IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization
27 June–1 July 2022 // Milan, Italy

Call For Workshop Papers (closed)

Like in past years, IEEE NetSoft 2022 will host a set of workshops. The purpose of the workshops is to complement the conference program with in-depth or integration forums that are dedicated to emerging topics and/or topics specifically related to IEEE NetSoft 2022. Submission Guidelines and Important Dates hold for all the workshops.

Important Dates

  • Paper Submission: February 28, 2022 March 21, 2022
  • Notification of Acceptance: April 21, 2022
  • Camera-ready Submission: May 5, 2022 May 9, 2022
  • Workshops Date: Either Monday June 27th, 2022 or Friday July 1st, 2022

Submission Guidelines

Submissions must be written in English. Papers should be up to 6 pages, including references and all other material. They must use the standard IEEE two-column conference template, which can be downloaded from www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html. Only original papers not published or submitted for publication elsewhere will be considered for the workshop. Submissions must be in PDF format. Accepted and presented papers will be included in the NetSoft 2022 Proceedings and published on IEEE Xplore.

Workshops

 

 

S4SI 2022: 5th IEEE International Workshop on Advances in Slicing for Softwarized Infrastructures

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Aim and Scope

The current industry trend of convergence between computing and networking ecosystems highlights that computing, storage, and connectivity services, as well as any other present and future application instances, will be deployed in the form of virtualized assets within software-defined infrastructures. All of these will be managed and made available under the “as a Service” paradigm. This concept is summarized under the idea of a Slice, which has become a central piece in the evolution of telecom networks. Yet the topic of Slicing is very much fragmented across conceptual views, approaches, technologies, standardization, and so on.

In its fifth edition, the S4SI workshop aims at bringing consolidation around slicing and discussing advances and challenges related to Slicing in Softwarized Infrastructures for faster and improved deployment of services in 5G and beyond environments. Furthermore, there is an increasing need for the realization of a compute continuum from IoT-to-Edge-to-Cloud. In this respect, network slicing will be at the forefront in order to support the deployment and operation of new services and applications across IoT devices and edge/core clouds. This entails significant challenges for the unified management and orchestration of resources across the network edge and cloud infrastructures, potentially owned and managed by different operators. Potential intertwining of network slicing mechanisms with ad-hoc clouds and digital twinning raises further research questions, which will be of particular interest for the workshop.

There are clearly many open questions to be addressed, including:

  • Fragmented landscape and gaps, from concepts to standards towards multi-domain, end-to-end slicing;
  • How do the existing resource technologies of computing, storage and network can seamlessly be managed, orchestrated and controlled as part of end-to-end slices?
  • How end-to-end slices can automatically be defined and allocated on-demand – as a service – to host network services with similar requirements in terms of SLA and QoS;
  • How can cross-slice communication be orchestrated and set up in a secure and optimized manner in order to enable interactions between services deployed in co-located slices?
  • How to integrate novel approaches that could facilitate the lifecycle management of slices on SDI, like intent-based mechanisms, smart operation based on Artificial Intelligence, etc.

S4SI aims at providing an international forum for researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, network operators, and service providers to discuss and address the challenges deriving from the emerging scenarios around Slicing where systems, processes, and workflows used in both computing and communications domains are converging. Altogether, S4SI seeks to improve the common understanding of Slicing, the expected benefits, including the new business model opportunities between slice providers and tenants. A concluding panel will contribute with a rich discussion on the lessons learned and the path ahead towards the consolidation of slicing.

Topics of Interest

The workshop welcomes contributions from both computing and network-oriented research communities, with the aim of facilitating discussion, cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas and practices, and successfully promotes innovative solutions toward a real use of slices. Submitted papers may cover any of the following topics:

  • Efficient provisioning and operation of Slices
  • Intent-based systems facilitating slicing
  • Cross-domain Slicing, federation, interconnection
  • Issues in adapting existing systems for Slicing
  • Novel control and data planes for slicing
  • High precision slicing with QoS/KPIs guarantees
  • Slicing with guarantees for quality, performance, reliability, scalability, high elasticity, resilience safety and security
  • Service Slicing assurance and fulfilment
  • Energy-efficiency and green operation in slicing
  • Digital twins support of Slicing for cyber networking
  • Abstractions models and APIs for a Slice
  • Architectures for network slicing across the entire compute continuum
  • Smart scaling and elasticity on E2E slices
  • Monitoring and Analytics systems for Slicing
  • Slicing for 5G and beyond
  • Effective Integration in software-based control, Multi-Domain Management and Orchestration
  • Effective slicing integration in network programmability
  • Cloud and Network Edge-native slicing
  • AI/ML-assisted Slicing
  • Self-management and Zero-configuration network slicing

Submission

Authors of best S4SI papers will be invited to submit an extended version for fast-track review in selected journals, e.g., IEEE Communications Magazine Series on Telecom Software, Network Virtualization, and Software Defined Networks.

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29250

Organizing Committee

  • Luis M. Contreras, Telefonica, Spain
  • Alex Galis, University College London, UK
  • Christian Esteve Rothenberg, University of Campinas, Brazil
  • Augusto V. Neto, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

 TPC Co-Chairs

  • David Moura, CTEx, Brazil
  • Panagiotis Papadimitriou, University of Macedonia, Greece
  • Fábio L. Verdi, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil

 

 

ENS 2022: 1st International Workshop on Edge Network Softwarization

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Workshop Technical Sponsor: IEEE Network Intelligence Emerging Technologies initiative (IEEE NI ETI) – http://ni.committees.comsoc.org

Aim and Scope

The 1st International Workshop on Edge Network Softwarization (ENS 2022) will be co-hosted at the 8th IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft 2022) that will be held from June 27th to July 1st, 2022 in Milan, Italy.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) along with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are playing a fundamental role in the softwarization of the network infrastructure. In particular, both technologies have revolutionized the way network functions and services are offered, which are often (partially) pushed towards the edge for enhanced performance, improved privacy, better agility and significant cost reduction.

Accordingly, this workshop aims at providing an overview of the softwarization process that has started occurring in recent years and is involving the network edge, with focus on future-proof approaches that will be part of the advanced 5G&B and 6G network solutions.

Edge network softwarization is a fundamental topic that has to be thoroughly investigated and pushed by the research community. ENS 2022 has the goal to meet together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry that are actively involved in network edge softwarization related research projects.

Topics of Interest

The topics of interest for ENS 2022 include, but are not limited to:

  • SDN and NFV distributed solutions for the network edge;
  • 5G network softwarization and beyond;
  • Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solutions for network edge (e.g. orchestration strategies, uCPE monitoring, traffic engineering);
  • Service and network orchestration at the edge;
  • Novel solutions for data-plane programmable (e.g. P4, eBPF, XDP) edge devices;
  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the edge;
  • Serverless computing and Function-as-a-Service in edge network architectures;
  • Network-aware resource provisioning in Fog Computing;
  • Inter-data center networking;
  • Advances to end-to-end tunnelling technologies (e.g. VxLAN, IPSEC/GRE);
  • Edge computing energy efficiency and resource optimisation;
  • Support for low latency applications at the edge (e.g. Tactile Internet);
  • Edge-driven use cases (e.g. Agriculture 4.0, Industry 4.0, etc.);
  • Privacy and security for the network edge (e.g. zero trust networks);
  • Multi-tenancy of edge networks;
  • Network edge availability and protection;
  • Open Hardware and Software solutions;
  • Converged optical and wireless architectures at the edge.

Submission

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29258

Organizing Committee

  • Marco Savi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy – General Chair
  • Sebastian Troia, Politecnico di Milano, Italy – TPC Co-Chair
  • Christian Grasso, University of Catania, Italy – TPC Co-Chair
  • Sajad Khorsandroo, North Carolina A&T State University, USA – Keynote Chair
  • Nabeel Akhtar, Akamai Technologies Inc, USA – Publicity Co-Chair
  • Frank Slyne, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland – Publicity Co-Chair
  • Elisa Rojas, University of Alcalá, Spain – Web Chair
  • Bo Cheng, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
  • Ryota Kawashima, Nagoya Institute Technology, Japan

 

 

WIN 2022: 2nd International Workshop on Intent-based Networking

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Aim and Scope

Intent Based Networking (IBN) aims at technology-agnostic, fast and robust interaction between network infrastructure management systems and their users, in order to automate and speed up the deployment and lifecycle of applications. IBN as such covers mechanisms to recognize, understand and augment intents defining service or operational requests, so as to ensure their fulfillment, with the support of reliable system feedback enabling their execution within the expected quality limits.

The concept of IBN appeared in the 2010’s with a focus on automated policy configuration. IBN now reaches out to OTT applications deployed on multiple and heterogeneous networks. IBN solutions do not aim at covering all applications and the entire network. Instead, they are deemed to run in a well-defined network scope and associated knowledge domains. That said, IBN solutions need to have enough flexibility to span and exchange with connected domains.

The goal of this workshop is to gather research and experiments from industry, academia, and standards, to get a sense of where we stand, what needs to be addressed and what should be explored. To this end, the workshop will cover IBN aspects of all domains including applications, concepts, lifecycle, challenges, architectures, modeling, instantiation, robustness, etc.

Topics of Interest

  • IBN concepts, architectures, and frameworks
  • IBN enabling techniques: knowledge graphs, natural languages understanding, policy refinement, feedback control loops, smart telemetry, various artificial intelligence methods, etc.
  • IBN applications and use cases, including scenarios combining digital infrastructures and vertical industries
  • IBN proof-of-concepts, experimentations; report on field trials and real-world deployments
  • IBN implementations, tools, and user interface design
  • IBN applications for 5G, beyond-5G and 6G networks
  • Intent modeling, representation, languages, and intent translation techniques
  • Intent and intent-related information models (policies and services)
  • Intent recognition, recommendation, and abstraction techniques
  • Availability, resiliency, performance, trust, and security considerations in IBN
  • Interfaces and API for intent based systems
  • Recent advances in standards and open source

Submission

A selection of the best papers will be further considered for possible publication in IEEE Journals and Magazines with high impact factors.

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29267

Organizing Committee

  • Laurent Ciavaglia, Rakuten Mobile, France – General Co-Chair
  • Sabine Randriamasy, Nokia, France – General Co-Chair
  • Eric Renault, ESIEE Paris, France – TPC Co-Chair
  • Molka Gharbaoui, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy – TPC Co-Chair
  • Pedro Henrique Gomes, Ericsson, Brazil – Industry Track Co-Chair
  • Danny Lachos, Benocs, Germany – Industry Track Co-Chair
  • Nicolas Herbaut, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France – Industry Track Co-Chair
  • Sabine Randriamasy, Nokia, France – Industry Track Co-Chair
  • Barbara Martini, CNIT, Italy – Publicity Co-Chair
  • Mohamed-Faten Zhani, ETS, Canada – Publicity Co-Chair
  • Kohei Shiomoto, Tokyo City University, Japan – Publicity Co-Chair
  • Nicolas Herbaut, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France – Publication Chair
  • Eric Renault, ESIEE Paris, France – Web Chair

 

 

SecSoft 2022: 4th International Workshop on Cyber-Security Threats, Trust and Privacy management in Software-defined and Virtualized Infrastructures

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

The 4th Workshop on Cyber-Security Threats, Trust and Privacy management in Software-defined and Virtualized Infrastructures (SecSoft) is a joint initiative from the H2020 EU Projects GUARD, RAINBOW, SIMARGL, PALANTIR, INSPIRE-5GPlus, SIFIS-HOME to create a dialogue about emerging cyber-security paradigms for virtualized environments and critical infrastructures.

Aim and Scope

Evolving business models are progressively reshaping ICT services and infrastructures, with a growing “softwarization” trend, the massive introduction of virtualization paradigms, and the tight integration with the physical environment. Unfortunately, the evolution of cyber-security paradigms has not followed with the same pace, leading to a substantial gap in solutions capable of protecting the new forms of distributed and heterogeneous systems against an evolving landscape of cyber-threats.

Traditional security tools that organizations have long relied on to protect their networks (i.e., antivirus, intrusion prevention systems, firewalls) are no longer capable of providing sufficient security guarantees against the rapid escalation of advanced persistent threats and multi-vector attacks. The growing complexity of cyber-attacks are urgently demanding more correlation in space and time of (apparently) independent events and logs, and a higher degree of coordination among different security mechanisms.

Topics of Interest

This Workshop aims to gather together novel approaches for providing organizations the appropriate situational awareness in relation to cyber security threats allowing them to quickly detect and effectively respond to sophisticated cyber-attacks. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Cyber-security platforms and architectures for digital services;
  • Security, trust and privacy for industrial systems and the IoT (including smart grids);
  • Monitoring and advanced data collection and analytics;
  • Virtual and software-based cyber-security functions;
  • Orchestration and Automatic Configuration of security functions;
  • Novel algorithms and models for attack detection and threat identification;
  • Authentication, Authorization and Access control;
  • Intelligent attack mitigation and remediation;
  • Machine learning, big data, network analytics;
  • Secure runtime environments, including trustworthy systems and user devices;
  • Formal methods and policies for security and trust;
  • Trusted computing;
  • Information flow control;
  • Risk analysis and management, Audit and Accountability;
  • Honeypots, forensics and legal investigation tools;
  • Threat intelligence and information sharing.

Submission

Multi-disciplinary and collaborative research projects are encouraged to submit joint papers describing their integrated architectures and cyber-security platforms, with special emphasis on how they address the challenging cyber-security requirements of softwarized environments and critical infrastructures.

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29270

Workshop Co-Chairs

  • Fulvio Valenza, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  • Antonio Skarmeta, University of Murcia, Spain
  • Matteo Repetto, IMATI-CNR, Italy

TPC Co-Chairs

  • Michal Choras, FernUniversitat in Hagen, Germany
  • Antonio Lioy, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  • Andrea Saracino, IIT-CNR, Italy

 

 

ProNet 2022: 1st IEEE International Workshop on Programmable Networks for Tactile Internet

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Aim and Scope

The ProNet 2022 – 1st IEEE Workshop on Programmable Networks for Tactile Internet is crucial for researchers to get in touch with the latest technologies and trends in programmable networks and tactile Internet.

The workshop (ProNet’22) will take place in Milan, Italy, in conjunction with the IEEE NetSoft conference. The main topic of ProNet 2022 will be “Key enablers towards a tactile Internet.”

Topics of Interest

  • Hardware
  • Programmable data plane hardware platforms
  • Architectures for packet processing in hardware, such as with FPGA and SmartNICs
  • Design tradeoffs in terms of flexibility, performance, and overall system’s stability
  • Measurement studies on latest hardware platforms
  • Software and Networking
  • P4 program verification, software execution environments and protocols
  • Transport layer design for in-network computing
  • Kernel by-passing techniques, low-latency container networking, such as service mesh
  • Programmable data plane architectures
  • Security and Privacy in programmable networks
  • Applications
  • Architectures of in-network computing and storage networks
  • Anomaly detection and audio source separation
  • Softwarized mobile communication core networks, energy efficiency of virtualized radio access networks
  • Thematic topic for ProNet 2022 is “Key enablers towards a tactile Internet.”
  • In-band Network Telemetry (INT), congestion control, network slicing
  • Programmable data plane for radio access networks, towards a fully softwarized mobile edge
  • VR/AR/XR, by leveraging novel paradigms, e.g., Information Centric Networks (ICN)
  • Facilitating interaction between human and machines
  • Interaction between Body Area Networks (BANs)

Submission

This workshop aims to bring together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to discuss recent research results and identify future challenges related to programmable networks, especially towards realizing a tactile Internet. The ProNet 2022 Workshop is committed to high publication ethics standards through a rigorous single-blind peer-review process. Submitted manuscripts must be original and not published or under consideration elsewhere. They must not infringe any copyright or third-party right.

We welcome technical contributions of all kinds, including papers discussing new approaches, experience reports, tools, surveys, etc.

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29268

Organizing Committee

  • Giang T. Nguyen, TU Dresden, Germany
  • Frank H. P. Fitzek, TU Dresden, Germany
  • Fabrizio Granelli, University of Trento, Italy

 

 

PVE-SDN 2022: 4th IEEE International Workshop On Performance Evaluation of Next Generation Virtualized Environments and Software-Defined Networks

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Workshop Technical Sponsor: IEEE P1916.1 Standard Working Group

Aim and Scope

The 4th PVE-SDN workshop aims to explore potential challenges and solutions for the goal of maintaining network performance in next generation virtualized and software-defined network environments. The design and deployment of elastic content- and service-delivery virtual networks on cloud-based data centers whose backbones consist of software-defined physical networks has led to a dynamic, multi-layer architecture for network functions that introduces new challenges in maintaining performance and quality of service for service providers, and requires new ideas and frameworks for performance measurement and network management. Furthermore, it is expected that the exponential growth in Internet of Things (IoT) and massive machine-to-machine communication, coupled with ultra-low latency, high bandwidth, high precision communications and high availability and reliability requirements of new breeds of future network applications, will drive the future Internet technologies, services and architecture. The future network applications will include high-precision, multi-dimensional information delivery such as holographic type communication, immersive virtual reality, telepresence, tele-surgery, and industrial avatars. Guaranteeing Quality of Experience (QoE) for such high-precision services would rely primarily on accurate and timely measuring and maintaining network performance in next generation networks.

Topics of Interest

  • Submissions are welcomed on a variety of topics including but not limited to:
  • Performance models, metrics and measurement for virtualized environments
  • Quality of Service and Quality of Experience in next generation SDN
  • Content distribution in virtualized environments and software-defined networks
  • Resource-aware virtualization and infrastructure as a service
  • Management of software-defined ecosystems
  • High-Precision and Qualitative Communication Services
  • SDN/NFV Performance in Context of 5G
  • Design and assessment of efficient SDN northbound/southbound interfaces
  • Performance of multi-controller SDN deployments
  • Service function chaining performance evaluation
  • Performance of NFV orchestration solutions
  • Analysis of SDN and/or NFV systems
  • SDN/NFV in Context of BlockChains, and FinTech
  • Role of virtualization and software defined environment in enhanced governance and digital transformation
  • Policy paradigms related to software defined environments

Submission

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29271

Organizing Committee

  • Mohammad Asad Rehman Chaudhry, Soptimizer, Canada – General Co-Chair
  • Walter Cerroni, University of Bologna, Italy – General Co-Chair
  • Hesham ElBakoury, Consultant, USA – General Co-Chair
  • Shahram S. Heydari, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada – Technical Co-Chair
  • Müge Sayıt, International Computer Institute, Ege University, Turkey – Technical Co-Chair
  • Adrian Popescu, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden – Technical Co-Chair
  • Amir Sheikh, Cox Communications, USA – Panel Chair
  • Zakia Asad, Soptimizer, Canada – Publicity Chair

Steering Committee

  • Mohammad Asad Rehman Chaudhry, Soptimizer, Canada
  • Shahram S. Heydari, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
  • Walter Cerroni, University of Bologna, Italy
  • Hesham ElBakoury, Consultant, USA
  • Müge Sayıt, International Computer Institute, Ege University, Turkey
  • Adrian Popescu, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
  • Amir Sheikh, Cox Communications, USA
  • Zakia Asad, Soptimizer, Canada
  • Khalid Adnan, Verizon Wireless

 

 

GreenNet 2022: 1st International Workshop on Network Energy Efficiency in the Softwarization Era

Download the call for papers: Download CFP

Aim and Scope

The convergence of fixed and mobile networks toward softwarized programmable networking platforms based on functionalities implemented for the most part by Virtual Entities (VEs) running on a general-purpose hardware infrastructure is posing new challenges to the designer of control strategies that aim at optimizing the trade-off between performance and power consumption. In such environment, attributing the power consumed by the hardware to specific VEs becomes much more difficult than in networking architectures where the same functionalities are performed by dedicated equipment (e.g., routers or L2 switches). The strong integration between the mobile and fixed network segment, already present in 5G and further strengthened in 6G is going to increase the volume of traffic and applications’ heterogeneity, along with the number of users, making network energy efficiency a full-fledged Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to be coped with.

The aim of the Workshop is to explore some of the issues that this evolution poses on finding suitable traffic and power models, as well as management and control strategies, along with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to be used for the lifecycle management and optimization of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and the creation and dynamic reconfiguration of network slices, to match as closely as possible the desired balance between sustainability in terms of energy efficiency and performance.

Topics of Interest

We solicit original papers on the following (and related) topics;

  • Analytical models of network power consumption
  • Traffic modelling for performance and power representation
  • Management and control mechanisms for the dynamic optimization of the trade-off between power and performance
  • AI/ML techniques for power and performance management in virtualized environments
  • AI/ML in network softwarization for slicing energy efficiency, fog/cloud MEC virtualization, self-x technologies, adaptation, automation, and zero-touch
  • APIs for power management interfaces
  • Architectural solutions toward network sustainability
  • Power-aware network slicing
  • Wired and wireless energy efficiency
  • Energy–saving internet protocols
  • Energy efficiency in the fog/MEC/cloud continuum
  • Energy efficient internetworking of mobile backhaul/core and remote data centers
  • Energy efficient 3D networks

Submission

Only PDF files will be accepted for the review process and all manuscripts must be electronically submitted through EDAS: https://www.edas.info/newPaper.php?c=29269

Workshop Organizers and Co-Chairs

  • Raffaele Bolla, University of Genoa, Italy
  • Hesham ElBakoury, Futurewei Technologies, USA
  • Franco Davoli, University of Genoa, Italy
  • Jaafar Elmirghani, University of Leeds, UK

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