Call for Papers

Software is envisioned to play an unprecedented dominant role in future communication and networking paradigms. This (r)evolutionary trend toward virtualized and “softwarized” communication infrastructures enables Internet-based service users and providers, as well as the related stakeholders, to take advantage of resource abstractions to adopt a programmatic approach to service deployment, fostered by emerging paradigms such as Internet of Things (IoT), Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In a  “game-changing” scenario, a user needs can be decoupled and expressed independently of the specific underlying implementable technology. This trend opens a number of disruptive solutions that can change the Internet as we know it.

Blockchain — a digital, decentralized platform that records and verifies transactions (ledgers) and contracts in a secure, fast, and cheap manner — is a game changer for hosting transaction-based venues, including identity, Internet, financial, government, health, supply-chain, and other technology services. One of the first and most popular Blockchain application, Bitcoin, has showcased immense fortune in this technology, which is now widely considered as a viable example for many applications that go beyond the concept of digital currency to build on trust, immutability and distributed nature provided by distributed ledger technology. Examples of these applications include legitimate multimedia content distribution, fully distributed computing infrastructure, etc.

Intent-based networking is another disruptive approach, since it allows users to request network services using only terms and languages that are known and relevant to themselves, specifying “what” they want to achieve and not “how.” Such a high level of abstraction enables a complete decoupling of the service description from the technology-specific mechanisms required to deploy it, facilitating interoperability and provider-independence, and thus promoting an open and healthy Internet service economy.

Development of relevant and open standards for Distributed Ledger ,Intent-based applications, as well as other related paradigms, will play a major role in favor of global interoperability, faster adoption and market penetration. Some initiatives from relevant Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) are already in progress, including ITU-T Focus Group on Application of Distributed Ledger Technology, ISO/TC 307 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies, IEEE P2418 Standard for the Framework of Blockchain Use in IoT, IEEE P1916.1 Standard for Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualization Performance, ONF Intent NBI — Definition and Principles.

This Feature Topic (FT) welcomes technical papers as well as vision articles from industry, academia, and SDOs, addressing major issues concerned with evolving standardization processes and underlying technologies in the context of Blockchain, Intent-based networking, and related paradigms. In particular, this issue seeks submissions on a variety of topics including but not limited to:

• Blockchain and its role in the future IP standards
• Internet standards incorporating Blockchain
• Blockchain as a disruptor for the Internet
• Intent-based protocols as enabler for Blockchain
• Blockchain-enabled features and protocols
• Decentralized Identity solutions
• Blockchain communication reference architecture
• Security, privacy and identity issues related to Blockchain communications
• Role of network standards for Cryptocurrencies and other Blockchain based applications
• Interplay between Blockchain and network softwarization and virtualization standards
• Intent-based networking standards
• Disruptors in performance of data/control/management plane standardization
• Performance attributes, and analysis of Blockchain-based networks
• Blockchain as disruptors in context of SDN/NFV performance

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Paper Submission Guidelines.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select the “September 2018/Standards for Major Internet Disruptors: Blockchain, Intents, and Related Paradigms” topic from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: February 28, 2018
Decision Notification: May 1 2018
Final Manuscript Due: June 15, 2018
Publication Date: September 2018

Guest Editors

Hesham El Bakoury
Futurewei Technologies Inc, USA

Mohammad Asad Rehman Chaudhry
Soptimizer, Canada

Walter Cerroni
University of Bologna, Italy

Haiwu He
iExec, China, France

Abbie Barbir
Aetna, USA