimised network management solution and the provision of higher levels of broadband access to more demanding customers should be also materialised to reduced or at least constrained Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and especially the Operational Expenditures (OPEX). The dominating trends will be the ones that will foster right synergies through complete fulfilment of needs and requirements, minimization of the [cost * complexity]/ [performance * functionality] ratio, and continuous innovation. Among them we should specifically point out the deeper introduction of intelligent, distributed network/service management algorithms and mechanisms - the so-called Network Empowerments features. The latter span from network monitoring, to learning schemes and knowledge generation, optimisation of network management actions as well as policy-based management functionalities. Such features are supported by novel open, cross-technology network management models and frameworks ensuring the convergence, interoperability and federation of heterogeneous mobile, wired and wireless network infrastructures and resources. Beyond pure technology, adoption by the industry will be driven by the availability and demonstration of standard, interoperable solutions through prototypes and large-scale testbeds.
This session looks into solutions to overcome the increasing complexity of managing communication networks and to enable their future growth by generating innovations in autonomic networking. This session aims to provide a forum for network and service operators, industry, researchers and practitioners to present and discuss their views for advances towards the Future Networks. The goal is to address immediate and mid-term manageability problems faced by service and network operators, towards concretely shaping future networking environments. To this end, this session is in-line with the scope of IEEE CAMAD 2012, offering the opportunity to elaborate on modelling Tools, network empowerment mechanisms and testbeds for Future Service- & Operator- oriented Internet.
Prospective authors are invited to submit original and unpublished works on the following research topics, but not limited to:
Tools and algorithmic methods for network self-management.
Policy-based models and policy-driven network management frameworks.
Design and evaluation of learning techniques and knowledge-management frameworks.
Algorithmic models for dynamic optimisation of network-management actions.
Modelling and simulation techniques for future Service- & Operator Oriented Internet.
Novel network/service management architectural frameworks.
Network convergence, federation and virtualisation.
Validation and benchmarking of future Service- & Operator Oriented Internet .
Important Dates

Paper submission:
May 1st, 2012
Notification of acceptance:
July 15th, 2012
Submission of camera-ready papers:
August 15th, 2012