Development, Validation and Tool Support of a Stochastic Calculus for Networks with Flow Transformations

• Applicants: Florin Ciucu, Ph.D.; Professor Dr.-Ing. Jens B. Schmitt
• Subject Area: Security and Dependability, Operating-, Communication- and Distributed Systems
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 208620191

Over the last decade, the stochastic network calculus has established itself as a versatile alternative methodology to the classical queueing theory for the performance analysis of networks and distributed systems. Its prospect is that it can deal with problems that are fundamentally hard for queueing theory based on the fact that it works with (probabilistic) bounds rather than striving for exact solutions. A great challenge of existing methodologies for queueing analysis is to deal with queueing networks subject to flow transformations, which occur when the flows’ data is altered inside the network. Flow transformations are in fact characteristic to many modern networked and distributed systems, e.g., a wireless sensor network processes the transported data, while delivering it to a sink node, for energy-efficiency purposes. This project addresses an extension of the stochastic network calculus to deal with flow transformations and comprises of three inter-connected parts. On the theoretical side, the project seeks to develop stochastic scaling elements, for modelling flow transformations in great generality, within the framework of the stochastic network calculus. On the application side, the project seeks to apply its theory to several real-world application scenarios in order to validate its usefulness as well as its accuracy. Furthermore, the project plans to deliver a corresponding software tool in order to allow for an automated analysis and to make the theoretical results accessible to other performance analysts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom