Next Generation Internet

Over more than two decades, the research cluster ‘Next Generation Internet’ has built a large expertise on network modeling techniques. Design of sophisticated network algorithms and efficient optimization techniques is one of the cornerstones. This is being applied to various domains, such as optical and multilayer networking architectures and protocols, network recovery mechanisms, energy-efficient future networks, transportation and logistics problems.

The activities range from fundamental research (e.g. data structure and algorithm design, see dna.idlab.ugent.be) through simulations (e.g. numerical validation of novel routing algorithms or high performance network and node architectures) to demonstrations and proof-of-concepts (e.g. for SDN/NFV based internet solutions).

The research group is and has been involved in a large number of research projects, such as more than 30 projects funded by the European Commission, imec projects, bilateral industry projects and fundamental research projects. The research activities resulted in more than 500 international (journal and conference) publications.

Staff

Mario Pickavet, Didier Colle, Pieter Audenaert, Wouter Tavernier

Researchers

Thomas Soenen, Gourav Sharma, Kenneth Stoop, Pieter Stroobant, Simon Van den Eynde, Steven Van Rossem, Chong Wang, Yuhui Wu

Some typical projects

• EU FP7 project ARCFIRE, Experimenting RINA on FIRE+
• FWO project RINAiSense, The Recursive Internetwork Architecture as solution for optimal resource usage, security and scalability of sensor networks
• UGent BOF IOP project, Modelling uncertainty in hub location planning through interdisciplinary research
• GreenTouch, Reducing the carbon footprint of ICT
• EU FP7 project OASE, Optical Access Seamless Evolution

Key publications

• J. Vasseur, M. Pickavet, P. Demeester, "Network recovery - Protection and restoration of optical, SONET-SDH, IP, and MPLS", Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN: 978-0-12-715051-2, 521 pages, 2004
• B. Lannoo, D. Colle, M. Pickavet, P. Demeester, “Radio-over-fiber-based solution to provide broadband Internet access to train passengers”, IEEE Communications Magazine, 45(2), pp. 56-62, 2007
• S. Demeyer, P. Audenaert, M. Pickavet, P. Demeester, “Dynamic and stochastic routing for multimodal road-rail transportation systems”, IET Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), published in IET ITS, 8 (2), pp. 112-123, 2014
• W. Van Heddeghem, S. Lambert, B. Lannoo, D. Colle, M. Pickavet, P. Demeester, "Trends in worldwide ICT electricity consumption from 2007 to 2012", Computer Communications, Vol. 50, pp. 64-76, Sept. 2014
• R. Houthooft, S. Sahhaf, W. Tavernier, F. De Turck, D. Colle, M. Pickavet, “Robust geometric forest routing with tunable load balancing”, IEEE INFOCOM, pp.1382-1390, April 2015
• A. Dixit, B. Lannoo, D. Colle, M. Pickavet, P. Demeester, “Delay models in ethernet long-reach passive optical networks”, IEEE INFOCOM, pp.1239-1247, April 2015
• S. Vrijders, V. Maffione, D. Staessens, F. Salvestrini, M. Biancani, E. Grasa, D. Colle, M. Pickavet, J. Barron, J. Day, “Reducing the complexity of virtual machine networking”, IEEE Communications Magazine, 54(4), pp.152-158, 2016