Provisioning virtual active networks for dynamic active service deployment

This article presents an approach for deploying and controlling active services over virtual active networks (VAN). We consider a VAN as a service abstraction offered by a provider to its customers. For the provider, the VAN represents the means to partition the network resources and isolate the customers from one another in virtual environments. For the customer, the VAN represents the environment in which it can install, configure and run its own services without further interaction with the provider. A VAN constitutes an interesting means for the provider to delegate a part of its service management and a solution for a fast and flexible service deployment. In this paper, we present our VAN-based ASMA (Active Service Management Architecture) platform, which on the one hand, enables the customer to request a VAN from the provider, and manage his own services within his VAN and, on the other hand, allows the provider to manage the VANs created in his domain. Experiments are also presented. In particular, an MPEG-4 video control service is developed in order to test the capabilities of our platform.