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Summary

Modeling and Simulation methods have been used to better analyze the behavior of complex physical systems and it is now common to use simulation as a part of the technological discovery process. Formal M&S appeared in order to try to improve the development task of very complex simulation systems. Some of these techniques proved to be successful in providing a sound base for the development of discrete-event simulation models, improving the ease of model definition and enhancing the application development tasks, reducing costs and favoring reuse.

This is particularly important in the development of computer networks. Future mobile networks should provide high data rate services for their customers regardless of their location. This is a challenging task, specifically for the users in the edge of the cell's area. To overcome this problem, Long Term Evolution Advanced introduced Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) and other advanced techniques were introduced. In this talk, we will present different methods developed recently for the next generation of mobile networks, based on CoMP and other techniques. We discuss different M&S techniques employed, and new results obtained that show that these methods can improve the performance for end users.

We will discuss Upload User Collaboration (UUC); an algorithm can be combined with CoMP to enhance the upload performance of cell-edge users.

We will then discuss new methods to improve the performance of video traffic in cellular networks. We present different algorithms that combine Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, introduced by the Long Term Evolution-Advanced standard (LTE-A). We present two algorithms for improving the throughput of video transmission in cellular networks. The algorithms are called Cached and Segmented Video Download (CSVD), and DIStributed, Cached, and Segmented video download (DISCS).

Finally, we discuss new methods for video streaming applications in Cellular networks. Providing high Quality of Experience (QoE) video streaming services is becoming a challenge due to the limited capacity in cellular networks and the impairments of transmission over radio links (e.g., path-loss and fading). As such, the parameters of the wireless communication on the radio access network between the Base-Station (BS) and User Equipment (UEs) have an effect on video streaming QoE. We study the impact of the wireless trans-mission parameters in Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) networks on video streaming QoE. We consider both cell level and link level parameters. Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) -based video streaming is considered here. We built a model for an LTE-A network and ran multiple simulations with various scenarios. We present and analyze the results to evaluate different video streaming QoE metrics, and to see how they are affected by the various cellular communication parameters.

These research results present a real-world use of formal Discrete EVent System specifications (DEVS) for modeling mobile networks, and practical case studies with industrial relevance (algorithms, based on the DEVS studies, were patented by Ericsson Inc. for commercialization). The studies compare different approaches and show how to improve the cell-edge users' upload performance, and it reduces the time required to upload a file.

Short Bio

GABRIEL A. WAINER, FSCS, SMIEEE, received the M.Sc. (1993) at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the Ph.D. (1998, with highest honors) at the Université d'Aix-Marseille III, France. In July 2000 he joined the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University (Ottawa, ON, Canada), where he is now Full Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. He has held visiting positions at the University of Arizona; LSIS (CNRS), Université Paul Cézanne, University of Nice, INRIA Sophia-Antipolis, Université de Bordeaux (France); UCM, UPC (Spain), University of Buenos Aires, National University of Rosario (Argentina) and others. He is the author of three books and over 400 research articles; he edited four other books, and helped organizing numerous conferences, including being one of the founders of the Symposium on Theory of Modeling and Simulation, SIMUTools and SimAUD. Prof. Wainer was Vice-President Conferences and Vice-President Publications and is a member of the Board of Directors of the SCS. Prof. Wainer is the Special Issues Editor of SIMULATION, member of the Editorial Board of IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering, Wireless Networks (Elsevier), Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation (SCS). He is the head of the Advanced Real-Time Simulation lab, located at Carleton University's Centre for advanced Simulation and Visualization (V-Sim). He has been the recipient of various awards, including the IBM Eclipse Innovation Award, SCS Leadership Award, and various Best Paper awards. He has been awarded Carleton University's Research Achievement Award (2005, 2014), the First Bernard P. Zeigler DEVS Modeling and Simulation Award, the SCS Outstanding Professional Award (2011), Carleton University's Mentorship Award (2013), the SCS Distinguished Professional Award (2013), SCS Distinguished Service Award (2015), Nepean's Canada 150th Anniversary Medal (2017), ACM Recognition of Service Award (2018), IEEE Outstanding Engineering Award (Ottawa Section - 2019), He is a Fellow of SCS.

Summary

With the rapid adoption of cloud computing in science, enterprises, finance, etc. many applications have been moved from traditional computing environments to the cloud. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the various challenges involved.

For efficient cloud performance, many issues related to resource allocation, application scheduling, timeliness, cost and energy conservation need to be addressed. A particularly challenging issue in cloud computing is to run complex real-time applications which may feature high degree of parallelism. Effective scheduling algorithms should be utilized ensuring that the overall quality of service will be improved.

Due to the explosion of Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, fog computing has emerged as a novel computing model beyond cloud computing to cope with problems related to network traffic and communication delay. However, the computational capacity of the fog resources is usually limited. Most of the IoT applications are real-time as decisions must be made very fast. Therefore, novel resource allocation algorithms and scheduling techniques are required for efficient utilization of the resources and for timeliness. Time-sensitive applications should be assigned to appropriate resources at the cloud and fog layers, based on their computational and communication characteristics.

In this talk we will describe techniques and solutions to address challenges in resource allocation and scheduling of real-time applications in cloud and fog systems and we will conclude with future trends and directions in the cloud and fog computing areas.

Short Bio

Helen Karatza is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Informatics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, where she teaches courses in the postgraduate and undergraduate level and carries out research. Dr. Karatza's research interests include Fog and Cloud Computing, Energy Efficiency in Large Scale Distributed Systems, Resource Allocation and Scheduling and Real-time Distributed Systems.

Dr. Karatza has authored or co-authored about 230 technical papers and book chapters including five papers that earned best paper awards at international conferences. She is senior member of IEEE, ACM and SCS, and she served as an elected member of the Board of Directors at Large of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International. She served as Chair and Keynote Speaker in International Conferences.

Dr. Karatza is the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Journal “Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory”. She was Editor-in-Chief of “Simulation Transactions of The Society for Modeling and Simulation International”, Associate Editor of “ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation” and Senior Associate Editor of the “Journal of Systems and Software” of Elsevier. She served as Guest Editor of Special Issues in International Journals. More info about her activities/publications can be found in http://agent.csd.auth.gr/~karatza/

by Carlos Guerrero

Summary

Cloud architectures have evolved to scenarios such as Fog and Edge computing, where the computation and storage capabilities are located closer to the users in cloudlets or dedicated devices. Fog architectures mainly differs from Cloud ones in terms of resource capacity, geographical distribution, network latency, node heterogeneity and user mobility. This makes us to rethink the current resource management policies and the performance evaluation and optimization techniques. Solutions to this problematic need to be addressed by considering the Cloud and Fog computing as a continuum with the distribution of the resources and the computing services along the different levels of the architecture. The aim of this special track is to provide a forum to exchange ideas and generate collaborations between researchers from the fields of, but not limited, Cloud Computing, Fog Computing, Resource Management and/or Performance Engineering.