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Frontiers of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are constantly expanding and eagerly demanding more computational resources. Currently, we are experiencing an rapid evolution in the high performance computing systems driven by power consumption constraints. New HPC nodes incorporate accelerators that are used as math co-processors for increasing the throughput and the FLOP per watt ratio. On the other hand, multi-core CPUs have turned into energy efficient system-on-chip architectures. By doing so, the main components of the node are fused and integrated into a single chip reducing the energy costs. Nowadays, several institutions and governments are investing in the research and development of different aspects of HPC that could lead to the next generations of supercomputers. This initiatives have entitled the problem as the exascale challenge. This goal can only be achieved by incorporating major changes in computer architecture, memory design and network interfaces. The CFD community faces an important challenge: keep the pace at the rapid changes in the HPC resources. The codes and formulations need to be re-design in other to exploit the different levels of parallelism and complex memory hierarchies of the new heterogeneous systems. The main characteristics demanded to the new CFD software are: memory awareness, extreme concurrency, modularity and portability. This thesis is devoted to the study of a CFD algorithm re-factoring for the adoption of new technologies. Our application context is the solution of incompressible flows (DNS or LES) on unstructured meshes. The first approach was using GPUs for accelerating the Poisson solver, that is the most computational intensive part of our application. The positive results obtained in this first step motivated us to port the complete time integration phase of our application. This requires a major redesign of the code. We propose a portable implementation model for CFD applications. The main idea was substituting stencil data structures and kernels by algebraic ...

Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) has been shown to be a technique with several benefits, in particular when applied over wireless mesh networks, since it provides robustness against packet losses. On the other hand, Tunable Sparse Network Coding (TSNC) is a promising concept, which leverages a trade-off between computational complexity and goodput. An optimal density tuning function has not been found yet, due to the lack of a closed-form expression that links density, performance and computational cost. In addition, it would be difficult to implement, due to the feedback delay. In this work we propose two novel tuning functions with a lower computational cost, which do not highly increase the overhead in terms of the transmission of linear dependent packets compared with RLNC and previous proposals. Furthermore, we also broaden previous studies of TSNC techniques, by means of an extensive simulation campaign carried out using the ns-3 simulator. This brings the possibility of assessing their performance over more realistic scenarios, e.g considering MAC effects and delays. We exploit this implementation to analyze the impact of the feedback sent by the decoder. The results, compared to RLNC, show a reduction of 3.5 times in the number of operations without jeopardizing the network performance, in terms of goodput, even when we consider the delay effect on the feedback sent by the decoder ; This work has been supported by the Spanish Government (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional, FEDER) by means of the projects COSAIF, "Connectivity as a Service: Access for the Internet of the Future" (TEC2012-38754-C02-01), and ADVICE (TEC2015-71329-C2-1-R). This work was also financed in part by the TuneSCode project (No. DFF 1335-00125) granted by the Danish Council for Independent Research.

A wireless sensor network (WSN) (sometimes called a wireless sensor and actuator network (WSAN) are spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions,[2] such as temperature,sound,pressure,etc. and to cooperati vely pass their data through the network to a main location. The more modern networks are bi-direction al,also enabling control of sensor activity. The development of wireless sensor networks was motivat ed by military applications such as battlefield surveillance;today such networks are used in many industrial and consumer applications,such as indus trial process monitoring and control,machine health moni toring,and so on. The WSN is built of "nodes" � fr om a few to several hundreds or even thousands,where each node is connected to one (or sometimes several) sensors. Each such sensor network node has typicall y several parts:a radio transceiver with an intern al antenna or connection to an external antenna,a mic rocontroller,an electronic circuit for interfacing with the sensors and an energy source,usually a battery or an embedded form of energy harvesting. A sensor nod e might vary in size from that of a shoebox down to t he size of a grain of dust,although functioning "m otes" of genuine microscopic dimensions have yet to be cr eated. The cost of sensor nodes is similarly variab le,ranging from a few to hundreds of dollars,dependin g on the complexity of the individual sensor nodes. Size and cost constraints on sensor nodes result in corr esponding constraints on resources such as energy,memory,computational speed and communications band width. The topology of the WSNs can vary from a simple star network to an advanced multi-hop wirele ss mesh network. The propagation technique between the hops of the network can be routing or flooding The relentless development of wireless technology p aves the way to novel applications,based on sensor netw orks or wireless systems. This paper aims at bringi ng together specialists of application areas along wit h researchers ...

Military communication systems are nowadays improving slowly compared to commercial systems. In parallel, public safety (ps) communication systems are changing due to emergence of long term evolution (LTE) as a mature solution. However, LTE is initially designed for commercial cellular network and need to be evolved to tackle the requirements of ps use cases. In this thesis, we develop a complete solution to address constrained ps and military use-cases allowing to wirelessly mesh mobile network nodes and to provide access to standard user equipments while only requiring a single radio band. Starting from ps and military use cases, we present the potential scenarios and derive functional requirements for future wireless systems. The constraints applying to these systems lead to the selection of LTE as the radio access technology. We detail the challenges faced by a LTE solution given the state of the art. We present a novel network infrastructure architecture that enables multi-hop LTE mesh networking for autonomous base stations via in-band self-backhauling relying on a new base station: the e2nb. We detail the building blocks of the architecture, we investigate the coordination and orchestration functionality and propose a cross layer hierarchical resource scheduling algorithm in order to efficiently meet quality of service requirements for real-time traffic while maximizing the throughput for elastic flows. We evaluate the self-backhauling interface using open air interface and then evaluate our resource scheduling algorithm in various network topologies and traffic flows. Finally, we summarize the remaining uncertainties concerning real-field deployments. ; Les systèmes de communication militaires s'améliorent aujourd'hui lentement comparés aux systèmes civils. les systèmes de communications pour les réseaux de sécurité publique évoluent suite à l'émergence de la technologie long term evolution (LTE). Cependant, le LTE a initialement été conçu pour les réseaux cellulaires commerciaux. Dans cette thèse, nous ...

Manycores are capable of providing the computational demands required by functionally-advanced critical applications in domains such as automotive and avionics. In manycores a network-on-chip (NoC) provides access to shared caches and memories and hence concentrates most of the contention that tasks suffer, with effects on the worst-case contention delay (WCD) of packets and tasks' WCET. While several proposals minimize the impact of individual NoC parameters on WCD, e.g. mapping and routing, there are strong dependences among these NoC parameters. Hence, finding the optimal NoC configurations requires optimizing all parameters simultaneously, which represents a multidimensional optimization problem. In this paper we propose NoCo, a novel approach that combines ILP and stochastic optimization to find NoC configurations in terms of packet routing, application mapping, and arbitration weight allocation. Our results show that NoCo improves other techniques that optimize a subset of NoC parameters. ; This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant TIN2015- 65316-P and the HiPEAC Network of Excellence. It also received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (agreement No. 772773). Carles Hernández is jointly supported by the MINECO and FEDER funds through grant TIN2014-60404-JIN. Jaume Abella has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship number RYC-2013-14717. Enrico Mezzetti has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Juan de la Cierva-Incorporaci´on postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2016-27396. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)

Manycores are capable of providing the computational demands required by functionally-advanced critical applications in domains such as automotive and avionics. In manycores a network-on-chip (NoC) provides access to shared caches and memories and hence concentrates most of the contention that tasks suffer, with effects on the worst-case contention delay (WCD) of packets and tasks' WCET. While several proposals minimize the impact of individual NoC parameters on WCD, e.g. mapping and routing, there are strong dependences among these NoC parameters. Hence, finding the optimal NoC configurations requires optimizing all parameters simultaneously, which represents a multidimensional optimization problem. In this paper we propose NoCo, a novel approach that combines ILP and stochastic optimization to find NoC configurations in terms of packet routing, application mapping, and arbitration weight allocation. Our results show that NoCo improves other techniques that optimize a subset of NoC parameters. ; This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant TIN2015- 65316-P and the HiPEAC Network of Excellence. It also received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (agreement No. 772773). Carles Hernández is jointly supported by the MINECO and FEDER funds through grant TIN2014-60404-JIN. Jaume Abella has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship number RYC-2013-14717. Enrico Mezzetti has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Juan de la Cierva-Incorporaci´on postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2016-27396. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)

LoRa has emerged in recent years as a wireless technology providing long-range communication for low-power Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. The LoRaWAN architecture adds the medium access control (MAC) and application layers, and defines a star of stars topology suitable for many and diverse IoT applications. However, in a number of scenarios, a more flexible network topology than LoRaWAN's is needed. We review the state of the art of the design and implementation of multihop and mesh solutions for LoRa and LoRaWAN. We discuss the remaining challenges for multihop and mesh solutions to overcome in order to unlock the opportunities that decentralized, self-organizing, and infrastructure-less LoRa networks can bring to IoT applications. ; This work was in part supported by the Spanish Government under Contract PID2019-106774RB-C21, Contract PCI2019-111850-2 (DiPET CHIST-ERA), and Contract PCI2019-111851-2 (LeadingEdge CHIST-ERA), and in part by the Generalitat de Catalunya as Consolidated Research Group 2017-SGR-990. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)

Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) is a technique that provides several benefits. For instance, when applied over wireless mesh networks, it can be exploited to ease routing solutions as well as to increase the robustness against packet losses. Nevertheless, the complexity of the decoding process and the required overhead might jeopardize its performance. There is a trade-off when deciding the field and block sizes; larger values decrease the probability of transmitting linearly dependent packets, but they also increase both the required overhead and the decoding complexity. In order to overcome these limitations, we propose a sliding window enhancement; a fixed number of packets (fewer than the block size) is combined within every transmission, and the decoding process can therefore take advantage of the algebra with sparse matrices. The paper presents an analytical model, which is first validated and later broaden by means of an extensive simulation campaign carried out over the ns-3 simulator. ; This work has been supported by the Spanish Government by its funding through the project COSAIF, "Connectivity as a Service: Access for the Internet of the Future" (TEC2012-38754-C02-01).

Frontiers of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are constantly expanding and eagerly demanding more computational resources. Currently, we are experiencing an rapid evolution in the high performance computing systems driven by power consumption constraints. New HPC nodes incorporate accelerators that are used as math co-processors for increasing the throughput and the FLOP per watt ratio. On the other hand, multi-core CPUs have turned into energy efficient system-on-chip architectures. By doing so, the main components of the node are fused and integrated into a single chip reducing the energy costs. Nowadays, several institutions and governments are investing in the research and development of different aspects of HPC that could lead to the next generations of supercomputers. This initiatives have entitled the problem as the exascale challenge. This goal can only be achieved by incorporating major changes in computer architecture, memory design and network interfaces. The CFD community faces an important challenge: keep the pace at the rapid changes in the HPC resources. The codes and formulations need to be re-design in other to exploit the different levels of parallelism and complex memory hierarchies of the new heterogeneous systems. The main characteristics demanded to the new CFD software are: memory awareness, extreme concurrency, modularity and portability. This thesis is devoted to the study of a CFD algorithm re-factoring for the adoption of new technologies. Our application context is the solution of incompressible flows (DNS or LES) on unstructured meshes. The first approach was using GPUs for accelerating the Poisson solver, that is the most computational intensive part of our application. The positive results obtained in this first step motivated us to port the complete time integration phase of our application. This requires a major redesign of the code. We propose a portable implementation model for CFD applications. The main idea was substituting stencil data structures and kernels by algebraic storage formats and operators. By doing so, the algorithm was restructured into a minimal set of algebraic operations. The implementation strategy consisted in the creation of a low-level algebraic layer for computations on CPUs and GPUs, and a high-level user-friendly discretization layer for CPUs that is fully localized at the preprocessing stage where performance does not play an important role. As a result, at the time-integration phase the code relies only on three algebraic kernels: sparse-matrix-vector product (SpMV), linear combination of two vectors (AXPY) and dot product (DOT). Such a simple set of basic linear algebra operations naturally provides the desired portability to any computing architecture. Special attention was paid at the development of data structures compatibles with the stream processing model. A detailed performance analysis was studied in both sequential and parallel execution engaging up to 128 GPUs in a hybrid CPU/GPU supercomputer. Moreover, we tested the portable implementation model of TermoFluids code in the Mont-Blanc mobile-based supercomputer. The re-design of the kernels exploits a heterogeneous execution model using both computing devices CPU and GPU of the ARM-based nodes. The load balancing between the two computing devices exploits a tabu search strategy that tunes the workload distribution during the preprocessing stage. A comparison of the Mont-Blanc prototypes with high-end supercomputers in terms of the achieved net performance and energy consumption provided some guidelines of the behavior of CFD applications in ARM-based architectures. Finally, we present a memory aware auto-tuned Poisson solver for problems with one Fourier diagonalizable direction. This work was developed and tested in the BlueGene/Q Vesta supercomputer, and aims at demonstrating the relevance of vectorization and memory awareness for fully exploiting the modern energy efficient CPUs. ; Las fronteras de la dinámica de fluidos computacional (CFD) están en constante expansión y demandan más y más recursos computacionales. Actualmente, estamos experimentando una evolución en los sistemas de computación de alto rendimiento (HPC) impulsado por restricciones de consumo de energía. Los nuevos nodos HPC incorporan aceleradores que se utilizan como co-procesadores para incrementar el rendimiento y la relación FLOP por vatio. Por otro lado, CPUs multi-core se han convertido en arquitecturas system-on-chip. Hoy en día, varias instituciones y gobiernos están invirtiendo en la investigación y desarrollo de los diferentes aspectos de HPC que podrían llevar a las próximas generaciones de superordenadores. Estas iniciativas han titulado el problema como el "exascale challenge". Este objetivo sólo puede lograrse mediante la incorporación de cambios importantes en: la arquitectura de ordenador, diseño de la memoria y las interfaces de red. La comunidad de CFD se enfrenta a un reto importante: mantener el ritmo a los rápidos cambios en las infraestructuras de HPC. Los códigos y formulaciones necesitan ser rediseñados para explotar los diferentes niveles de paralelismo y complejas jerarquías de memoria de los nuevos sistemas heterogéneos. Las principales características exigidas al nuevo software CFD son: estructuras de datos, la concurrencia extrema, modularidad y portabilidad. Esta tesis está dedicada al estudio de un modelo de implementation CFD para la adopción de nuevas tecnologías. Nuestro contexto de aplicación es la solución de los flujos incompresibles (DNS o LES) en mallas no estructuradas. El primer enfoque se basó en utilizar GPUs para acelerar el solver de Poisson. Los resultados positivos obtenidos en este primer paso nos motivaron a la portabilidad completa de la fase de integración temporal de nuestra aplicación. Esto requiere un importante rediseño del código. Proponemos un modelo de implementacion portable para aplicaciones de CFD. La idea principal es sustituir las estructuras de datos de los stencils y kernels por formatos de almacenamiento algebraicos y operadores. La estrategia de implementación consistió en la creación de una capa algebraica de bajo nivel para los cálculos de CPU y GPU, y una capa de discretización fácil de usar de alto nivel para las CPU. Como resultado, la fase de integración temporal del código se basa sólo en tres funciones algebraicas: producto de una matriz dispersa con un vector (SPMV), combinación lineal de dos vectores (AXPY) y producto escalar (DOT). Además, se prestó especial atención en el desarrollo de estructuras de datos compatibles con el modelo stream processing. Un análisis detallado de rendimiento se ha estudiado tanto en ejecución secuencial y paralela utilizando hasta 128 GPUs en un superordenador híbrido CPU / GPU. Por otra parte, hemos probado el nuevo modelo de TermoFluids en el superordenador Mont-Blanc basado en tecnología móvil. El rediseño de las funciones explota un modelo de ejecución heterogénea utilizando tanto la CPU y la GPU de los nodos basados en arquitectura ARM. El equilibrio de carga entre las dos unidades de cálculo aprovecha una estrategia de búsqueda tabú que sintoniza la distribución de carga de trabajo durante la etapa de preprocesamiento. Una comparación de los prototipos Mont-Blanc con superordenadores de alta gama en términos de rendimiento y consumo de energía nos proporcionó algunas pautas del comportamiento de las aplicaciones CFD en arquitecturas basadas en ARM. Por último, se presenta una estructura de datos auto-sintonizada para el solver de Poisson en problemas con una dirección diagonalizable mediante una descomposicion de Fourier. Este trabajo fue desarrollado y probado en la superordenador BlueGene / Q Vesta, y tiene por objeto demostrar la relevancia de vectorización y las estructuras de datos para aprovechar plenamente las CPUs de los superodenadores modernos. ; Postprint (published version)

Frontiers of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are constantly expanding and eagerly demanding more computational resources. Currently, we are experiencing an rapid evolution in the high performance computing systems driven by power consumption constraints. New HPC nodes incorporate accelerators that are used as math co-processors for increasing the throughput and the FLOP per watt ratio. On the other hand, multi-core CPUs have turned into energy efficient system-on-chip architectures. By doing so, the main components of the node are fused and integrated into a single chip reducing the energy costs. Nowadays, several institutions and governments are investing in the research and development of different aspects of HPC that could lead to the next generations of supercomputers. This initiatives have entitled the problem as the exascale challenge. This goal can only be achieved by incorporating major changes in computer architecture, memory design and network interfaces. The CFD community faces an important challenge: keep the pace at the rapid changes in the HPC resources. The codes and formulations need to be re-design in other to exploit the different levels of parallelism and complex memory hierarchies of the new heterogeneous systems. The main characteristics demanded to the new CFD software are: memory awareness, extreme concurrency, modularity and portability. This thesis is devoted to the study of a CFD algorithm re-factoring for the adoption of new technologies. Our application context is the solution of incompressible flows (DNS or LES) on unstructured meshes. The first approach was using GPUs for accelerating the Poisson solver, that is the most computational intensive part of our application. The positive results obtained in this first step motivated us to port the complete time integration phase of our application. This requires a major redesign of the code. We propose a portable implementation model for CFD applications. The main idea was substituting stencil data structures and kernels by algebraic storage formats and operators. By doing so, the algorithm was restructured into a minimal set of algebraic operations. The implementation strategy consisted in the creation of a low-level algebraic layer for computations on CPUs and GPUs, and a high-level user-friendly discretization layer for CPUs that is fully localized at the preprocessing stage where performance does not play an important role. As a result, at the time-integration phase the code relies only on three algebraic kernels: sparse-matrix-vector product (SpMV), linear combination of two vectors (AXPY) and dot product (DOT). Such a simple set of basic linear algebra operations naturally provides the desired portability to any computing architecture. Special attention was paid at the development of data structures compatibles with the stream processing model. A detailed performance analysis was studied in both sequential and parallel execution engaging up to 128 GPUs in a hybrid CPU/GPU supercomputer. Moreover, we tested the portable implementation model of TermoFluids code in the Mont-Blanc mobile-based supercomputer. The re-design of the kernels exploits a heterogeneous execution model using both computing devices CPU and GPU of the ARM-based nodes. The load balancing between the two computing devices exploits a tabu search strategy that tunes the workload distribution during the preprocessing stage. A comparison of the Mont-Blanc prototypes with high-end supercomputers in terms of the achieved net performance and energy consumption provided some guidelines of the behavior of CFD applications in ARM-based architectures. Finally, we present a memory aware auto-tuned Poisson solver for problems with one Fourier diagonalizable direction. This work was developed and tested in the BlueGene/Q Vesta supercomputer, and aims at demonstrating the relevance of vectorization and memory awareness for fully exploiting the modern energy efficient CPUs. ; Las fronteras de la dinámica de fluidos computacional (CFD) están en constante expansión y demandan más y más recursos computacionales. Actualmente, estamos experimentando una evolución en los sistemas de computación de alto rendimiento (HPC) impulsado por restricciones de consumo de energía. Los nuevos nodos HPC incorporan aceleradores que se utilizan como co-procesadores para incrementar el rendimiento y la relación FLOP por vatio. Por otro lado, CPUs multi-core se han convertido en arquitecturas system-on-chip. Hoy en día, varias instituciones y gobiernos están invirtiendo en la investigación y desarrollo de los diferentes aspectos de HPC que podrían llevar a las próximas generaciones de superordenadores. Estas iniciativas han titulado el problema como el "exascale challenge". Este objetivo sólo puede lograrse mediante la incorporación de cambios importantes en: la arquitectura de ordenador, diseño de la memoria y las interfaces de red. La comunidad de CFD se enfrenta a un reto importante: mantener el ritmo a los rápidos cambios en las infraestructuras de HPC. Los códigos y formulaciones necesitan ser rediseñados para explotar los diferentes niveles de paralelismo y complejas jerarquías de memoria de los nuevos sistemas heterogéneos. Las principales características exigidas al nuevo software CFD son: estructuras de datos, la concurrencia extrema, modularidad y portabilidad. Esta tesis está dedicada al estudio de un modelo de implementation CFD para la adopción de nuevas tecnologías. Nuestro contexto de aplicación es la solución de los flujos incompresibles (DNS o LES) en mallas no estructuradas. El primer enfoque se basó en utilizar GPUs para acelerar el solver de Poisson. Los resultados positivos obtenidos en este primer paso nos motivaron a la portabilidad completa de la fase de integración temporal de nuestra aplicación. Esto requiere un importante rediseño del código. Proponemos un modelo de implementacion portable para aplicaciones de CFD. La idea principal es sustituir las estructuras de datos de los stencils y kernels por formatos de almacenamiento algebraicos y operadores. La estrategia de implementación consistió en la creación de una capa algebraica de bajo nivel para los cálculos de CPU y GPU, y una capa de discretización fácil de usar de alto nivel para las CPU. Como resultado, la fase de integración temporal del código se basa sólo en tres funciones algebraicas: producto de una matriz dispersa con un vector (SPMV), combinación lineal de dos vectores (AXPY) y producto escalar (DOT). Además, se prestó especial atención en el desarrollo de estructuras de datos compatibles con el modelo stream processing. Un análisis detallado de rendimiento se ha estudiado tanto en ejecución secuencial y paralela utilizando hasta 128 GPUs en un superordenador híbrido CPU / GPU. Por otra parte, hemos probado el nuevo modelo de TermoFluids en el superordenador Mont-Blanc basado en tecnología móvil. El rediseño de las funciones explota un modelo de ejecución heterogénea utilizando tanto la CPU y la GPU de los nodos basados en arquitectura ARM. El equilibrio de carga entre las dos unidades de cálculo aprovecha una estrategia de búsqueda tabú que sintoniza la distribución de carga de trabajo durante la etapa de preprocesamiento. Una comparación de los prototipos Mont-Blanc con superordenadores de alta gama en términos de rendimiento y consumo de energía nos proporcionó algunas pautas del comportamiento de las aplicaciones CFD en arquitecturas basadas en ARM. Por último, se presenta una estructura de datos auto-sintonizada para el solver de Poisson en problemas con una dirección diagonalizable mediante una descomposicion de Fourier. Este trabajo fue desarrollado y probado en la superordenador BlueGene / Q Vesta, y tiene por objeto demostrar la relevancia de vectorización y las estructuras de datos para aprovechar plenamente las CPUs de los superodenadores modernos. ; Postprint (published version)

International audience ; Network topology –decentralized arrangement of various elements of a computer grid- in which each node relays data for the network, MESH technologies has been recently presented as profoundly disruptive and able to change both our telecom infrastructure, our citizenship practices and our "communicative action" (Habermas, 1981). Recently implemented on mobile devices (Mobile -WiFi- peer-to-peer communication), this technology has been prominently mentioned during global political movements (Arab spring, Occupy movements, etc.) who crystallized, in a certain way, questions related to the Internet citizen's socio-technical and political skills, to the roles of States in the defense of individual liberties, bottom-up telecommunication infrastructures and net neutrality. Disseminated widely within wireless community networks, organizations that attempt to take a grassroots approach to providing a viable alternative to municipal wireless networks for consumers; MESH technology software can be observed in different ways. This article discusses the communication aspects of this technology from a critical point of view, it analyses of the storytelling that surround it and presents an ethnography of a Detroit MESH network and its publics (USA). By observing both the speeches given on this technology and the "manières de faire" (De Certeau, 1989) in local deployment of a software able to create MESH networks, we show how this technology is once a vector for emergence of "democratic rationalization" (Feenberg, 2004) and a set of local "tactics" to a more distributed governance of the Internet, less concentrated around major operators of infrastructure. ; Topología de red (una red en la que cada nodo está conectado a todos los demás nodos de forma que es posible llevar los mensajes de un nodo a otro por distintos caminos), la topología "MESH" (de red malla) esta presentada últimamente como profundamente perturbadora y capaz de cambiar tanto nuestra infraestructura de telecomunicaciones como ...

Community Networks (CN) are naturally open and decentralized structures, that grow organically with the addition of heterogeneous network devices, contributed and configured as needed by their participants. The continuous growth in popularity and dissemination of CNs in recent years has raised the perception of a mature and sustainable model for the provisioning of networking services. However, because such infrastructures include uncontrolled entities with non delimited responsibilities, every single network entity does indeed represent a potential single-point of failure that can stop the entire network from working, and that no other entity can prevent or even circumvent. Given the open and decentralized nature of CNs, that brings together individuals and organizations with different and even conflicting economic, political, and technical interests, the achievement of no more than basic consensus on the correctness of all network nodes is challenging. In such environment, the lack of self-determination for CN participants in terms of control and security of routing can be regarded as an obstacle for growth or even as a risk of collapse. To address this problem we first consider deployments of existing Wireless CN and we analyze their technology, characteristics, and performance. We perform an experimental evaluation of a production 802.11an Wireless CN, and compare to studies of other Wireless CN deployments in the literature. We compare experimentally obtained throughput traces with path-capacity calculations based on well-known conflict graph models. We observe that in the majority of cases the path chosen by the employed BMX6 routing protocol corresponds with the best identified path in our model. We analyze monitoring and interaction shortcomings of CNs and address these with Network Characterization Tool (NCT), a novel tool that allows users to assess network state and performance, and improve their quality of experience by individually modifying the routing parameters of their devices. We also evaluate performance outcomes when different routing policies are in use. Routing protocols provide self-management mechanisms that allow the continuous operation of a Community Mesh Network (CMN). We focus on three widely used proactive mesh routing protocols and their implementations: BMX6, OLSR, and Babel. We describe the core idea behind these protocols and study the implications of these in terms of scalability, performance, and stability by exposing them to typical but challenging network topologies and scenarios. Our results show the relative merits, costs, and limitations of the three protocols. Built upon the studied characteristics of typical CN deployments, their requirements on open and decentralized cooperation, and the potential controversy on the trustiness of particular components of a network infrastructure, we propose and evaluate SEMTOR, a novel routing-protocol that can satisfy these demands. SEMTOR allows the verifiable and undeniable definition and distributed application of individually trusted topologies for routing traffic towards each node. One unique advantage of SEMTOR is that it does not require a global consensus on the trustiness of any node and thus preserves cooperation among nodes with even oppositional defined trust specification. This gives each node admin the freedom to individually define the subset, and the resulting sub-topology, from the whole set of participating nodes that he considers sufficiently trustworthy to meet their security, data-delivery objectives and concerns. The proposed mechanisms have been realized as a usable and open-source implementation called BMX7, as successor of BMX6. We have evaluated its scalability, contributed robustness, and security. These results show that the usage of SEMTOR for securing trusted routing topologies is feasible, even when executed on real and very cheap (10 Euro, Linux SoC) routers as commonly used in Community Mesh Networks. ; Las Redes Comunitarias (CNs) son estructuras de naturaleza abierta y descentralizada, que crecen orgánicamente con la adición de dispositivos de red heterogéneos que aportan y configuran sus participantes según sea necesario. Sin embargo, debido a que estas infraestructuras incluyen entidades con responsabilidades poco delimitadas, cada entidad puede representar un punto de fallo que puede impedir que la red funcione y que ninguna otra entidad pueda prevenir o eludir. Dada la naturaleza abierta y descentralizada de las CNs, que agrupa individuos y organizaciones con diferentes e incluso contrapuestos intereses económicos, políticos y técnicos, conseguir poco más que un consenso básico sobre los nodos correctos en la red puede ser un reto. En este entorno, la falta de autodeterminación para los participantes de una CN en cuanto a control y seguridad del encaminamiento puede considerarse un obstáculo para el crecimiento o incluso un riesgo de colapso. Para abordar este problema consideramos las implementaciones de redes comunitarias inalámbricas (WCN) y se analiza su tecnología, características y desempeño. Realizamos una evaluación experimental de una WCN establecida y se compara con estudios de otros despliegues. Comparamos las trazas de rendimiento experimentales con cálculos de la capacidad de los caminos basados en modelos bien conocidos del grafo. Se observa que en la mayoría de los casos el camino elegido por el protocolo de encaminamiento BMX6 corresponde con el mejor camino identificado en nuestro modelo. Analizamos las limitaciones de monitorización e interacción en CNs y los tratamos con NCT, una nueva herramienta que permite evaluar el estado y rendimiento de la red, y mejorar la calidad de experiencia modificando los parámetros de sus dispositivos individuales. También evaluamos el rendimiento resultante para diferentes políticas de encaminamiento. Los protocolos de encaminamiento proporcionan mecanismos de autogestión que hacen posible el funcionamiento continuo de una red comunitaria mesh (CMN). Nos centramos en tres protocolos de encaminamiento proactivos para redes mesh ampliamente utilizados y sus implementaciones: BMX6, OLSR y Babel. Se describe la idea central de estos protocolos y se estudian la implicaciones de éstos en términos de escalabilidad, rendimiento y estabilidad al exponerlos a topologías y escenarios de red típicos pero exigentes. Nuestros resultados muestran los méritos, costes y limitaciones de los tres protocolos. A partir de las características analizadas en despliegues típicos de redes comunitarias, y de las necesidades en cuanto a cooperación abierta y descentralizada, y la esperable divergencia sobre la confiabilidad en ciertos componentes de la infraestructura de red, proponemos y evaluamos SEMTOR, un nuevo protocolo de encaminamiento que puede satisfacer estas necesidades. SEMTOR permite definir de forma verificable e innegable, así como aplicar de forma distribuida, topologías de confianza individualizadas para encaminar tráfico hacia cada nodo. Una ventaja única de SEMTOR es que no precisa de consenso global sobre la confianza en cualquier nodo y por tanto preserva la cooperación entre los nodos, incluso con especificaciones de confianza definidas por oposición. Esto proporciona a cada administrador de nodo la libertad para definir el subconjunto, y la sub-topología resultante, entre el conjunto de todos los nodos participantes que considere dignos de suficiente confianza para cumplir con su objetivo y criterio de seguridad y entrega de datos. Los mecanismos propuestos se han realizado en forma de una implementación utilizable de código abierto llamada BMX7. Se ha evaluado su escalabilidad, robustez y seguridad. Estos resultados demuestran que el uso de SEMTOR para asegurar topologías de encaminamiento de confianza es factible, incluso cuando se ejecuta en routers reales y muy baratos utilizados de forma habitual en WCN. ; Postprint (published version)

Community Networks (CN) are naturally open and decentralized structures, that grow organically with the addition of heterogeneous network devices, contributed and configured as needed by their participants. The continuous growth in popularity and dissemination of CNs in recent years has raised the perception of a mature and sustainable model for the provisioning of networking services. However, because such infrastructures include uncontrolled entities with non delimited responsibilities, every single network entity does indeed represent a potential single-point of failure that can stop the entire network from working, and that no other entity can prevent or even circumvent. Given the open and decentralized nature of CNs, that brings together individuals and organizations with different and even conflicting economic, political, and technical interests, the achievement of no more than basic consensus on the correctness of all network nodes is challenging. In such environment, the lack of self-determination for CN participants in terms of control and security of routing can be regarded as an obstacle for growth or even as a risk of collapse. To address this problem we first consider deployments of existing Wireless CN and we analyze their technology, characteristics, and performance. We perform an experimental evaluation of a production 802.11an Wireless CN, and compare to studies of other Wireless CN deployments in the literature. We compare experimentally obtained throughput traces with path-capacity calculations based on well-known conflict graph models. We observe that in the majority of cases the path chosen by the employed BMX6 routing protocol corresponds with the best identified path in our model. We analyze monitoring and interaction shortcomings of CNs and address these with Network Characterization Tool (NCT), a novel tool that allows users to assess network state and performance, and improve their quality of experience by individually modifying the routing parameters of their devices. We also evaluate performance outcomes when different routing policies are in use. Routing protocols provide self-management mechanisms that allow the continuous operation of a Community Mesh Network (CMN). We focus on three widely used proactive mesh routing protocols and their implementations: BMX6, OLSR, and Babel. We describe the core idea behind these protocols and study the implications of these in terms of scalability, performance, and stability by exposing them to typical but challenging network topologies and scenarios. Our results show the relative merits, costs, and limitations of the three protocols. Built upon the studied characteristics of typical CN deployments, their requirements on open and decentralized cooperation, and the potential controversy on the trustiness of particular components of a network infrastructure, we propose and evaluate SEMTOR, a novel routing-protocol that can satisfy these demands. SEMTOR allows the verifiable and undeniable definition and distributed application of individually trusted topologies for routing traffic towards each node. One unique advantage of SEMTOR is that it does not require a global consensus on the trustiness of any node and thus preserves cooperation among nodes with even oppositional defined trust specification. This gives each node admin the freedom to individually define the subset, and the resulting sub-topology, from the whole set of participating nodes that he considers sufficiently trustworthy to meet their security, data-delivery objectives and concerns. The proposed mechanisms have been realized as a usable and open-source implementation called BMX7, as successor of BMX6. We have evaluated its scalability, contributed robustness, and security. These results show that the usage of SEMTOR for securing trusted routing topologies is feasible, even when executed on real and very cheap (10 Euro, Linux SoC) routers as commonly used in Community Mesh Networks. ; Las Redes Comunitarias (CNs) son estructuras de naturaleza abierta y descentralizada, que crecen orgánicamente con la adición de dispositivos de red heterogéneos que aportan y configuran sus participantes según sea necesario. Sin embargo, debido a que estas infraestructuras incluyen entidades con responsabilidades poco delimitadas, cada entidad puede representar un punto de fallo que puede impedir que la red funcione y que ninguna otra entidad pueda prevenir o eludir. Dada la naturaleza abierta y descentralizada de las CNs, que agrupa individuos y organizaciones con diferentes e incluso contrapuestos intereses económicos, políticos y técnicos, conseguir poco más que un consenso básico sobre los nodos correctos en la red puede ser un reto. En este entorno, la falta de autodeterminación para los participantes de una CN en cuanto a control y seguridad del encaminamiento puede considerarse un obstáculo para el crecimiento o incluso un riesgo de colapso. Para abordar este problema consideramos las implementaciones de redes comunitarias inalámbricas (WCN) y se analiza su tecnología, características y desempeño. Realizamos una evaluación experimental de una WCN establecida y se compara con estudios de otros despliegues. Comparamos las trazas de rendimiento experimentales con cálculos de la capacidad de los caminos basados en modelos bien conocidos del grafo. Se observa que en la mayoría de los casos el camino elegido por el protocolo de encaminamiento BMX6 corresponde con el mejor camino identificado en nuestro modelo. Analizamos las limitaciones de monitorización e interacción en CNs y los tratamos con NCT, una nueva herramienta que permite evaluar el estado y rendimiento de la red, y mejorar la calidad de experiencia modificando los parámetros de sus dispositivos individuales. También evaluamos el rendimiento resultante para diferentes políticas de encaminamiento. Los protocolos de encaminamiento proporcionan mecanismos de autogestión que hacen posible el funcionamiento continuo de una red comunitaria mesh (CMN). Nos centramos en tres protocolos de encaminamiento proactivos para redes mesh ampliamente utilizados y sus implementaciones: BMX6, OLSR y Babel. Se describe la idea central de estos protocolos y se estudian la implicaciones de éstos en términos de escalabilidad, rendimiento y estabilidad al exponerlos a topologías y escenarios de red típicos pero exigentes. Nuestros resultados muestran los méritos, costes y limitaciones de los tres protocolos. A partir de las características analizadas en despliegues típicos de redes comunitarias, y de las necesidades en cuanto a cooperación abierta y descentralizada, y la esperable divergencia sobre la confiabilidad en ciertos componentes de la infraestructura de red, proponemos y evaluamos SEMTOR, un nuevo protocolo de encaminamiento que puede satisfacer estas necesidades. SEMTOR permite definir de forma verificable e innegable, así como aplicar de forma distribuida, topologías de confianza individualizadas para encaminar tráfico hacia cada nodo. Una ventaja única de SEMTOR es que no precisa de consenso global sobre la confianza en cualquier nodo y por tanto preserva la cooperación entre los nodos, incluso con especificaciones de confianza definidas por oposición. Esto proporciona a cada administrador de nodo la libertad para definir el subconjunto, y la sub-topología resultante, entre el conjunto de todos los nodos participantes que considere dignos de suficiente confianza para cumplir con su objetivo y criterio de seguridad y entrega de datos. Los mecanismos propuestos se han realizado en forma de una implementación utilizable de código abierto llamada BMX7. Se ha evaluado su escalabilidad, robustez y seguridad. Estos resultados demuestran que el uso de SEMTOR para asegurar topologías de encaminamiento de confianza es factible, incluso cuando se ejecuta en routers reales y muy baratos utilizados de forma habitual en WCN. ; Postprint (published version)