Building networks

Final year Network Engineering student Alex Deng
working with lecturer Dr Bryan Ng in the
SDN research group's data centre 

If you’ve ever complained about internet speeds in New Zealand, then consider a career in network engineering and be part of the solution!

“The internet is the world’s largest network,” says Bryan Ng, a lecturer in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. “Network engineers are the people who keep it running; they manage the interface between software and hardware to ensure content is delivered seamlessly to the end user.”

Bryan says that in today’s connected world, top-performing companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon simply wouldn’t be in business without networks. As a result, “network engineering is such a growth industry that we simply can’t produce enough graduates to meet demand.”

Part of that growth has seen the emergence of a new networking technology—software-defined networking (SDN)—that is set to revolutionise the way computer networks operate in the future.

“Traditionally, computer hardware is manufactured and delivered to the end user complete with its own software,” Bryan explains. “But network engineers don’t want to be restricted by that anymore; they want to write their own software, and define how their networks operate—hence the term ‘software-defined networking’. By decoupling software from the hardware, network engineers can optimise software to meet their particular requirements, and manufacturers can focus on optimising their hardware. It’s more liberating and encourages innovation.”

Bryan says that one of the biggest benefits of SDN is its ability to respond to system threats faster. “If the software isn’t coupled to the hardware, network engineers can respond to attacks on the fly,” he explains. “They can quickly set a perimeter fence to isolate the threat, observe what’s going on and develop an appropriate response. They don’t have that same level of flexibility when it’s not their own software.”

The School of Engineering and Computer Science currently has a number of SDN research projects being carried out by Master’s, PhD and Honours students.Fourth-year student Alex Deng’s project requires him to implement a simple proof-of-concept system that demonstrates how SDN can improve the handover performance of Victoria University’s wifi network, as users roam from one network to another.

“The original access points weren’t designed for seamless connectivity,” explains Bryan. “Wifi would drop out for 20 or 30 seconds each time users left an access point—meaning they had to log back in again.”

Part of Alex’s research will involve investigating how the operators of mobile networks, such as Spark and Vodafone, deal with ever-increasing volumes of mobile data traffic, and leveraging what they have learned. “Mobile operators are required by law to provide reliable networks, and have invested billions of dollars to achieve the required reliability of service,” says Bryan. “Alex will be looking at how he can use SDN to achieve similar reliability for Victoria’s  wifi network, and provide seamless connectivity for students and staff.”

The idea for the project was developed in collaboration with a local IT firm that sees SDN as part of its future roadmap. “Alex had already been working for the company as part of his engineering practice hours, so it made sense to ask people what they thought would be a meaningful project in an industry sense, and this is what evolved.”

Victoria continues to remain at the forefront of SDN research in Australasia, establishing the SDN Research Centre in 2014 to foster collaboration with industry and academia, and support activities that promote SDN.