Research areas

Any network has a structure and needs protocols to achieve its objectives. The researchers of Institute IMDEA Networks have an extensive expertise in architectures and protocols for communication networks, e.g., for network topology design, routing, forwarding, innetwork storage, congestion control, and media access control. Besides, we have research interests in other networking domains such as social networks, energy networks, and transportation networks.

Our research takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the design and understanding of network protocols and architectures. We go beyond technological constraints and account also for social and economic factors. For example, our research on Internet routing and forwarding accounts for the multitude of Internet service providers and their individual economic interests. In working on either centralized or decentralized solutions to problems, we assume that perfect information is never available. To deal with such uncertainty as well as selfishness of individual entities, our analysis adopts game-theoretic techniques. Our protocol design assumes that behaviour of counterparts is always unpredictable to some extent. Hence, the designed protocols rely on continuous learning and adaptation as the main modes of operation.

Practicality is another distinguishing aspect of our research. Real data serves as a departing point for our analytical efforts as well as a basis for validating our analytical conclusions. For instance, our large-scale simulation studies of Internet routing rely on real Internet topologies. Furthermore, we implement our theoretical ideas and make the prototypes available to the public, either directly or through our commercial partners.

An important focus of our work is on the systems side of networks. For example, we apply software verification techniques to develop tools that help network builders create more reliable networks. We also work on networking aspects that pertain to cloud computing.

This research area targets the following objectives:

• Novel architectures and protocols for behavioral networking
  • Internet is modeled as an association of independent entities
  • Behavior of counterparts is not taken for granted
  • Continuous learning and adaptation are main modes of operations
• Bridging the gap between network economics and networking
  • Deployment of innovative designs becomes the primary concern
  • Economic and political landscapes of the Internet are analyzed with higher fidelity
  • Economic-political knowledge guides the technical design
• Making it easy to develop and deploy reliable, high-performance networked systems
  
  • Correct functioning of networks is becoming paramount
  • Software Defined Networking is revolutionizing networking, but carries a lot of risk
  • Leverage increases in computational power and bandwidth to predict future reliability
  • Resolve difficult choices at runtime to increase performance

Energy-efficient Networking

Energy production, distribution, and consumption are becoming topics of interest worldwide, due to issues like climate change and the greenhouse effect. Institute IMDEA Networks is actively involved in research conducted to increase energy performance with the use of computation and communication. These research efforts can be simply grouped into two lines. The first line involves research that attempts to save energy in computing and communication systems, like computers and networks, named energy efficient ICT. The second line involves research that attempts to design ICT systems that improve energy production and distribution, and optimize consumption, named ICT for energy efficiency.

In the area of energy-efficient ICT, researchers of the institute have developed techniques to save energy in wireless networks, for instance switching off access points in periods of low traffic or using opportunistic relaying. In wireline networks, research efforts have been conducted to propose algorithms for smart routing and scheduling of packets to save energy in underused networks. One interesting line is the study of the optimal deployment of Energy Efficient Ethernet (IEEE 802.3az) equipment, where the energy consumption of links that follow this standard has been characterized as a function of the traffic pattern. This has been complemented with a field study of the potential savings (in Euros) of a web-hosting center in Madrid. Finally, models and techniques for energy savings in collaborative (peer to peer) communication systems have been proposed.

In the area of ICT for energy efficiency, researchers from the institute have, e.g., proposed algorithms to schedule appliance use in order to reduce peak electricity consumption, and techniques to provide good service for the users of an electric vehicles changing station. The novelty is that these solutions use concepts taken from networking, like load balancing and fairness. Current lines of research in this area include the extraction and modification of user energy consumption patterns by means of social networks, game theory and mechanism design.

This research area targets the following objectives:

• Design of energy-efficient algorithms and protocols
  • ICT accounts for a substantial portion of the total energy consumption
  • Solutions that reduce consumption without affecting service quality are needed
  • Novel algorithms that adapt the network infrastructure to the variations of traffic demand over time have to be proposed
• Support for smart energy management
  • Communications can help reducing energy consumption in many activities
  • New requirements on networking solutions are required in this context
  • Novel protocols and algorithms for smart energy management must be proposed