http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp.html Cisco RFPs connect Cisco engineers to other researchers and educators to facilitate collaboration and research opportunities. RFPs give academic researchers a way to identify and submit proposals on pressing issues, topics, and problems in networking science research. en-us Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07999.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07999.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT In addition to the RFP topics listed below, Cisco continues to accept proposals for Researcher-initiated investigations, to address topics of your choice and mutual interest. If someone at Cisco has agreed to act as Sponsor for your project, you will be able to submit a proposal directly. Otherwise, you must first submit a pre-proposal, to allow us to attempt to find a Sponsor. If we cannot find a Sponsor, you will not be able to submit a proposal. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07024.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07024.html Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:00:00 GMT The introduction of bandwidth intensive multimedia and mobile traffic is motivating some service providers to re-architect their broadband aggregation networks. We invite researchers to propose broadband aggregation network architecture models that allow the analysis of various operational parameters and traffic patterns, including not only classical traffic streams, but also over-the-top, mobile or social traffic patterns. The goal is to highlight the trade-offs and decision parameters with a view to network planning. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07023.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07023.html Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:00:00 GMT Future video services will reach consumers through incumbent service providers, over-the-top providers, and even through enterprise corporate IT enabling video mobility applications. There are few tools that can predict or provide trending analysis of possible future degradation of end-user Quality of Experience (QoE) for video-related services. Many management systems, probe vendors, and deep packet inspection tools gather extensive information between the video headend and the end-user set top box (STB). This information is modeled in such a way to understand the relationships between model elements in the context of video service delivery. Much of the video application packet flow is encrypted. After populating these models with information, deeper analysis and trending is required to filter and highlight potential future problems. When deployments range from 100,000 users to 30 million users, taking statistical samples from end-user gateways or STBs may provide a baseline to make future comparisons for trend analysis. We seek to sponsor research on analyzing and identifying trend patterns in data to provide predictive indicators surrounding service degradation. The question is, can we develop methods and analytics that can be componentized into an overall management framework. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07022.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07022.html Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT Distributed policy is of particular interest because it can often achieve a degree of responsiveness, efficiency, and scalability that is hard to match using centralized or hierarchical policy management infrastructure. However, in today's networks, distributed policies are typically focused on addressing narrow problems within specific areas of technology and are implemented using a variety of incompatible models and platforms. There is very little convergence of distributed policy implementations on a single, standardized distributed policy definition model and platform. The question is, can we gradually migrate distributed policies towards a new generation of distributed policy management platforms and tools that facilitate the creation of coherent, interoperable, and reusable distributed policy software. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07021.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07021.html Thu, 06 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT The Internet Architecture Board's Routing and Addressing Workshop, held in October of 2006 in Amsterdam, reignited interest in area of scalable routing and addressing architectures for the Internet. In addition to concern about the scalability of the routing system itself, the depletion of IPv4 address space has become a driving issue. This RFP supports research on the development of routing and addressing architectures that have feasible deployment properties, and which support the business and economic models of the various stake-holders. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07020.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07020.html Thu, 06 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT Traffic classification is a critical component of many Internet applications, such as traffic control and lawful interception. Until recently, classification was done mainly by using payload inspection, checking for application signatures (string or regular expressions, message structure, etc.). While this process worked well in the past, it is becoming insufficient due to (1) scalability issues, (2) increasing difficulty in developing signatures for applications which try to evade detection (e.g., BitTorrent and Skype) or masquerade as another application and (3) applications and protocols becoming a moving target as they frequently change. In this RFP we are encouraging research on IP traffic classification methods which are not payload-based. We are interested in classification methods that, (1) classify to application families rather than to specific applications (e.g., classify to "Voice" rather than to "GoogleTalk") and (2) are able to correctly classify applications which try to evade detection. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07019.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07019.html Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT Recent advances in multicore architectures require a redesign of many fundamental applications to better fit multiprocessors which have small instruction and data caches. Current algorithms for various applications such as deep packet inspection, regular expression matching, anomaly detection and specialized hash function computations are optimized either for hardware implementations or for expensive (in cost and energy consumption) general purpose CPUs. The prevalence of multicore machines with small L1 cache and shared L2 cache calls for new methodologies for efficient design. The question is, can we develop methods for constructing algorithms that are well-suited to multicore cache architectures, without compromising algorithm generality or performance? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07018.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07018.html Tue, 05 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT Parsing of XML documents has been recognized as a performance bottleneck when processing XML. One cost-effective way to improve parsing performance is to use parallel algorithms and leverage the use of multi-core processors. Parallel parsing for XML Document Object Model (DOM) has been proposed, but the existing schemes do not scale up well with the number of processors. Further, there is little discussion of parallel parsing methods for other parsing models. The question is: how can we improve parallel parsing for DOM and other XML parsing models, when multi-core processors are available? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07017.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07017.html Thu, 19 Jul 2007 04:00:00 GMT Current Java implementations do not support SCTP, nor does their socket API have a method to handle advanced SCTP mechanisms. Examples include: sending streams, controlling network destinations, and controlling settable/tunable parameters accessible to user (rich socket options, setting Initial Parameters, cross-layer notifications). The question is, what should a suitable API look like, in order to help make advanced SCTP capabilities available to Java programmers? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07015.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07015.html Fri, 25 May 2007 04:00:00 GMT This RFP may be of interest to teams interested in business-, operations-, and market development- research, as well as more traditional technology research. Cisco's Customer Advocacy organization operates a worldwide Technical Assistance Center (TAC), defines and sells Advanced Services, and fully manages customer networks remotely. Generic methods and techniques are needed to allow automated support of services when new technologies are introduced (e.g., Cisco Telepresence), and to facilitate better utilization of existing data. For example, TAC experience has shown that best-practice use of information from previous trouble-cases still results in a high percentage of from-scratch troubleshooting, often due to ineffective search- and matching- methods. Questions include: "How can we define and introduce software services quickly once new technology is introduced?", "How can we enhance product and protocol development to enable in-the-field devices to automatically make effective use of newly-created services and technologies?", and "How can we optimize use of historical case-data to improve efficiency of problem-resolution?" http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07014.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07014.html Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Multi-core System on Chip (SOC) packaging is increasingly popular. However, methods for optimizing utilization of memory subsystems are not well-understood. For example, 4, 8, and 16 core systems often contain per-core L1-caches, while sharing L2 caches and external memory systems. When cores run disparate operating systems, or perhaps core-specific applications, we need better methods for modeling and optimizing inter-core memory operations. The question is, how can we optimize utilization of memory in multi-core, multi-OS, embedded environments, such as networking systems/applications? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07012.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07012.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT The existing set of tools and metrics for measuring various aspects of source code quality often take conflicting views, and produce results that are difficult to compare or quantify in a meaningful way. For example, as we seek to understand and improve modularity, how can we assess and compare the quality and power of the metrics that measure modularity? The question is, can we develop Source Code analysis metrics and tools that are well-understood, easy to compare, and increase our confidence in the resulting measures of, e.g., modularity, security, API quality, testability? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07011.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07011.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Current techniques for the analysis of source code often rely on static methods, and require significant user interaction. Adaptive or self-learning methods to assist the software engineering process are rare. Examples might include automatically cataloging new classes of error patterns, advising on modularity effectiveness/opportunities, assisting in API creation, and testing. The question is, can we develop new techniques to assess and improve source code development and analysis, with minimal user intervention? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07010.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07010.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Streaming Video, including high-quality commercial distribution in standard and high definition formats, is rapidly moving to an IP infrastructure. In the process of re-hosting such video distribution on IP comes the opportunity to revisit the appropriate mechanisms for error measurement, error concealment, and error repair. Research areas include assessment/measurement of existing error repair techniques, and the creation of new adaptive, and/or hybrid techniques. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07009.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07009.html Thu, 9 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT Note: This RFP was revised Jul-25-2007, to clarify research goals, and reduce IPR restrictions. There are few tools that relate end-user Quality of Experience (QoE) to measurable network behavior. Historically, keeping per-flow information that might help connect individual resource consumption with QoE has been prohibitively expensive. However, new measurement techniques may help the situation. The question is, can we develop data management, correlation and performance management techniques that allow us to infer and manage end-user QoE from per flow and individual resource measurements? For this RFP, we are interested specifically in network management and instrumentation proposals. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07008.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07008.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Several OpenOffice tools do not currently take full advantage of integrating advanced communication tools (voice, sharing, presence, etc). We invite proposals to collaborate in enhancing OpenOffice tools in this area. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07007.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07007.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Several Bloom Filter variants exist, including traditional, Counting, Space-Code, Low-Power, Compressed, Bloomier, and others. They have been applied to a variety of domains, including Spam detection, packet classification, security, content summarization, measurement, and others. However, we lack a comprehensive classification method to determine which variants are most appropriate for the various application domains. The question is, can a classification method be developed, that characterizes the various Bloom Filter techniques, and determines for which uses they are most suited? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07006.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07006.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Various Distributed Hash Table (DHT) methods exist, including Bamboo, Chord, Pastry, Tapestry, and others. They have been applied to a variety of domains, including routing, storage, multicast, tunneling, and others. However, we lack a comprehensive classification method to determine which methods are most appropriate for the various application domains. The question is, can a classification method be developed, that characterizes the various DHT techniques, and determines for which uses they are most suited? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07005.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07005.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT Electronic Spam continues to be a problem in the Internet. Although some progress has been made in identifying the sender (e.g., dkim), such knowledge does not necessarily help decide whether we should be willing to receive a message from that sender. The question is: can Reputation Services be used to help determine which messages are Spam? http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07004.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac50/ac207/crc/rfp07004.html Tue, 3 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT The introduction of NATs and Firewalls into the Internet has increased the complexity of peer-to-peer application development, compared to the relatively straightforward socket API. For example, the SIP community has evolved a clever one-off solution that uses STUN, TURN, and ICE to accomplish NAT traversal for Voice-over-IP. The question is, can we develop an approach to naming and addressing, perhaps also developing a library or API, that provides a general solution to the NAT/Firewall traversal problem usable by a broad variety of applications?