Future research directions in design of reliable communication systems

Future research directions in design of reliable communication systemsIn this position paper on reliable networks, we discuss new trends in the design of reliable communication systems. We focus on a wide range of research directions including protection against software failures as well as failures of communication systems equipment. In particular, we outline future research trends in software failure mitigation, reliability of wireless communications, robust optimization and network design, multilevel and multirealm network resilience, multiple criteria routing approaches in multilayer networks, resilience options of the fixed IP backbone network in the interplay with the optical layer survivability, reliability of cloud computing networks, and resiliency of software-defined networks. Described research directions are frequently enhanced with examples.The work of Jacek Rak has been supported in part by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the Grant N N519 581038. The work of Arie M.C.A. Koster was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF Grant 05M10PAA, project ROBUKOM Robust Communication Networks, http://www.robukom.de). The work of James P.G. Sterbenz and Egemen K. Çetinkaya was based on research performed in the ResiliNets group at the University of Kansas (US) and Lancaster University (UK), and is funded in part by NSF FIND (Future Internet Design) Program under Grant CNS-0626918 (Postmodern Internet Architecture), by NSF Grant CNS-1050226 (Multilayer Network Resilience Analysis and Experimentation on GENI), and by the EU FP7 FIRE Programme ResumeNet project (Grant agreement No. 224619). The work of Teresa Gomes has been partially supported by programme COMPETE of the EC Community Support Framework III and co-sponsored by the EC fund FEDER, Project FCT PTDC/EEA-TEL/101884/2008, and by FCT under Project Grant Pest-OE/EEI/UI308/2014. The work of Matthias Gunkel has been partially supported by STRONGEST, an Integrated Project funded by the European Commission through the 7th ICT framework program FP7/2007-2013 under Grant agreement No. 247674. The work of Krzysztof Walkowiak was supported by the Polish National Science Centre under the Grant N N519 650440