Research
Our team was member of the TOTEM project (funded by the
Walloon region, Belgium). In this framework, we have collaborated with two others
research units of the Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL), Belgium.
The goal of the project is to design and develop a toolbox for Traffic
Engineering techniques. Our unit is specialised in Intra-Domain
MPLS-based traffic engineering techniques.
To demonstrate the utility of the
toolbox, we have used it as an off-line
simulator to optimise the traffic of an operational network. To help
an operator to choose between an IP-based or MPLS-based solution, or
to find the best way to load-balance a network for a given traffic,
we have provided a case study which compares several IP and MPLS
routing algorithms, evaluates the impact of hot-potato routing on the
intradomain traffic matrix, and analyses the worst-case link
failure. This study revealed the power of a toolbox that federates many
traffic engineering algorithms.
Concerning fast restoration techniques, we have
designed a decentralised algorithm to compute local detour Label
Switched Path (LSP). One particularity of our algorithm is its ability
to compute backup paths sharing resources with primary paths, in
addition to classical backup-backup sharing. This technique can provide
a full restoration from any link or node failure in the network while
consuming less resources than SONET/SDH link protection. Furthermore
the local protection guarantees small restoration times (< 50 ms).
I have proposed a technique allowing each node to have enough
information to compute the best possible backup paths, while staying
scalable.
I have also worked on a basic problem in the Traffic
Engineering (TE) field, which is the choice of a particular objective
function to optimise. Indeed I think that many TE algorithms try to
optimise almost-randomly-chosen objective functions. But this choice
has a big impact on the quality of the solutions found by these
algorithms. I have provided a comparison and evaluation of many TE objective
functions found in the literature.
I have also proposed a new method to approach optimal Traffic Engineering routing.
The method consists of dividing the traffic matrix into N sub-matrices, called strata,
and route each of these independently. We have proposed two different implementations
of our method in routers. Our method can also be used to compute a very precise approximation
of the optimal value of a given objective function for comparison to heuristic Traffic
Engineering algorithms. For this application, our algorithm is very efficient on large
topologies compared to an LP formulation.
Now I am working on the interactions between intradomain and
interdomain TE techniques.
Biography
Simon Balon was born in Namur (Belgium) in 1980. He received a secondary
degree at Saint-Louis school (Liège) with a great honor
(GD) in 1998. He
graduated as Electrical (Computer Science) Civil Engineer (Master
Degree - five years) from
the Applied Science Faculty of the University of Liège (ULg)
with the highest
honor (PGD) in 2003. He also received the EVS prize of the best
final master thesis
in computer science. In August 2003, he joined the Research Unit in
Networking
of the University of Liège headed by Guy Leduc. In 2006, he obtained a Master in Applied
Science (DEA) with the highest honor summa cum laude (PGDF). In November 2008, he obtained a PhD
in Engineering Science. He is the author of several papers
in international conferences and magazines (see the publications section). He is also reviewer
for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Communications
Magazine and Computer Networks.
Publications
You can find more publications from our team
here.
- Combined Intra- and Inter-domain Traffic Engineering using Hot-Potato Aware Link Weights Optimization
S. Balon and G. Leduc
Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS 2008 - International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, pp. 441-442, 2-6 Jun. 2008, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Extended version available on Arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.2824
- Can Forwarding Loops Appear when Activating iBGP Multipath Load Sharing ?
S. Balon and G. Leduc
Proceedings of the Third Asian Internet Engineering Conference (AINTEC 2007), 27-29 Nov. 2007, Phuket, Thailand, S. Fdida and K. Sugiura (ed.), Sustainable Internet, LNCS 4866, pp. 213-225, Springer-Verlag
- Traffic Engineering an Operational Network with the TOTEM Toolbox
S. Balon, J. Lepropre, O. Delcourt, F.Skivée and G. Leduc
IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, Vol.4 No.1, pp 51-61, June 2007
- Dividing the Traffic Matrix to Approach Optimal Traffic Engineering PDF
S. Balon and G. Leduc
Proceedings of 14th IEEE International Conference on Networks (ICON 2006), vol.2, pp. 566-571, 13-15 Sep. 2006, Singapore
- A scalable heuristic for hybrid IGP/MPLS traffic engineering - Case study on an operational network PDF
F. Skivée, S. Balon and G. Leduc
Proceedings of 14th IEEE International Conference on Networks (ICON 2006), vol.2, pp. 572-577, 13-15 Sep. 2006, Singapore
- How Well Do Traffic Engineering Objective Functions Meet TE Requirements? Preprint PDF
S. Balon, F. Skivée and G. Leduc
Proceedings of IFIP Networking 2006, 15-19 May 2006, Coimbra, Portugal
- TOTEM: A TOolbox for Traffic Engineering Methods PDF
J. Lepropre, S. Balon and G. Leduc
Demonstration at INFOCOM'06, 23-29 April 2006, Barcelona, Spain
- Providing public intradomain traffic matrices to the research community Preprint PDF
S. Uhlig, B. Quoitin, J. Lepropre and S. Balon
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 36(1), January 2006
- A scalable and decentralized fast-rerouting scheme with efficient bandwidth
sharing Preprint PDF
S. Balon, L. Mélon and G. Leduc
Computer Networks, vol. 50, nb. 16, Nov. 2006, pp. 3043-3063
- Comparing traffic engineering objective functions abstract PDF
S. Balon, F. Skivée and G. Leduc
Proc. of CoNext 2005, Student Workshop, 24-27 Oct. 2005, Toulouse, France
- An Open Source Traffic Engineering Toolbox
G. Leduc, H. Abrahamsson,
S. Balon, S. Bessler, M. D'Arienzo, O. Delcourt, J. Domingo-Pascual, S. Cerav-Erbas, I. Gojmerac,
X. Masip, A. Pescapè,
B. Quoitin, S. P. Romano,
E. Salvadori,
F. Skivée, H. T. Tran,
S. Uhlig and H. Ümit
Computer Communications, vol.29, no 5, pp 593-610, March 2006
- Architecture d'une
boîte à outils
d'algorithmes
d'ingénierie de trafic
et application au
réseau GEANT abstract
PDF
F. Skivée, S. Balon,
O. Delcourt, J. Lepropre and
G. Leduc
Actes de Colloque Francophone
sur l'Ingénierie des Protocoles (CFIP), 29 Mar.-1 Avr. 2005, Bordeaux, France,
Richard Castanet (ed.), Ingénierie des protocoles -
Qualité de service, multimédia et mobilité, pp.
317-332, Hermès Lavoisier
- D3.3 Atrium Deliverable
S. Balon, O. Delcout, F. Skivée and
Guy Leduc
Dec. 2003
- Développement d'un système de
transmission vidéo multipoint et extension à une protection
différenciée des couches PDF
S. Balon
Travail de fin
d'études,
Ingénieur Civil Electricien, Université de Liège, Juin 2003
