Special Issue on Resilient Communication Networks for an Hyper-Connected World Submission Date: 2024-11-01 Resilience of communication infrastructures is a top priority for network operators. To ensure resilient network operation, new design and management techniques must be constantly devised to respond to the rapid network and service evolution. As a recent and relevant example, deployments of 5G and 6G communication networks require network infrastructures to support new ultra-reliable services with availability of up to 9 nines. Similarly, disaster resiliency in communication networks is now attracting the attention of media, governments, and industry as never before (consider, e.g., the worldwide network traffic deluge to support remote working during the recent COVID19-pandemic!). Furthermore, governments are not only investing to increase the coverage and capacity of their networks, but also the reliability and sovereignty of their networks so that they are more secure and robust against attacks and unstable markets. Fortunately, several new technical directions can be leveraged to improve network resilience, including increased network adaptability enabled by network softwarization (e.g., Software Defined Networking (SDN)); integration/convergence of multiple technologies (optical, wireless, satellite, datacenter networks); enhanced forms of data/service replication that is supported by edge computing; network slicing used to carve highly-reliable logical partitions of network, computing and storage resources. These, and many other technological transformations can enable next-generation high-reliability networks.

Given the strong interest in both industry and academia towards reliability of telecom networks and cloud-computing infrastructures, we organize this fifth IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM) Special Issue on Resilient Communication Networks for an Hyper-Connected World (the first issue published in September 2021). This Special Issue aims at the timely publication of recent and innovative research results on this important topic. This Special Issue is organized in collaboration with the organizers of the International Conference on the Design of Reliable Communication Networks (DRCN), a well-established forum for scientists from both industry and academy who have interest in reliability and resilience of communication networks.

We welcome submissions addressing important challenges (see the list of topics below) and presenting novel research or experimentation results. Survey papers that offer a perspective on related work and identify key challenges for future research will be considered as well. We look forward to your submissions!

About the Special Issue

Topics of interest for this special issue, include, but are not limited to the following:

Technologies

Resilience in 5G-advanced and 6G networks and services

Survivable network of networks

Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC)

Design of resilient and reliable IoT systems

Resilience and robust in softwarized networks and Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

Secure and reliable optical and quantum communication

Resilient communication networks for the smart grid

Reliable Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architectures

Resilience in satellite and Non-Terrestrial communication networks

Dependability of cloud/wireless/cellular/mobile/datacenter networks

Resilience in Free-Space Optics/Visible Light Communications (FSO/VLC) communications

Survivability and traffic engineering of multi-layer/multi-domain networks

Fast Recovery of overlay and peer-to-peer networks

Risk and reliability in the Internet and enterprise networks

Communication reliability for smart city applications, autonomous driving and intelligent transport systems

Emerging network resilience challenges in the Quantum Internet

Methods

Methods for survivable network and systems design, analysis and operation

Planning and optimization of reliable networks, systems, and services

Machine learning for reliable design of communication networks

Trust and explainability of Machine Learning solutions for reliable networking

Security of cyber physical and networked control systems

Reliable design of networked control systems

Data analytics and Machine Learning for fault diagnosis

Network coding techniques to improve resilience

Quality of Experience (QoE) and network service availability assessments

Resilience of networked critical infrastructures

Use Cases

Network robustness to natural disasters and hostile environments

Integration of satellite services for critical situations

Network dependability and energy consumption trade-offs

Network resilience combined with economics and commercial issues

Public policy issues for survivability and resilience

Supply chain reliability

Reliability aspects in blockchains and distributed ledgers

Technological sovereignty

Reliable zero touch solutions

Deterministic and time sensitive networking

Resilience towards business continuity

Reliability requirements and metrics for users, businesses, and the society

Robust network design for hostile and/or pandemic environments

Security and safety issues in networks and their relation to survivability

Standardization of network resilience and reliability

Design and test of reliable operational technology (OT) networks

Network reconfiguration and reinforcement