Kansei Connectivity Requirements: Campus Deployment Case Study

1. Kansei Connectivity Requirements:Campus Deployment Case Study Anish Arora/Wenjie Zeng, GENI Kansei Project Prasad Calyam, Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet Jay Young, OSU Enterprise Networking The Quilt GENI Workshop July 22nd 2010

2. Topics of Discussion • Connectivity Requirements Overview (Prasad) • Campus Researcher Perspectives (Wenjie) • Campus Network Provider Perspectives (Jay) • Regional Network Provider Perspectives (Prasad) • Current Status and Next Steps (All)

3. Connectivity Requirements Overview • GENI vision to create an overlay network with QoS guarantees on top of existing infrastructure between project sites across the U.S. • End-to-end Layer 2 (L2) connectivity can provide isolation, precision measurements, topology control, and experiment repeatability • One proposal: Create static and/or dynamic end-to-end layer 2 tunnels between sites connected by NLR and Internet2 backbones • OSU Kansei project wants L2/L3 connectivity with several sites • Researcher Web-portal is hosted at the OSU Campus • OSU testbed is located at Columbus Wood Products (CWP) building • Federated aggregate collaborator site is at Wayne State University • ORCA Clearinghouse site for Kansei users is located at RENCI

4. Connectivity Requirements Overview (2) • Connectivity requirements being addressed by a diverse team • Campus Researchers: Kansei team at OSU and WSU, RENCI • Campus Networking Providers: OSU CSE Department Networking, OSU Campus Networking, WSU Campus Networking, • Regional Network Providers: OARnet, MERIT • National Network Providers: NLR, GENI ClusterD Net (GCDnet) • Coordination of connectivity implementation discussions was a challenge as the group size increased • Isolated communications were unproductive • Conference calls and a project progress document were effective • A connectivity diagram helps! 

5. (Desired) Connectivity Diagram VLAN path planned: OSU – OARnet – MERIT – Starlight – GCDnet – NLR – RENCI

6. Campus Researcher Perspectives • KanseiGenie: a federated sensor network testbed • Current sites: • Kansei at OSU and NetEye at WSU • Also cloned by Oklahoma State University • Has been open to users from both inside and outside for experimentation for the past 3 years • L2/L3 connectivity brings us: • Scalability • Experiments at scale (across multiple testbeds) • Low delay • Stitching multiple sensor network testbeds by simulating low-delay radio link • Near real time interaction with experiments • Larger bandwidth • Data hub: output of one experiment serves as input for another

7. Federated and Stitched Experimentation

8. Campus Network Provider Perspectives • OSU’s campus network was designed with three aggregation points and no L2 connectivity between them • Typical questions given the desire for this connectivity have not been answered • Functional design requirements • What protocols, services are going to transit this network • Security concerns • MAC address learning • Loop prevention • Have not see standard answers to these questions • OSU has a cost recovery model for networking services. Internally, network connections need to be paid for BUT researchers haven’t added this to grant proposals, etc.

9. Campus Network Provider Perspectives • OSU has faced technical issues: • L2VPNs are not well supported on our line cards • Setting up additional interfaces and VLAN trunks has more cost across our campus • QinQ is not a technology that we have deployed, before we roll new services we want to test it in the lab • How many research groups desire to use this service and how that could be built is unknown • Today a single VLAN is being extended to one site on our infrastructure out of one of our aggregation points • CSE Department might extend this to another site on their own • Next department that wants a connection will be back at the drawing board

10. Regional Network Provider Perspectives • Evaluated both Internet2 ION and NLR FrameNet options • NLR option pursued due to current ORCA connectivity • QinQ suggested, but targeted only in the next version of Sherpa • Identified GCDNet as the L2 connections aggregator for GENI Cluster D projects • L2 connectivity architecture changed due to GCDNet • WSU directly connects to GCDNet instead of connecting to OSU • MERIT connects to GCDNet and OSU connects to MERIT • GCDNet paying for MERIT connection port fees • OSU saved additional fees on one of the ports at OSU CWP • Only investing in 2 100Mbps ports for L2/L3 connectivity to ORCA

11. How we stand with others…(Adapted from Joe Mambretti GEC8 Talk Slides)

12. Current Status and Next Steps • VLAN translation along the end-to-end path being implemented to avoid conflicts of VLAN IDs • Agreed upon VLAN numbers: WSU (1810), OSU (1804) • NLR VLAN number issue handled by GCDNet • OARnet has setup the VLAN configuration, and also has a dummy device at the port to respond to Ping probes • OSU and WSU VLANs plumbed through MERIT to GCDNet switch • VLAN paths are expected to be in place on a long-term basis • Plans for a multi-site Cluster D connectivity demonstration at GEC9 • Extensive testing expected to occur in October timeframe

13. Thank you for your attention !