Abstract:In the last decade, the differences in the information communication technology (ICT) infrastructures between urban and rural areas have registered a tremendous increase. ICT infrastructures could strongly help rural communities where many operations are time consuming, labor-intensive and expensive due to limited access and large distances to cover. One of the most attractive solutions, which is widely recognized as promising for filling this gap, is the use of drone fleets. In this context, this paper proposes a video monitoring platform as a service (VMPaaS) for wide rural areas not covered by Internet access. The platform is realized with a Software-Defined Network (SDN)/Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)-based flying ad-hoc network (FANET), whose target is providing a flexible and dynamic connectivity backbone, and a set of drones equipped with high-resolution cameras, each transmitting a video stream of a portion of the considered area. After describing the architecture of the proposed platform, service chains to realize the video delivery service are described, and an analytical model is defined to evaluate the computational load of the platform nodes in such a way so as to allow the network orchestrator to decide the backbone drones where running the virtual functions, and the relative resources to be allocated. Numerical analysis is carried out in a case study.

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In the last few years, network “softwarization” is gaining increasing popularity to achieve dynamicity and flexibility. Cloud computing, as well as the new paradigms of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), are supporting this evolution. However, the need to move services closer to users to guarantee low latency in the service fruition on one hand, and the trend to support personalization of services on the other, are stimulating the migration of services toward edge nodes (in the so-called “fog computing” fashion). This is the target of the INPUT platform, proposed in the INPUT project to support Future Internet personal cloud services in a more scalable and sustainable way, and with innovative added-value capabilities. The INPUT platform enables next-generation cloud applications to go beyond classical service models, and even replaces physical Smart Devices, usually placed in users’ homes (e.g., set-top-boxes, etc.), with virtual entities, providing them to users “as a Service.” In this paper, we present the INPUT paradigm and discuss a relevant use case – namely, the virtual Set-Top-Box – adopted to prove the feasibility of the softwarized SDN/NFV paradigm jointly with the fog-computing approach for the support of personal cloud services. The INPUT platform is also compared with a legacy approach to evaluate the gain in terms of quality of experience (QoE) for both static and mobile users

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