Attachment of End Users to Virtual Networks

Network virtualization provides a possible path to overcome the increasing ossification of the Internet by enabling the introduction of new technologies not only at the edge of the network but right down to the core of the network. As there may be multiple virtual networks (VNets) running different architectures and services in parallel, end users usually want to attach to multiple VNets concurrently in order to access all accustomed services. For instance, a user may want to access his home TV service, his closed company network as well as his home network even while he is abroad, staying in a hotel. This scenario motivates the following objectives: a) The end user wants to securely access multiple VNets from his current physical network access, b) connections to the various VNets should be set up automatically while also taking authentication and authorization into account, c) the solution should not depend on globally available IP connectivity as future networks may use different protocols. In this paper we briefly present the VNet framework, the end user attachment process, and a first approach towards secure end user attachment.