Journal of Network and Computer Applications最新文献

{"title":"SELB: Self-Evolution Load Balancing Based on Temporal Graph Convolutional Network in Software-Defined Data Center Networks","authors":"Yong Liu ,&nbsp;Guisheng Liu ,&nbsp;Tianyi Yu ,&nbsp;Qian Meng","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104401","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104401","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a network architecture that separates the control plane and data plane of the traditional data center network, resulting in enhanced network scalability and flexibility. The conventional Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP) load balancing algorithm, which relies on static hash mapping, has limitations when applied to data center networks, leading to issues such as hash conflicts and congestion between mouse and elephant flows. Therefore, load balancing based on flowlet granularity has been proposed. This approach divides flows into flowlets, leveraging the burstiness of traffic to enhance load balancing capabilities. However, these approaches encounter several challenges, such as the lack of real-time feedback on network load situations, the inability of static flowlet timeouts to adapt to dynamic changes in the network, and inadequate consideration of load distribution. To address these challenges, we propose a novel load balancing strategy called Self-Evolution Load Balancing (SELB) based on Temporal Graph Convolutional Network (T-GCN). SELB utilizes the T-GCN to dynamically predict the network load state for real-time feedback. Meanwhile, the adaptive flow splitting algorithm is employed to dynamically adjust the timeout of flowlets, effectively adapting to changes in network dynamics. Moreover, SELB incorporates a load-aware route planning strategy that considers the overall network load distribution. By doing so, it can intelligently route flowlets along equivalent multipaths, enhancing load balancing capabilities. The simulation results demonstrate that SELB effectively reduces Flow Completion Time (FCT), enhances average throughput, and improves load balancing performance in comparison to existing schemes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"246 ","pages":"Article 104401"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145657738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards IT/OT integration in industry digitalization: A comprehensive survey","authors":"Riccardo Venanzi,&nbsp;Giuseppe Di Modica,&nbsp;Luca Foschini,&nbsp;Paolo Bellavista","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104373","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104373","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>According to both academic and industry perspectives, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought about a paradigm shift in the manufacturing sector enabling companies to enhance their competitiveness in the global market. To achieve this goal, manufacturing companies will need to undertake a deep digital transformation, primarily by introducing advanced Information Technology (IT) into traditionally less digitalized departments, such as shop floors, where Operational Technology (OT) currently dominate. For the full achievement of Industry 4.0 revolution objectives, practitioners believe in the strong requirement of a progressive and tight integration between IT and OT departments. In the depicted scenario, communication technologies are expected to play a pivotal role in facilitating the integration process, but other more recent and advanced IT have also proven helpful. In particular, the topic of IT/OT integration has attracted significant attention from various research communities that have sought to identify both the opportunities and challenges associated with its implementation. Although some good surveys of those works have appeared in the literature, to the best of our knowledge, no comprehensive review has yet been conducted that is fully dedicated to the topic of IT/OT convergence. In this paper, we propose a holistic approach to examine the various dimensions of IT/OT integration, which we classify into five interconnected realms, Communication, IT-Driven Support to OT, Human Centricity, Advanced Industrial Control Systems, and cybersecurity. Furthermore, we develop a realm-oriented taxonomy to organize the surveyed works in a structured manner, offering readers a clear overview of the current state of the literature, along with insights into unexplored opportunities and future directions for IT/OT integration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104373"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145441548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dynamic searchable symmetric encryption with efficient conjunctive query and non-interactive real deletion","authors":"Zhengwei Ren ,&nbsp;Pei He ,&nbsp;Rongwei Yu ,&nbsp;Li Deng ,&nbsp;Yan Tong ,&nbsp;Shiwei Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104387","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104387","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dynamic searchable symmetric encryption (DSSE) enables users to perform update and search operations over encrypted data on cloud servers. However, many DSSE schemes are unable to efficiently perform conjunctive queries containing multiple keywords, limiting their search capabilities. Those DSSE schemes supporting conjunctive query fail to achieve real deletion, affecting the efficiencies of subsequent searches. In this paper, we propose a DSSE scheme supporting conjunctive query and non-interactive real deletion simultaneously. For a conjunctive query containing multiple keywords, we adjust the positions of these keywords so that the keyword contained by the least number of document(s) is at the forefront of the conjunctive query. The document(s) containing this keyword are then located, and on the basis of the document(s) the remaining keywords are checked to obtain the final search result. Moreover, cuckoo filter is adopted to store the ciphertext to be searched, making the conjunctive query efficient. We deploy two search databases on the cloud server to achieve non-interactive real deletion. Benefiting from these two databases, the deleted ciphertext will be physically removed from the cloud server with no impact on subsequent searches, improving search efficiencies of subsequent searches. Our scheme only utilizes a few hash functions and a pseudorandom function, while the forward privacy and backward privacy are still achieved. We conduct a formal security analysis and extensive experimental evaluations, showing that our scheme has efficiency advantages in both update and search processes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104387"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Edge-AI: A systematic review on architectures, applications, and challenges","authors":"Himanshu Gauttam ,&nbsp;Garima Nain ,&nbsp;K.K. Pattanaik ,&nbsp;Paulo Mendes","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104375","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104375","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The evolution of computing technologies and the generation of massive amounts of data fueled the development of <em>Artificial Intelligence</em> (AI), specifically <em>Deep Learning</em> (DL), solutions to extract key patterns from data, and the generation of insights and knowledge useful to achieve optimized service execution. Traditional cloud-based execution of DL solutions faces several challenges, such as latency, data privacy, and reliability, while trying to meet service requirements. In contrast, the limited computing and storage resources on the edge pose daunting challenges in executing resource-intensive DL solutions closer to the customer. This scenario led to the birth of an interdisciplinary research field named Edge-AI or Edge-Intelligence, aiming to mitigate the limitations of cloud and edge-based DL executions. In this context, this work proposes a reference layered Edge-AI framework to ensure the successful deployment of the Edge-Intelligence paradigm, encompassing three novel layers for the optimization of edge infrastructure, edge inference, and edge training. The work presents a detailed investigation and analysis of the schemes centered around the above-listed layers of the proposed Edge-AI framework. Furthermore, this work discusses potential application domains for Edge-AI, delving into a set of potential limitations, and ending up identifying future research directions in terms of Edge-AI infrastructure deployment, inference and training, which are functionalities needed to deploy and use robust, sustainable, and efficient intelligent edge networks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104375"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145461584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A comprehensive study of the 6LoWSD protocol architecture with respect to scalability and mobility for SDN-enabled IoT networks","authors":"Wanbanker Khongbuh ,&nbsp;Goutam Saha","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104370","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104370","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Internet of Things (IoT) and software-defined networks (SDN) have opened up new opportunities for innovation. Many of the limitations of the IoT system can be rectified with the SDN concepts. Thus, the combination of SDN and IoT has tremendous potential in various application domains. As the number of IoT devices is increasing with time, the scalability issues need to be further improved. Another significant challenge in IoT environments is mobility. Maintaining seamless mobility and persistent connectivity for IoT devices operating over large-scale or geographically dispersed environments presents a significant research challenge. But scalability and mobility are complex challenges. Developing scalable, mobile, and adaptive network architectures is crucial for SDN-enabled IoT ecosystems. Using SDN-enabled IoT networks, we introduced a comprehensive approach to address these challenges. Here, a new protocol based on OpenFlow of SDN and 6LoWPAN of the IoT system, namely, 6LoWSD has been proposed. In this investigation, emphasis has been placed on techniques on how the proposed 6LoWSD can improve scalability and mobility issues. In this study, experiments with the proposed protocol were performed using physical devices and a simulated platform. The results were compared with the 6LoWPAN counterpart and were found to be satisfactory.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104370"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145461588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adaptive context-aware multi-tab website fingerprinting using hierarchical deep learning","authors":"Faisal Murad ,&nbsp;Jie Cui ,&nbsp;Muhammad Aurangzeb Khan ,&nbsp;Depeng Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104374","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104374","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Website fingerprinting aims to infer visited websites from encrypted network traffic. Conventional approaches predominantly assume single-tab browsing, limiting their applicability under realistic multi-tab conditions, where concurrent flows introduce inter-tab interference, temporal overlap, and attribution ambiguity that degrade classification accuracy. This paper presents Adaptive Context-Aware Multi-Tab Fingerprinting, a dynamic framework designed for multi-tab website fingerprinting through context-driven feature modeling and attention adaptation. ACMF integrates three coordinated modules. (1) CBAM employs an attention-augmented LSTM that processes sequences of packet direction, size, and inter-arrival time with tab-switch indicators, producing a session context vector &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mi&gt;c&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt;. A self-attention state &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;z&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;t&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt; modulates recurrent dynamics, and multi-scale temporal aggregation yields &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;c&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;=&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;∑&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;ℓ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;ω&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;ℓ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;msup&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;h&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;(&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;ℓ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;)&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msup&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt;. (2) DTAM uses a Transformer encoder with per-slot gating for variable tab cardinality. For each slot feature &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;f&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt;, a gate &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;g&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;mo&gt;=&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;σ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;(&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msubsup&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;w&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;g&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;⊤&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msubsup&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;[&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;c&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;;&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;f&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;mo&gt;]&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;+&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;b&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;g&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;mo&gt;)&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt; scales multi-head attention outputs, normalized by &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;∑&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;g&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;mo&gt;+&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;ϵ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt; and followed by a position-wise feed-forward network to produce representation &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mi&gt;F&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt;. (3) HMLFE combines dilated 1D CNNs to capture local temporal motifs with a GNN that builds a similarity graph using edge weights &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;exp&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;(&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mo&gt;−&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mo&gt;‖&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;u&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;i&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;mo&gt;−&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;u&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;j&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;msup&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;‖&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mn&gt;2&lt;/mn&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msup&gt;&lt;mo&gt;/&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;τ&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;)&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt; and performs attention-based message passing. A graph readout operation generates &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;h&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;G&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;/msub&gt;&lt;/math&gt;&lt;/span&gt;, and the final representation &lt;span&gt;&lt;math&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;r&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;=&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mo&gt;[&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;mi&gt;F&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;mo&gt;∥&lt;/mo&gt;&lt;msub&gt;&lt;mrow&gt;&lt;mi&gt;h&lt;/mi&gt;&lt;/mrow&gt;&lt;","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104374"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145404578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Task scheduling of cloud computing system by frilled lizard optimization with time varying expansion mixed function oscillation and horned lizard camouflage strategy","authors":"Hao-Ming Song,&nbsp;Si-Wen Zhang,&nbsp;Jie-Sheng Wang,&nbsp;Cheng Xing,&nbsp;Yu-Feng Sun,&nbsp;Yu-Cai Wang,&nbsp;Xiao-Fei Sui","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104386","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104386","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the increasing complexity and scale of cloud computing systems, task scheduling optimization has become critical for improving resource utilization, enhancing service reliability, and reducing overall energy consumption. Traditional swarm intelligence algorithms often struggle to achieve an effective balance between global exploration and local exploitation, leading to premature convergence or sub-optimal solutions, particularly in large-scale and high-dimensional problem scenarios. To address these challenges, this study proposes a Time Varying Mixed Function Frilled Lizard Optimization algorithm (TMCFLO) that incorporates a horned lizard-inspired camouflage strategy to increase population diversity and prevent premature convergence, alongside a novel mixed function oscillation mechanism, combining sine, cosine, power, logarithm, and Gaussian functions, to enhance local search precision and convergence efficiency. A time-varying expansion factor is further introduced to dynamically regulate oscillation amplitude, ensuring adaptive adjustment of search behavior throughout the optimization process. Extensive evaluations on the CEC 2022 benchmark set demonstrate that TMCFLO outperforms classical algorithms, including PSO, ACO, WOA, AOA, POA, ZOA, HO, RLLPSO and IHBA, achieving up to 26 percent improvement in optimization accuracy. In practical cloud computing task scheduling experiments with 1500 and 3000 tasks, TMCFLO achieves the lowest single task energy consumption of 0.2196, the lowest total energy consumption of 658.80, and the highest energy efficiency of 4.5569, confirming its effectiveness, scalability, and energy-efficient superiority for complex cloud scheduling problems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104386"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145528948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Design, implementation, and performance evaluation of a high-performance and high-precision NetFlow/IPFIX flow-monitoring system on a P4 hardware switch","authors":"Shie-Yuan Wang ,&nbsp;Tzu-Ching Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104385","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104385","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>High-performance and high-precision flow monitoring is a crucial function for network management, network bandwidth usage accounting and billing, network security, network forensics, and other important tasks. Nowadays, many commercial switches/routers provide either sFlow, NetFlow, or IPFIX scheme for monitoring the flows traversing a network. sFlow is a scheme widely supported by many switches/routers due to its using a sampling-based method, which greatly reduces the CPU processing load on a switch/router and the network bandwidth required to transmit flow data to a remote collector. However, many small flows may go undetected and the estimated flow data (e.g., the packet count and byte count) for detected flows can significantly deviate from their ground truth.</div><div>NetFlow, which is Cisco Systems’ proprietary technology, does not use a sampling-based method by default. Instead, it tries to collect complete and correct flow data for every flow. However, as the link speed and the flow arrival rate continue to increase, NetFlow also provides a sampling-based option to reduce the CPU utilization of the switch/router. Because NetFlow is proprietary, an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group has defined IPFIX as an open flow information export protocol based on NetFlow Version 9. The requirements for IPFIX are defined in the RFC 3917 standards. Basically, IPFIX is the same as NetFlow Version 9.</div><div>Due to its high demand on the CPU of the switch/router, currently NetFlow is supported only on very high-end switches/routers and its design and implementation on these commercial switches/routers are not published in the literature. In this paper, we design and implement a high-performance and high-precision NetFlow/IPFIX system on a Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4) hardware switch. Based on a 20 Gbps playback of a packet trace gathered on an Internet backbone link, experimental results show that our novel method significantly outperforms the typical design and implementation method of NetFlow/IPFIX on a P4 hardware switch. For example, for the number of detected flows during the trace period, our method outperforms the typical method by a factor of 5.72. As for the number of flows whose packet and byte counts are correctly counted, our method outperforms the typical method by a factor of 8.57.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104385"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145528949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A quantum-secure digital signature-based communication protocol for the Internet of Drones (IoD)","authors":"Jithu Vijay V.P.,&nbsp;Shahanas I.N.,&nbsp;Sabu M. Thampi,&nbsp;Aiswarya S. Nair","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104398","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104398","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The use of drones is rapidly increasing in areas such as surveillance, defense, and emergency services. As a result, ensuring secure communication and proper authentication has become a major concern in the Internet of Drones, where drones must share data and coordinate their actions in real time. One of the biggest challenges in drone networks is maintaining secure and reliable communication between drones. The dynamic and distributed nature of these networks increases the risk of security breaches. Existing systems mostly rely on cryptographic methods like RSA and ECC. These methods will not remain secure in the future because of advancements in quantum computing. These systems also depend on static data storage and centralized credential management, which make them vulnerable to attacks such as impersonation, replay, and man-in-the-middle. To address these issues, we propose a quantum-secure drone-to-drone authentication and secure communication protocol that utilizes Post Quantum Cryptographic (PQC) algorithms such as, Kyber for encryption and Dilithium for digital signatures. Both are lattice-based lightweight cryptographic algorithms that offer strong resistance against quantum attacks. Instead of storing secret data on drones and to prevent cloning, we use Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) to generate device specific seeds for authentication and key generation during each session. A Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain is used at the Ground Control Station (GCS) to store drone credentials securely and avoid single point failure. We conducted the formal security analysis using the Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic for trust validation and the Scyther tool to formally analyze and verify resistance against classical and quantum-era attacks. In addition to formal proofs, informal analysis confirms that the protocol maintains data integrity and authentication even under active network threats. We implemented the protocol using Raspberry Pi drones and a Linux-based GCS. Performance results show a low computation time of 0.08 s for authentication and 0.12 s for secure communication on Raspberry Pi 5, with minimal memory usage and acceptable communication cost suitable for implementation on resource-constrained drones.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104398"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145609218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimal multi-access edge computing system deployment in private 5G networks for multi-story construction sites","authors":"Shi-Yu Zhang ,&nbsp;Chun-Cheng Lin ,&nbsp;Zhen-Yin Annie Chen ,&nbsp;Der-Jiunn Deng","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104384","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104384","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Driven by the swift progression of smart construction, the number of sensors and smart devices on construction sites has increased dramatically, posing new challenges to data processing and communications. However, conventional cloud computing framework can hardly meet the requirement for processing enormous real-time data from construction sites, while existing approaches to deploying multi-access edge computing (MEC) servers overlooked the energy usage of MEC servers, as well as the unique physical and network security requirements within the multi-story structure of complex construction sites. Therefore, this work presents a mathematical programming model for private 5G network MEC systems on smart construction sites considering installation, connectivity, energy consumption, security maintenance, and cybersecurity; and further solve it with a hybrid metaheuristic approach that combines simplified harmony search (SHS) and variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithms. The deployment of private 5G network edge computing servers and base stations is recognized as an NP-hard problem, where conventional mathematical models may fall short in finding practical, optimal solutions. Our proposed hybrid algorithm integrates the global search capability of SHS with the local search efficiency of VNS to comprehensively explore the solution space, providing a robust yet implementable method for complex optimization. The efficacy of this approach is validated through experimental evaluations in real-world construction site scenarios, demonstrating notable advantages in solution quality, stability, energy consumption, and overall cost reduction. Results show that the proposed algorithm significantly minimizes costs related to installation, security maintenance, and data protection, fulfilling diverse constraints effectively and making it a promising solution of deploying the MEC systems in private 5G networks for smart construction sites.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104384"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}