eprints (HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil)
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Cilium CNI Plugins for Kubernetes Cluster Networking
No full textIntroduction:
Traditional routing protocols do not fully fit the needs regarding flexibility and scalability of telecommunication providers. More modern and flexible cloud approaches replace legacy technologies. In recent years, providers have struggled to scale private networking connections within their networks. Cloud deployed applications drive the need for flexible and custom routing capabilities.
Software engineers should not have to worry about networking. While deploying applications on the network’s edge, only the network to run it on should be specified. The network connecting to the customer should automatically be configured in the background, enabling a private connection.
Cilium – a container network interface for Kubernetes – offers many abstraction abilities, including Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6). Using SRv6, network packets may be sent along a predefined and the most suitable path. As example, VOIP packets would be sent along segments allowing low latency. In addition, SRv6 provides an abstraction of per-tenant virtual networks allowing VPN networking.
This thesis aimed to prove if such an approach works with SRv6 and Cilium.
Approach / Technology:
An IPv6 network infrastructure simulating a provider network was set up. Multiple provider edge and multiple customer edge routers connect backbone data centers and customers’ Kubernetes environments.L3VPN connections were entirely based on SRv6, allowing multi-VRF environments.Multiple Kubernetes clusters running Cilium with SRv6 were placed in the network as provider edge. A VRF connecting pods on a provider edge cluster linking the customer network attached to the customer edge interface was provided using L3VPN. Another BGP-only scenario was implemented with a customer Kubernetes cluster routing data to another customer site network via L3VPN running on the ISP’s network.
Result:
The pods’ network was successfully routed via L3VPN from a customer Kubernetes environment to a customer router proving the functionality of the customer edge scenario.The provider edge scenario with Cilium SRv6 was not functional during the project. The reason for the not fully functional scenario is a not fully operational software.
The entire concept should be considered by telcos and enterprises running Kubernetes clusters, as they can segment and separate their cloud applications from different networks. This approach allows heavy decoupling between software engineering and providing secure as well as private networks for applications
Design of a mobile-based user interface for eye workouts
No full textObjective
The objective of this thesis is to develop a mobile application that aims to make eye workouts more accessible to a wider audience, specifically targeting individuals suffering from headaches or migraines. The study focuses on investigating the research questions surrounding the development of the user interface and employs a user-centered approach to effectively address the challenge. By developing a mobile app that guides users through the process of specific eye exercises, the objective is to provide a convenient and accessible solution that can be practiced independently.
Approach
The study follows a user centered design process that includes a literature study, competitor analysis, requirement identification, user-centered interface design, technology evaluation, prototype implementation, and final evaluation. Research questions addressed in this study are:
1) Target Group: Identify the target audience to tailor the app experience to their preferences and needs.
2) Feedback Mechanisms: Explore reliable feedback methods to ensure correct execution of workouts.
3) User Retention: Develop strategies to encourage regular app usage for long-term benefits.
Conclusion
A functional prototype in the form of an angular web app was created based on the extensive conceptualization developed within the thesis. The implementation focused on addressing the research questions and provided valuable insights. The findings highlighted the importance of customization options to optimize the execution of eye workouts for different individuals. By enhancing personalization and ensuring usability according to recognized principles, the application can better cater to user needs. The recommendations and evaluation findings serve as a foundation for future iterations and improvements of the application, with a focus on customization and adherence to recognized usability principles
Use of Augmented Reality for Visualizing Ambient Conditions while Sailing
No full textIntroduction
Navigating a sailing boat successfully requires a deep understanding of the surrounding environment. Common sailing instruments, which display information numerically or in 2D graphs, often require considerable experience and spatial imagination for interpretation.
This thesis explores the potential of Augmented Reality in enhancing the visualization of ambient conditions, offering a more intuitive and informative approach to sailing navigation.
Goal
The primary goal of this thesis is to evaluate the practicality and effectiveness of integrating Augmented Reality into sailing. Employing a human-centered approach, it aims to develop and validate scenarios where Augmented Reality can enhance the sailing experience, focusing on both usability and technological feasibility.
Method
This research commenced with an extensive literature review to assess the current state of Augmented Reality applications in sailing and related domains. This was complemented by conducting five targeted interviews with a diverse group of sailors, ranging from novices to experts, to gather insights into their specific needs and preferences when sailing. This dual approach allowed for a comprehensive understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of Augmented Reality in sailing.
Results
The analysis yielded a series of detailed personas and Augmented Reality application scenarios. These personas represent a spectrum of user needs and preferences in the sailing community. For the most promising scenario, a hardware component architecture was designed, laying the groundwork for future practical implementation. These results collectively provide a nuanced understanding of how Augmented Reality can be tailored to enhance the sailing experience.
Recommendations
The thesis concludes that Augmented Reality holds significant promise for enriching the sailing experience by offering enhanced perception and understanding of ambient conditions. However, the current state of AR technology, particularly in terms of maritime durability and waterproofing, poses a challenge. Consequently, it is recommended to monitor ongoing technological advancements in Augmented Reality. In the meantime, exploring interim solutions or adaptations that can bridge the gap until Augmented Reality technology matures for maritime conditions would be beneficial for the sailing community
Fitness Gamification
No full textInitial Situation:
In today's world, gamification is used and implemented in more and more aspects of daily life. The purpose of gamification is to motivate users to do certain things. Another growing market is physical exercise, especially with young people. An increasing amount of people are trying to do more physical exercise. Everyone agrees that physical exercise is the key to a healthy life, but the main problem is that people often need more motivation. So we see massive potential in solutions that address this problem. A potential solution to motivate people to do more sports is a platform that gamifies physical exercise and makes it a fun, competitive game that can be played between friends and other users. The need for physical exercise and the motivation to do it will draw people to platforms and solutions like this.
Objective:
With this project, we aim to build a platform mobile app of this type. The main goal is to create an initial version of such a platform. That means we want to create an app that allows users to challenge their friends and other users to do physical exercises. We will implement various gamification aspects, such as allowing users to achieve milestones, track their data, and display that to other users. We plan to use a "turn-based" approach for the challenges, allowing users to play with users in an "async" fashion. That means participants can be online at different times.
Conclusion:
In this project, we created a prototype for a mobile app that gamifies physical exercise. We created this mobile App using React Native and Expo in our Frontend and Firebase as our Backend. Our App allows users to create an account using their phone number and challenge anyone in their contact list or a random user. The user can select the challenge type and duration one has to perform in the challenge. Challenges then get completed in a turn-based fashion. A user performs a challenge, and it gets sent to his opponent. The opponent can then perform, and it will get sent back. This goes back and forth until one user cannot beat the other user's score. We will track various statistics for the user, which will be displayed in his profile and displayed to other users to generate a more competitive and gamified environment. We implemented one challenge type for this initial version, "Pull-ups." In the future, this should be extended to allow the user to perform various challenges and can generally be expanded upon due to the modularity we considered while implementing it
SSoT Based Network Service Deployment
No full textIn the field of network automation, a fully Single Source ofTruth (SSoT) based deployment is considered something of a holy grail, as it promotes reliable, repeatable, and documented procedures. While many proprietary solutions exist in this space, many of the open-source alternatives currently lack in capability, ease of use, or code quality. At its core, NetBox is an open-source project composed of a pre-defined database structure and a Django-based graphical interface. Its purpose is to document network infrastructure, covering both the hardware itself and its configuration. However, it lacks a mechanism for deploying said documented network in an automated manner, where the documentation dictates the network configuration, rather than the inverse. The goal of this project is to expand the capabilities of NetBox by adding support for network services through a plugin and implementing a mechanism for generating and deploying the corresponding configuration to the relevant network devices. We began by researching multiple network services before settling on MPLS L3 VPN, which encompasses the LDP, VRF, and BGP protocols, of which only VRF was already part of NetBox. After comparing various tools for network device configuration, we decided to use Napalm for device interactions and configuration management, with Nornir serving as a parallelization layer. During development, emphasis was placed on keeping the project extensible for future additions and making the deployment process as simple and intuitive as possible. The resulting software is comprised of two parts: the Argos-NetBox plugin, which extends NetBox and adds support for the aforementioned protocols, and Argos-NAC, which queries the necessary data from NetBox and handles the generation and deployment of the various device configurations. Argos-NetBox can be used standalone and is vendor-independent, making Argos-NAC an optional addition to it. The protocols covered by this project can be used separately and are designed to be interchangeable, should alternatives to them be added in the future.
It is worth noting that, in addition to this paper, a separate MkDocs has been created which outlines aspects of the project relevant to its future development and offers an
introduction to the dependencies upon which the project relies
Cloud Native Intent Automation
No full textIntroduction
Infrastructure providers, such as mobile providers, heavily rely on Kubernetes to orchestrate containerized applications.
More modern and flexible cloud approaches have increased and outpaced the development of flexible infrastructure.
Nowadays, additional clusters are often being deployed manually, which is error-prone and leads to non-standardized infrastructure.
As running workloads on single clusters is manageable, having hundreds of clusters, each running different applications, depicts new challenges.
Deploying and running remote clusters is not only a question of service orchestration, it brings up the need for high-performing, flexible, and private networking.
Bringing this challenge further was key to our thesis. We evaluated Nephio as intent-based automation framework for service orchestration utilizing the concept of Single-Source-of-Truth using GitOps.
Networks between the source and destination must be as flexible as the clusters to automatically ensure private and secure network routing along newly deployed clusters and workloads.
Running a new cluster for a new customer intends to manually deploy Kubernetes, container network interface (CNI), workloads, and network connectivity.
This thesis aims to prove possible automation of these challenges with state-of-the-art technologies like SRv6 packet-routing, Cilium networking for Kubernetes, and Nephio service orchestration platform.
Methods
Multiple IPv4 and IPv6 networks simulating a network infrastructure were set up. The routers were connecting multiple Kubernetes environments.
In the first stage, the Kubernetes environments were deployed using a customized Ansible playbook based on Kubespray. The following deployment installed Cilium as CNI on the deployed Kubernetes control-plane node.
Eventually, the third deployment integrated the Kubernetes environment into the central Nephio management cluster.
Nephio allowed us to deploy not only applications but network configurations as well.
A substantial effort was put into network device configuration deployment to ensure networking between Kubernetes containers.
An additional optional use case was achieved by scaling Kubernetes clusters to the public cloud, which were connected to our on-premise environment.
Results
The Kubernetes deployment was executed successfully, enabling low-effort cluster deployments. Cilium networking was deployed, allowing new networking technologies, like source-determined routing called SRv6.
Nephio, which is still in a pre-launch condition, implements straightforward and effective workload deployments for multi-cluster environments.
As cloud-native infrastructure covers a wide range of topics, we were able to demonstrate the capabilities of further deployments like network devices or public cloud enrollment.
Some parts of cloud environments are more challenging than others to deploy, and with new technologies coming up, cloud environment automation will remain a fascinating topic.
Our thesis, conducted as a proof-of-concept, demonstrates that many manually configured infrastructures may be automatically deployed.
Discussion
Nephio is a new product with a lot of potential and numerous features on the roadmap. In the future, enterprises with large fleets of decentralized Kubernetes clusters should keep an eye on Nephio.
Single-Source-of-Truth and GitOps are featured by Nephio and will be adapted in networking in a broader spectrum with promising potential.
SRv6 is still an emerging and exciting technology, offering flexible routing between containers in extensive networks
Digitaler Briefversand
No full textIntroduction
Communication in the modern business world is characterized by remarkable complexity. In addition to conventional communication methods, such as postal mail, innovative approaches have emerged that businesses can leverage. Email and messenger services like Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp have become widely adopted communication channels. The clear trend indicates a significant preference for digital communication forms. The trend shows a clear preference for digital forms of communication, which is at the expense of the still important, paper-based postal correspondence. In this work, analogue postal traffic is to be digitally enriched in order to combine the advantages of both worlds.
Objective
Within the scope of this project, a prototype of an application is being developed with the aim of digitizing postal mail. The primary goal is to create a user-friendly application that makes it easier for the sender to digitally send a letter to a recipient. If the digital route is not feasible, the application will automatically send the letter through traditional means. The prototype is designed to be easily expandable to facilitate the continuous development and implementation of new features. Another crucial aspect of the application is its broad device compatibility to ensure maximum user reach.
Conclusion
In the creation of the prototype for this project, we utilized the following technologies: Node.js and TypeScript were employed for the backend. Electron, in conjunction with React, also in TypeScript, was used for the desktop application. For the mobile application, we opted for Flutter. The application allows an organization to digitally send a letter to a customer via the desktop application, who then receives it through the mobile app. The application autonomously decides whether the letter should be digitally sent to the recipient after verifying their address or if it should be physically sent if verification is not successful. In further development, the desktop application is planned to be enhanced with automatic address recognition, and the manual handling of physical mail delivery will be improved as needed
Automation of Cloud Abuse Report Handling
No full textIn recent years, cyber security attacks have become an important issue in the Internet world.
There are various attacks such as phishing, malware, denial of service, etc. that aim to breach data.
Public cloud providers are most affected with issue and have to deal with it. Therefore, each cloud provider has a point of contact where issues or suspicious activity in the cloud can be reported via email, and each of these reported issues is analysed and investigated.
IBM Cloud has a dedicated team of analysts who analyse incoming reports of various types of suspected abuse in the cloud. The process of analysing the reports and deciding on the next steps consists of many repetitive tasks that are very time-consuming for any analyst. This is where an automated solution is needed to save valuable time.
The goal of this bachelor thesis is to implement a proof-of-concept that automates the manual and time-consuming tasks performed by analysts. At the beginning of the project, a detailed analysis and elaboration was performed, collecting all requirements together with the main stakeholder of the project, IBM Research Zurich. After prioritising the features to be implemented, implementation was started in the construction phase.
Throughout the project, regular meetings were held with stakeholders to receive feedback and new suggestions for improvement. The proof of concept created as the final product was then presented as a demo to analysts at IBM Cloud.
As a result, a web application is developed where key information extracted from reports manually from emails is entered on the user interface. This information is then analysed and enriched on the backend of the product using an external API. The enriched information is then displayed on the user interface along with a screenshot of the suspicious website provided by an additional external API.
Considering different types of information such as hashes, domain names etc. that can be extracted from reports, a major focus of this project was to build a flexible architecture for the product that would allow it to be easily extended in the future and add new functionality for new indicator types. This was achieved via message queues and task workers in the backend.
Keywords: Cloud abuse reports, Enriched reports, Security analysis, FastAPI, React, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, Celery, VirusTotal API, Screenshot AP
Prototype of an open GIS-to-BIM Converter
No full textUnterirdische Leitungskataster werden üblicherweise in 2D-Geoinformationssystemen verwaltet
(GIS) unter Verwendung standardisierter Formate wie dem SIA 405-INTERLIS-Standard in der Schweiz. Jedoch,
besteht ein wachsender Bedarf an der Darstellung dieser Versorgungsnetze in einem 3D-Format.
Insbesondere im Kontext von Building Information Modeling (BIM). Dieses Projekt präsentiert
ein Python Command Line Interface (CLI)-Prototyp, der die Konvertierung
von 2D-INTERLIS-Daten in gültige 3D-Daten im Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)-Format ermöglicht.
Der resultierende Prototyp verfügt über eine CLI, die es Benutzern ermöglicht, eine GeoPackage-Datei
einzugeben und einen Koordinatenbereich und ein Ausgabepfad für die resultierende IFC-Datei anzugeben
Er validiert die bereitgestellten Argumente und führt den Konvertierungsprozess mithilfe von Python-Bibliotheken,
wie GeoPandas und IfcOpenShell durch. Die resultierenden 3D-Daten enthalten zusätzliche Eigenschaften
zur Visualisierung, z. B. Untergrundtiefe, Elementdurchmesser und Farbschemata, welche
als „Intelligente Defaults“ definiert sind.
Der Prototyp legt eine solide Grundlage für die zukünftige Entwicklung. Der Ausblick beinhaltet
weitere Verbesserungen, wie z. B. die Markierung intelligenter Defaults zur Verdeutlichung von Ungenauigkeiten,
die Erweiterung der Intelligent Defaults um zusätzliche Eigenschaften, die Unterstützung
andere Leitungskatastermedien und das Hinzufügen von Konfigurierbarkeits- und Erweiterbarkeitsfunktionen für
Benutzer. Insgesamt zeigt diese Untersuchung die Machbarkeit der Konvertierung von 2D-INTERLIS
Daten in ein 3D-IFC-Format, was Möglichkeiten für eine verbesserte Darstellung und Visualisierung von
unterirdischen Versorgungsnetzen im Bereich BIM eröffnet.
Schlüsselwörter: 2D-zu-3D-Konvertierung, INTERLIS, IFC, Python CLI, GeoPackage, Building Information
Modelling (BIM)
Showroom fur den zukunft.bahnhof Lichtensteig
No full textDas Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, in einem Showroom das Projekt zukunft.bahnhof in digitaler Form erlebbar zu machen.
Dazu gehört sowohl die Entwicklung eines Konzepts für ein interaktives Besuchserlebnis, wie auch die prototypische Implementierung in Form einer Applikation.
Zudem soll der gewählte Lösungsansatz kritisch reflektiert werden, um Möglichkeiten zur Weiterentwicklung und iterativen Verbesserung aufzuzeigen.
Mithilfe einer Literaturrecherche wurden mögliche Realisierungsansätze sowie Technologien erfasst.
Eine Nutzwertanalyse sowie ein Workshop mit einer Fokusgruppe diente dem Vergleich der Ansätze sowie der Wahl eines zu realisierenden Produkts.
Als Teil eines Gesamtkonzepts für den Showroom, wurde eine Virtual Reality Applikation in Form einer WebApp realisiert.
Die Applikation besteht dabei aus einem NGINX Reverse Proxy, welcher sowohl das React Frontend, wie auch das ASP.Net Core Backend bereitstellt.
Das Areal von Lichtensteig ist in einem Unity Projekt modelliert. Die Daten werden in einer PostgreSQL Datenbank via Entity Framework Core persistiert.
Alle Komponenten werden mittels Continuous Delivery getestet, gebuildet und in Docker Containern ausgeliefert.
Der Prototyp dieser VR Applikation für den Showroom ermöglicht es den Besuchenden auf eindrucksvolle und spielerische Art Informationen zum Projekt zukunft.bahnhof zu vermitteln.
Benutzende können dabei das Projektareal in Lichtensteig virtuell betrachten und sich spezifisch zu den einzelnen Teilen des Projekts erkunden.
Durch die Möglichkeit der eigenen Arealgestaltung, sowie Kommentar- und Feedback-Funktionen können sich Besuchende des Showrooms partizipativ im Projekt einbringen.
Da der Prototyp als WebApp realisiert wurde, kann die Applikation auch auf mobilen Geräten genutzt werden.
Somit kann das Nutzererlebnis auch nach einem Besuch im Showroom noch fortgeführt werden