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Using Self-Organizing Maps for the Behavioral Analysis of Virtualized Network Functions

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Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1399))

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Abstract

Detecting anomalous behaviors in a network function virtualization infrastructure is of the utmost importance for network operators. In this paper, we propose a technique, based on Self-Organizing Maps, to address such problem by leveraging on the massive amount of historical system data that is typically available in these infrastructures. Indeed, our method consists of a joint analysis of system-level metrics, provided by the virtualized infrastructure monitoring system and referring to resource consumption patterns of the physical hosts and the virtual machines (or containers) that run on top of them, and application-level metrics, provided by the individual virtualized network functions monitoring subsystems and related to the performance levels of the individual applications. The implementation of our approach has been validated on real data coming from a subset of the Vodafone infrastructure for network function virtualization, where it is currently employed to support the decisions of data center operators. Experimental results show that our technique is capable of identifying specific points in space (i.e., components of the infrastructure) and time of the recent evolution of the monitored infrastructure that are worth to be investigated by human operators in order to keep the system running under expected conditions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations/index.html.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/peterwittek/somoclu.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy

    Giacomo Lanciano, Antonio Ritacco, Fabio Brau, Tommaso Cucinotta & Marco Vannucci

  2. Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy

    Giacomo Lanciano

  3. Vodafone, Milan, Italy

    Antonino Artale & Enrica Sposato

  4. Vodafone, Lisbon, Portugal

    Joao Barata

Authors
  1. Giacomo Lanciano
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  2. Antonio Ritacco
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  3. Fabio Brau
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  4. Tommaso Cucinotta
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  5. Marco Vannucci
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  6. Antonino Artale
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  7. Joao Barata
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  8. Enrica Sposato
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giacomo Lanciano .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Columbia University, New York, USA

    Donald Ferguson

  2. Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

    Claus Pahl

  3. Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland

    Markus Helfert

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Lanciano, G. et al. (2021). Using Self-Organizing Maps for the Behavioral Analysis of Virtualized Network Functions. In: Ferguson, D., Pahl, C., Helfert, M. (eds) Cloud Computing and Services Science. CLOSER 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1399. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72369-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72369-9_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-72369-9

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