Toward Managed Ubiquitous Information Society

A Report on APNOMS 2005

Nobuo Fujii, NTT, Japan, fujii.nobuo@lab.ntt.co.jp
James Hong, POSTECH, Korea, jwhong@postech.ac.kr
Hiroshi Uno, NTT, Japan, uno@ansl.ntt.co.jp
Kwang-Hui Lee, Changwon National University, Korea, khlee@changwon.ac.kr

 

The 8th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS 2005) was held on September 27-30, 2005 in Okinawa, Japan. APNOMS 2005 (http://www.apnoms.org/2005), which was organized by IEICE TM (Telecommunication Management) Committee and KICS KNOM (Korean Network Operations and Management Committee) with supports from IEEE CNOM (Committee on Network Operations and Management), IEEE APB (Asia Pacific Board), IEEE ComSoc Japan Chapter and TMF (TeleManagement Forum), has continued to play an important role for exchanging and discussing all aspects of telecommunications management among academic and telecommunication industry at large in the Asia-Pacific region. As the previous APNOMS were successful (1997[1], 1998[2], 1999[3], 2000[4], 2001[5], 2002[6], 2003[7]), APNOMS 2005 was a great success, attracting around 170 researchers, practitioners, operators, vendors from 9 countries. Its program included keynote speeches, tutorials, special sessions, technical sessions, poster sessions, a distinguished experts panel and exhibitions.

The theme of this symposium was “Toward Managed Ubiquitous Information Society.” In the network area, next generation networks (NGNs) are a hot topic, and service convergence has become a key issue. In the computer area, ubiquitous and pervasive computing have become enabling technologies. In the user area, sensor networks are expected to be the new infrastructures that will improve many different environments and enrich people’s lives. In each area, many researchers and designers are striving to invent new architecture that will enable and improve these new technologies. Combinations of architecture and relevant technologies will be the foundation of the ubiquitous information society, and then, all devices in words and artifacts will be networked through new applications that will support diversified life styles. Under these circumstances, networks, devices, and services will require management, causing the scale and complexity to expand enormously. Under these circumstances, networks, devices, and services will require management, causing the scale and complexity to expand enormously. With this background, this symposium focused on the theme of toward managed ubiquitous information society.

The first day of the symposium provided exhibitor’s session, which was a new kind of session in APNOMS. Each exhibitor mentioned and explained benefits of his products.

The second day consisted of six tutorials covering different aspects of management technologies. Mikio Aoyama (Nanzan Univ.) gave a tutorial on “Introduction to Service-Oriented Computing, SOA and Service Management.” Susumu Kinoshita (Fujitsu Labs.) and Richard Rabbat (Fujitsu Labs. of America) gave a tutorial on “Optical Network Technology and Management.” Yungtak Kim (YeungNam Univ.)　gave a tutorial on “Inter-domain Traffic Engineering for QoS-guraranteed DiffServ Provisioning.” Ikuo Yamasaki (NTT Cyber Solutions Labs.) gave a tutorial on OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) .” Kostas Pentikousis and Milla Huusko (VTT Technical Research Center of Finland) gave a tutorial on “Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Networks.” Jong Tae Park (Kyungpook National Univ.) gave a tutorial on “Managing Ubiquitous Sensor Network.” They attracted many discussions on the new issues of managing those technologies and services.

Four keynote speakers shared their visions in the third and fourth days of the symposium. Hideyuki Tokuda (Keio University, Japan) delivered a speech on “Challenge Towards the Ubiquitous Network Society.” Carl Atsushi Hirano (NTT DoCoMo,Inc, Japan) gave a speech on “Mobile FeliCa - i-mode Alliance Strategy.” Kil-Ho Song (KT Systems Lab., Korea) gave a speech on “Next Generation OSS Architecture for u-Society.” Al Vincent (NTIA, USA) gave a speech on “The Convergence of Public Policy and Technology in the Ubiquitous Network Environment.”

The main body of the Symposium consisted of eight technical sessions and two poster sessions. From a total of 69 paper submissions, 38 were selected for presentations in the 8 technical sessions and 18 were selected for poster session presentations. These papers represented the latest results of research and development in integrated management for telecommunication solutions covering major research areas including: IP Network/service management, Management architecture, Service quality management, Ubiquitous and Ad hoc management, Monitoring and measurement, and Security and traffic management. The most numbers of papers were related on IP Network/service management.

Two special sessions were held in the third and fourth days of the symposium. They discussed on “Mobile & Wireless Communication Technologies for Ubiquitous Society” and “Standardization, New Service and Computing Technologies for Ubiquitous Society,” by 5 and 4 representatives, respectively. Chieteuk Ahn (ETRI, Korea) gave a talk on “The current status and the future direction of DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) technology.” Marcus Brunner (NEC Europe, Germany) gave a talk on “Towards a European Next Generation Mobile Network.” Han-Seok Kim (SAMSUNG Electronics, Korea) gave a talk on “Introduction of WiBro (Mobile WiMax),” Yoichi Matsumoto (Intel KK, Japan) gave a talk on “Overview of IEEE802.11s - Wireless Aware L2 Mesh Networks.” Masashi Shimizu (NTT, Japan) gave a talk on “Overview of RFID Technologies for Ubiquitous Services.” Chul-Soo Kim (Charles Kim) (INJE University, Korea) gave a talk on “NGN Standardization in ITU-T FGNGN.” Hong-Beom Cheon (KT, Korea) gave a talk on “Octave Project of KT.” John Strassner (Motorola Labs, USA) gave a talk on “Seamless Mobility – A Compelling Blending of Ubiquitous Computing and Autonomic Computing.” Yoshie Hashima (SL Japan, Japan) gave a talk on “Network Operations Visibility - Real Time Dashboard that Connects the Field and Business Management.”

The exhibition program provided an opportunity for vendors and service providers to exhibit their latest technologies, tools, platforms, products and systems to support integrated management. This program also provided an excellent environment for operators, researchers and academics to interact with vendors. 7 companies including Cisco systems K.K., Hewlett-Packard Japan, Ltd., KT Systems Lab., KT Freetel Co., Microsoft Co., Ltd., and SL Japan Corporation participated in the exhibition program.

APNOMS 2005 ended the four-day event with a very exciting distinguished experts panel on the topic of “Toward Ubiquitous Information Society.” Chaired by Nobuo Fujii (NTT Cyber Solutions Labs., Japan), four panelists, Murcus Brunner (NEC Europe, Germany), Al Vincent (NTIA, USA), Yoshimi Teshigawara (Soka Univ., Japan) and Dongsik Yun (KT, Korea), discussed and debated a large range of issues on the APNOMS 2005 theme. These issues included self-management, security and trust, manageability and reliability, government rule, business activity, scalability, security and privacy, and user satisfaction.The audience also participated in the discussion and debated actively throughout the panel. Through the discussions and debates, the panelists and audience offered different views on future important issues of the real goal toward managed ubiquitous information society.

APNOMS 2005 was a very successful symposium. It was well attended and the feedback on all aspects of the symposium organization, in particular, on the technical program was very positive. It contributed to the growth of APNOMS into a very important international symposium. The audience’s feedback reinforced the positive aspects of the symposium: the wide participation from the industry in technical contributions and organizing and program committees; the tradition of special sessions focusing on experiences and lessens learned by different countries in this region; and the overall collaborative, interactive and friendly atmosphere of the symposium.

For further information, please visit the official symposium site: http://www.apnoms.org/2005. APNOMS 2004 was not planned since NOMS 2004 (www.noms2004.org) was held in April 2004 in Seoul, Korea. APNOMS 2006 will be held in September 2006 in Busan, Korea. For more information, please visit http://www.apnoms.org/2006

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all APNOMS 2005 organizing committee members, especially Standing Committee members Masayoshi Ejiri (Fujitsu, Japan) and Kyung-Hyu Lee (ETRI, Korea) for their dedications and continuous efforts to make this symposium a success. Our special thanks are extended to all the volunteers of the symposium.

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Nobuo Fujii: Mr. Nobuo Fujii is an Executive Manager of Homenetwork Service Innovation Project in NTT Cyber Solution Laboratories. He received the B. E. and M. E. in Applied Physics from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1977 and 1979. He joined Yokosuka Electrical Communication Laboratories of NTT Public Corporation in 1979. His major works in NTT laboratories were: development of control system for digital cross-connect systems, ATM transport network management system and operation system development support systems. From 1995 to 1998, he was a general manager in NTT Multimedia Business Development Business Sector and established a new business on multipoint video conferencing. He is also active in standardization as an ITU-T SG4 Vice President.

James Won-Ki Hong: Dr. James Won-Ki Hong is an associate professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, POSTECH, Pohang, Korea. He has been with POSTECH since May 1995. Prior to joining POSTECH, he was a research professor in the Dept. of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Dr. Hong received the BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Western Ontario in 1983 and 1985, respectively, and the PhD degree from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada in 1991. He has served as a Technical Chair for IEEE CNOM from 1998 to 2000. He was a Technical Co-Chair for 2000 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS 2000). He has been a standing committee member for Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS) since 1997. For the last several years, he has been working on various research projects on network and systems management, which utilize Web, Java and CORBA technologies. His research interests include network and systems management, distributed computing and multimedia systems. He is a member of IEEE, KICS, KNOM and KISS.

Hirosih Uno: Dr. Hiroshi Uno is a senior research manager of NTT Access Network Service Systems Lab. He received BS, MS and PhD degrees from Nippon Univ., Japan in 1982, 1984 and 2004, respectively. His study areas are access network systems and operations. He was an invited professor of Soochow Univ. in China in 2000. He is a consultant professor of Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology in China. He is a member of IEEE and IEICE, Japan. He was a vice-chair, and is a member of expert committee of the TM, IEICE.

Kwang-Hui Lee: Prof. Lee has been a professor in Department of Computer Engineering, Changwon National University (CNU), Changwon, Korea since 1988. He received the BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from the Korea University in 1983, 1985 and 1989 respectively. He was a visiting scholar of Swansea University and Newbridge Networks in England from 1991 to 1992. He joined the Reading University in England as senior visiting researcher from 1997 to 1999. His interest areas are network monitoring, network design, QoS routing and wireless sensor network management. He is a member of IEEE, KICS, KNOM, IEEK and KSII.