Network Management meets Metaverse

Open Human-Computer Interaction Computer Science Games Engineering eXtended Artificial Intelligence Bachelor Master Thesis Games Research Lab

Background

The Metaverse is currently a much-quoted topic. According to Gartner Inc, a major provider of market research and analytics, the integrative system that maps a world of virtual objects and digital avatars is an “innovation you need to know to differentiate yourself from the competition and increase efficiency”. [1,2] Large technology companies have also identified this point of view. For example, Meta currently invests over 10 billion dollars per year in technologies related to the development of the Metaverse. Microsoft is currently working on the acquisition of the computer and video game group Activision Blizzard. They justify the decision, among other things, with the fact that this forms a foundation for the activities in the metaverse context. [3]
Also in the telecommunication industry, the metaverse efforts are becoming noticeable in various places and pose new challenges for the existing players (e.g. communication service providers, aka CSPs) and their networks. For example, network applications such as Metaverse require very low and uniform latencies as well as high-resolution content delivery. As for instance, the resolution of 720p, which is considered sufficient in the course of video streaming on smartphones, requires a downlink bandwidth of about 2 Mbit/s, while so-called head-mounted displays (HMDs) prefer a Retina resolution and require real-time rendering of avatars. These features currently exceed the capabilities of existing communication and network infrastructures. [4]
CSPs and their networks thus represent a key component in the context of the metaverse. At the same time, similar to other industries, the Metaverse also holds potential for CSPs to optimize existing workflows. For example, people from different locations can jointly evaluate properties of the existing network infrastructure or the associated digital twin in the created virtualized world, initiate simulations, examine any existing alarms and derive and implement related necessary measures. The telecommunications group Nokia is also working on an exciting approach in this context (see video below). [5]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPVekmnncU

In the course of the advertised thesis, the indicated potential benefits of the Metaverse for CSPs and thus a metaverse-based network management are to be examined in detail. If necessary, various preparatory works of Infosim can be used. The following two figures show an example of this. On the one hand, a dashboard that contains information about a network and the devices in it and on the other hand, a 3D network visualization, which is currently made available via a separate portal (Python backend/Angular frontend) and considers various (graph) metrics on the nodes/edges. Both visualizations can be integrated into the virtual environment accordingly.

Tasks:

Depending on the type of work, the topic includes the following tasks, for example

• Evaluation of the current state of research on the Metaverse and related challenges for the telecommunications industry
• Investigation of current visualization approaches of network management in the Metaverse
• Definition of relevant use cases for network management in the Metaverse
• Development and verification of a virtual world considering existing visualization approaches at Infosim as well as the previously defined use cases
• Evaluation of the generated virtual world with regard to usability (if necessary, comparative analysis between the developed Metaverse approach and existing procedures at Infosim)
  
  

If necessary, the topic can be worked on by two people with different focuses.

Infosim®

Infosim® was founded in 2003 as a spin-off of the University of Würzburg. With our network management solution StableNet® we are a leading manufacturer of automated service fulfillment and service assurance solutions. With the advertised thesis, we would like to examine the potential associated with the Metaverse in relation to our product StableNet®. We look forward to receiving your application!

References

[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-s-new-in-the-2022-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies
[2] https://www.iuk.fraunhofer.de/de/themen/thema-metaverse.html
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1365/s35764-022-00447-x
[4] https://www.comsoc.org/publications/journals/ieee-jsac/cfp/human-centric-communication-and-networking-metaverse-over-5g
[5] https://www.nokia.com/blog/network-operations-in-the-metaverse/

Contact Persons at the University Würzburg