PN Platforms (WP6)

The main objective of WP6 is to provide the Pilot Services with a complete PN-wide system, capable of supporting the field trials to be carried out in WP1. Therefore, the identification and selection of MAGNET features and functions that will be integrated, (i.e. at least those which are capital to support the Pilot Services) must be done. The hereby formed baseline will not be restricted to provide support to those Pilot Services that are implemented, but will be a sophisticated proof of concepts prototype of the Personal Networking.

WP6 will receive inputs from almost all the WPs in MAGNET Beyond, but a strong relation will be maintained between WP6 and WP2 and WP4 as some of the secure networking components in the aforementioned baseline will be designed and specified in the respective WPs, and WP6 will be responsible for the integration of them. Besides, WP6 is the place where all conformance tests, validation and interoperability tests of components will occur. However, the WP6 will remain useful during and after the integration as well as the pilot services. Hence, the plans for interoperability and integration will be designed so that new components and components resulting from long term research can be accommodated easily in an open framework type platform.

A possible prototype environment (illustrated in Figure 6.12) combines public networks, private networks, and P-PANs to provide personalised connectivity. In addition, this can include connectivity to personal services residing in remote clusters. The challenge lies in handling mobility of whole networks in addition to terminal mobility. Moreover, the mobility of network services, e.g. multicasting, QoS, proxies as well as security and privacy of communications, should be taken care of.

Some of the secure networking components necessary to realise the Personal Networking concept (e.g. as the one shown in Figure 6.12) will come from MAGNET, and others will be implemented in MAGNET Beyond, while taking into account that the interoperability tests of the complete system towards the Pilot Services will be done in WP6.

WP6 is divided into the following tasks

• Task 1 Conformance verification of PN security & networking components
• Task 2 Implementation & testing of secure PN networking components
• Task 3 Integration and interoperability testing of secure PN networking components
• Task 4 Testing the interface of PN and Link Level platforms towards Pilot Services

WP6 is very dependent on the output of all other work packages as the final integration and interoperability tests will be performed here, which as such poses a great challenge. Therefore, it is vital to identify the following major WP6 milestones as common for the entire project to achieve the goal of successful Pilot Services.

None of the above described technical problems are solved during the first phase of the MAGNET project. Specifically, the major WP6 objectives in MAGNET Beyond include

• To select the MAGNET baseline components for implementing the Pilot Services.
• To verify the conformance and interoperability of all PN networking and security components.
• To provide feedback to responsible work packages on performance of developed components and suggest possible improvements to be designed.
• To set-up and maintain the baseline of the PN-related system.
• To implement the secure networking components which complete the baseline needed to support the Pilot Services.
• To interact with conformance verification tests in order to enhance the networking components for adding them into the baseline.
• To assure that the implemented and enhanced secure networking components are ready for integration with other components (security, PAN technology platforms, etc) being part of the MAGNET Beyond system towards Pilot Services.
• To prepare and perform an interoperability testing plan for PN networking and security components included into the baseline of Secure PN components.
• To carry out the integration of PN components.
• To provide the PN-related platform to Pilot Services so applications developed in WP1 are supported by the PN-wide system.
• To perform secure networking components complexity analyses for selection of suited platform jointly with WP5.
• To carry out conformance verification of interfaces between PAN technology platforms and PN networking components (i.e. between WP5 and WP6).
• To perform interoperability testing of the interface between PAN technology platforms and PN networking components including security.