Abstract In this paper we introduce a capacity allocation game which models the problem of maximizing network utility from the perspective of distributed noncooperative agents. Motivated by the idea of self-managed networks, in the developed framework the decision-making entities are associated with individual transmission links, deciding on the way they split capacity among concurrent flows. An efficient decentralized algorithm is given for computing a strongly Pareto-optimal strategies, constituting a pure Nash equilibrium. Subsequently, we discuss the properties of the introduced game related to the Price of Anarchy and Price of Stability. The paper is concluded with an experimental study.
@cite_36: A 2001 IBM manifesto observed that a looming software complexity crisis -caused by applications and environments that number into the tens of millions of lines of code - threatened to halt progress in computing. The manifesto noted the almost impossible difficulty of managing current and planned computing systems, which require integrating several heterogeneous environments into corporate-wide computing systems that extend into the Internet. Autonomic computing, perhaps the most attractive approach to solving this problem, creates systems that can manage themselves when given high-level objectives from administrators. Systems manage themselves according to an administrator's goals. New components integrate as effortlessly as a new cell establishes itself in the human body. These ideas are not science fiction, but elements of the grand challenge to create self-managing computing systems.
@cite_45: The trend toward ubiquitous wireless communication demands for a higher level of self-organization in networks. This article gives an introduction and overview on this topic and investigates the fundamental question: What are design paradigms for developing a self-organized network function? We propose four paradigms and show how they are reflected in current protocols: design local interactions that achieve global properties, exploit implicit coordination, minimize the maintained state, and design protocols that adapt to changes. Finally, we suggest a general design process for self-organized network functions.
@cite_4: Autonomic Network Management (ANM) has the goal of increasing reliability and performance while reducing management cost using various automated techniques. These range from agent-based approaches relying on explicit models and ontologies to emergent techniques relying on gossip protocols, swarming algorithms or other biologically inspired work. In this paper, we review the failures, growing pains and successes of earlier techniques for automated and adaptive network control and management, from the simple control loops in TCP and OSPF to the more complicated emergent behaviors of BGP dynamics and overlay routing. From these examples we extract several lessons relevant to ongoing research in autonomic network management.
@cite_17: With the rapid growth of mobile communications, deployment and maintenance of cellular mobile networks are becoming more and more complex, time consuming, and expensive. In order to meet the requirements of network operators and service providers, the telecommunication industry and international standardization bodies have recently paid intensive attention to the research and development of self-organizing networks. In this article we first introduce both the market and technological perspectives for SONs. Then we focus on the self-configuration procedure and illustrate a self-booting mechanism for a newly added evolved NodeB without a dedicated backhaul interface. Finally, mobility load balancing as one of the most important selfoptimization issues for Long Term Evolution networks is discussed, and a distributed MLB algorithm with low handover cost is proposed and evaluated.
The idea of autonomic networking was introduced by IBM @cite_36 . A similar concept underlies the self-organizing networks (SON) @cite_45 . Recently, SON approach has been extensively studied for the application in 4G LTE mobile networks @cite_17 . In @cite_4 authors argue that some existing protocols like TCP or Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) may be treated as basic solutions for autonomic networking.