Rick SummerhillChief Technology Officer, Internet2

rrsum@internet2.edu

Internet2 Fall Member Meeting9 October 2007San Diego, CA

The Dynamic Circuit Network

Contents

• Challenges• The HOPI Project• The DRAGON Investigation• The Internet2 National Infrastructure• The DICE Collaboration• Control Plane Developments

Challenges - Applications

• Applications in the R&E community are very demanding

• Large Data Flows, for example, from LHC• 8 Gbps flows for hours on end• UNL to FERMILAB was a recent example

• Flows that demand deterministic capabilities• Very high definition video• eVLBI applications in radio astronomy and the SKA project

• Applications that demand very high bandwidth for relatively short periods of time

• Backplanes for distributed computers or content distribution schemes

• How should the R&E community support these applications?

Challenges - Infrastructure• Five years ago it became clear the R&E community

would have access to greater infrastructure• The early R&E networks were IP based• With the advent of access to dark fiber, the R&E community

now had access to layers 0 and up

• Given the application challenges, what is the best way to utilize that infrastructure?

• Also, access to additional infrastructure has given rise to the “hybrid networking” idea - meaning operating networks at multiple layers in a coherent way

• Three years ago, Internet2 created the Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) project to examine this

HOPI Project - Overview

•How does one effectively use a richer set of capabilities available to network designers and end users?

• Core IP packet switched networks• A set of optically switched lightpaths available for

dynamic provisioning

•Examine a hybrid of shared IP packet switching and dynamically provisioned circuits•HOPI Project (Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure) to examine how to put it all together?

• Dynamic Provisioning - setup and teardown of optical paths

• Hybrid Question - how do end hosts use the combined packet and circuit switched infrastructures?

HOPI General Problem

HOPI Topology

HOPI Control Plane• HOPI emulates an optical circuit switched

environment while using Ethernet switches• Need a control plane and development• Internet2 created an RFP for a HOPI Testbed

Support Center (TSC)• The MAX, NCREN, and Indiana GigaPoPs

responded and won the RFP• Lead to the use of the DRAGON control plane

elements• DRAGON is NSF funded and GMPLS based -

Dynamic Resource Allocation of GMPLS Optical Networks (DRAGON)

Heterogeneous Network TechnologiesComplex End to End Paths

End Syste

m

AS 1AS 2 AS 3

VLSR

Ethernet SegmentVLSR Established VLAN

Ethernet over WDM

Ethernet over SONET

End Syste

m

Ethernet SegmentVLSR Established VLAN

VLSR

Router MPLS LSP

IP Control Plane

IP Control Plane

IP Control Plane

Ethernet

Router

Lambda Switch

SONET Switch

“Horizontal” multi-layer adaptations for multi-domain

DRAGON Control Plane -Key Elements

• Virtual Label Swapping Router – VLSR• Open source protocols running on PC act as GMPLS network

element (OSPF-TE, RSVP-TE)• Control PCs participate in protocol exchanges and provisions

covered switch according to protocol events (PATH setup, PATH tear down, state query, etc)

• Network Aware Resource Broker – NARB• Intradomain listener, Path Computation, Interdomain Routing

• Client System Agent – CSA• End system or client software for signaling into network (UNI or

peer mode)• Application Specific Topology Builder – ASTB

• User Interface and processing which build topologies on behalf of users

• Topologies are a user specific configuration of multiple LSPs

VLSR- Virtual Label Switching Router

Web page

XML Interface ASTB

CLI Interface One NARB per Domain

• GMPLS Proxy• (OSPF-TE,

RSVP-TE)• Local control

channel• CLI,TL1,

SNMP, others• Used primarily for

ethernet switches• Provisioning

requests via CLI, XML, or ASTB

Interdomain Path Computation – A Hierarchical Architecture

NARB

w/RCE

NARB

w/RCE

NARB

w/RCE

Summarized/Abstract InterDomain Topoloy (A single link state flooding area)

IntraDomain Topoloy - Area 1

IntraDomain Topoloy - Area 2

IntraDomain Topoloy - Area 3

• NARB summarizes individual domain topology and advertise it globally using link-state routing protocol, generating an abstract topology.

• RCE computes partial paths by combining the abstract global topology and detailed local topology. • NARB’s assemble the partial paths into a full path by speaking to one another across domains.

Internet2 Infrastructure

Nodes

Nodes

Nodes

Nodes

Nodes

Nodes

Nodes

Dynamic Circuit Network

• Similar to the IP network model, but using different protocols

• Connections are one armed• Physical connection• Control Plane Protocols

• Create Circuits in seconds for periods of hours to days

• Only through the Ciena equipment at the start, eventually evolving to the full platform

Current Control Plane Developments• Intra-domain

• Currently on the Ciena platform, to be deployed on the Infinera platform in the future

• Have an Installed working configuration on the Cienas

• Inter-domain• Working with the DICE (Dante, Internet2, Canarie,

ESnet) group• Working on Topology, Path Computation and

Scheduling, Signaling, and Lookup Services (think a circuit based DNS)

• Web service based communications• Face-to-face meeting every three months and

biweekly calls

Dynamic Circuit NetworksWeb Service Control Plane Interfaces

• Web Services provides a mechanism to deal with heterogeneous control planes• inspired by the standards bodies work on control plane protocols,

but not just recreating that work at the web service level

Ethernet/L2SC(Dataplane)

SONET/TDM(Dataplane)

Router(MPLS)/PSC(Dataplane)

GMPLS(I-NNI)

MPLS(I-NNI)

Management System(I-NNI)

Inter-Domain Controller (IDC)

WS E-NNIWS E-NNI

WS UNI WS UNI

IDC

IDCWS I-NNI IF

WS I-NNI IF WS I-NNI IF

Web Service based E-NNIMain Components

• Routing• Topology Exchange• Domain Abstraction• Varying levels of dynamic information

• Resource Scheduling• Multi-Domain path computation techniques• Resource identification, reservation, confirmation

• Signaling• path setup, service instantiation

• Host Lookup Service• Uses DNS pointers

More on the Demo

• Start with Lambdastation• Assumes the circuit is in place• Modifies the routers in real time to switch the flow

from the IP path to the circuit path

• What was new in this demo was the addition of the ability to setup the circuit in real time

• Lambdastation called the DC network to setup the circuit using the DC network control plane protocols

• PerfSonar project provided the monitoring tools in the demo

Network Research Example - Phoebus

• Phoebus - TCP data flows• File transfers over long distance segments

not requiring congestion control• Lead by Martin Swaney at the University of

Delaware

Questions?

network@internet2.edu