A growing trend for information technology is to not just react to changes, but anticipate them as much as possible. This paradigm made modern solutions, such as recommendation systems, a ubiquitous presence in today's digital transactions. Anticipatory networking extends the idea to communication technologies by studying patterns and periodicity in human behavior and network dynamics to optimize network performance. This survey collects and analyzes recent papers leveraging context information to forecast the evolution of network conditions and, in turn, to improve network performance. In particular, we identify the main prediction and optimization tools adopted in this body of work and link them with objectives and constraints of the typical applications and scenarios. Finally, we consider open challenges and research directions to make anticipatory networking part of next generation networks.

We explore the potential of optimizing resource allocation with flexible numerology in frequency domain and variable frame structure in time domain, in presence of services with different types of requirements. We prove the NP-hardness of the problem, and propose a scalable optimization algorithm based on linear programming and Lagrangian duality. Numerical results show significant advantages of adopting flexibility in both time and frequency domains for capacity enhancement and meeting the requirements of mission critical services.

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Botnets have become an increasing security concern in today's Internet. Thus far the mitigation to botnet attacks is a never ending arms race focusing on technical approaches. In this paper, we model botnet-related cybercrimes as a result of profit-maximizing decision-making from the perspectives of both botnet masters and renters/attackers. From this economic model, we can understand the effective rental size and the optimal botnet size that can maximize the profits of botnet masters and attackers. We propose the idea of using virtual bots (honeypots running on virtual machines) to create uncertainty in the level of botnet attacks. The uncertainty introduced by virtual bots has a deep impact on the profit gains on the botnet market. With decreasing profitability, botnet related attacks such as DDoS are reduced if not eliminated from the root cause, i.e. economic incentives.