Next Generation Network Monitoring Prepared by: Les Cottrell SLAC

Needs Advancements in networks improve scientific collaborations, help accelerate discoveries –E.g. High Energy Physics (HEP), seismology, tele-medicine, astro-physics, global weather, education … Modern science relies on global Internet –Data exchange, interaction & teleconferencing, Grids … Network problems have increased significance for science Thus dependent on cyberinfrastructure to support efficient network problem diagnosis along paths traversing multiple network domains –This is an unresolved issue today –Hard to overstate amount of effort today to resolve problems Often duplicated Scientists forced to become part-time network engineers

Why is this hard? Internet very diverse, hard to find “invariants, phone models do not work Constantly changing both short and long-term –Changes are not smooth but usually in steps, findings may be out of date No central organization –Scientific communities span multiple organizations in many countries –Typical path requires crossing at least 5 administrative domains (campus, regional, backbone, regional and campus) –Domains are autonomous Measurement not high on vendor’s priorities ISP’s concerned about privacy, competitive advantage, public embarrassment Diagnosis hard: –Convince ADs there is a problem and that they could/should help –Need multiple pieces of information from multiple sources (ends, multiple middles…), with no coordinating body

Besides Pathology Service Level Agreements (setting up and auditing) Planning, setting expectations Scheduling for grid computing

Past Attempts Over past 20 years many projects –AMP, MonALISA, IEPM-BW, PingER, Surveyor … Tended to bundle data generation, sharing and analysis and visualization Provided many new insights BUT: –Lacked widespread, uniform deployments –Analysis & visualization hampered by lack of standards to share data –Failed to achieve critical mass (packaging, open source, unitary solution imposed, and/or lack of community involvement)

Proposal to Address Widespread demand for net info by: –Researchers to know how network is performing –Advanced net apps such as Grids –Net Ops staffs to diagnose problems Flexibility in extracting net performance data, needed since –Network changes quickly, diagnostic data is moving target –New tools, metrics and types of analysis are constantly developed –Lack of effective ways to share performance data across domains

perfSONAR Partnership of Internet2, GEANT, ESnet –Plus in the US: SLAC, U Delaware, GATech –13 EU related NREN deployments of perfSONAR Provide open set of protocols + reference implementation for cross-domain sharing of network measurements –Common performance middleware –Open Grid Forum NMWG = extensible XML data representation –All development is open source to encourage widespread development, deployment, ownership & involvement Early framework prototypes deployed in Europe, N and S America (Brazil), also adopted by LHC

Components Measurement points (MPs) Measurement Archives (MA) Lookup service: register & discover services Authentication Transformation of existing archives (e.g. IEPM) Resource protector: manages policy details Topology service: offers topo info on networks

Methodology Benefits Provide standard interchange format, allow users to focus on problem solving Easier to extend with new sub-components since standard documented APIs, allows evolution –E.g. MP tool developer can focus on tool operation and not worry about deployment Divide & conquer trouble shooting using Lookup & Topology services Easy to generate trouble reports with access to data in standard format Can scale to global size

Compare with Existing Measurement tool clients must be downloaded when needed, need experts, usually need server at remote end (implicit trust & security challenges) Network measurement projects (AMP, PingER, IEPM etc.) –Require installation, host to run on –Lack community involvement, little ownership (e.g. research team know more about site connectivity that site people, but not involved in trouble-shooting –Projects fade as funding ceases Net & system measurement projects (MonALISA) –Closed development effort, license requires sign of intellectual rights to Caltech, must rely on Caltech to incorporate new measurement tools –Lack of community involvement, and consensus may limit widespread ownership and deployment.

Where are we Now? perfSONAR consortium exists, includes many NRENs, active contributions from large segment of research community Set of protocol standards for interoperability A partially complete reference implementation Shortcomings: –Development of some important infrastructure still to be completed (e.g. authentication/authorization) –All existing services need work to turn into production quality, in particular to make easy to deploy Simple installation can take many hours, and is a big barrier to adoption

Next Steps Develop scalable, distributed, redundant Federated Lookup service (like DNS) Integrate common, existing authentication management into perfSONAR Design and build the Resource Protector to implement policy Provide specific, useful example diagnostic services as high quality examples (e.g. for traceroute, ping, one-way delay, SNMP, Layer-2 link services etc.) Provide a Topology service to provide layer-2 & 3 interconnection information Promote perfSONAR to research community –Students get reliable data from perfSONAR, request on demand measurements, provide new analyses

Impact Science Science relies on reliable networking. –Debugging problems across domains extraordinarily difficult today, Increased switched networks will make harder. –PerfSONAR enables divide and conquer between end & intermediate points: provides access to relevant data, enables on demand measurements reduces need to coordinate multi-domain admins (scientist > local net admin > Regional net admin Backbone admin > …), telephone tag, explaining Reduces participants, hours, days, frustration etc

Impact Net Research Network researchers can build, deploy tools to capture analyze net behavior more easily: –No need for login to test boxes, approval from sysadmin to run servers Handled by authentication, Resource Protector service –Common data exchange formats enables access to archives

Impact Education PerfSONAR eases bringing net into classroom, can interrogate, run measurements etc. Incorporate perfSONAR infrastructure components into learning process. Analyze archived data (do not have to rely on goodwill of end users) Early prototypes of perfSONAR components featured in UDel CS courses –Excellent pedagogical vehicle for distributed systems –Develop perfSONAR plugins

Benefits Better understanding of customer experience and needs: –utilization, use patterns, event detection, problem diagnosis, planning Development of better measurement tools, analysis, visualization Pakistan part of major international community of NRENs –In Europe, U.S. and S. America Pakistan research & education access to data to analyze

Benefits SLAC Extend tools to a new country/NREN Extend diagnosis (important for LHC/Pak collab) Increased resources for tool development, analysis

Benefits Education Proven track record –6 students, all will return to Pakistan –3 at SLAC now –1 In Silicon valley start-up, 1 in Oxford, 1 returned to NIIT to pursue PhD Students get exposure to National Lab and world leading researchers Courses at Stanford Hands on exposure to production high speed networks such as are planned for Pakistan

More information/Questions Acknowledgements: –Harvey Newman and ICFA/SCIC for a raison d’etre, ICTP for contacts and education on Africa, Mike Jensen for Africa information, NIIT/Pakistan, Maxim Grigoriev (FNAL), Warren Matthews (GATech) for ongoing code development for PingER, USAID MoST/Pakistan for development funding, SLAC for support for ongoing management/operations support of PingER PingER –www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger, sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.htmlwww-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.html Human Development – Role of Internet Exchanges –event-africa- networking.web.cern.ch/event%2Dafrica%2Dnetworking/workshop/slides/The% 20Role%20of%20Internet%20Exchanges.pptevent-africa- networking.web.cern.ch/event%2Dafrica%2Dnetworking/workshop/slides/The% 20Role%20of%20Internet%20Exchanges.ppt Case Studies: – Sahara+Case+Studyhttps://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Sub- Sahara+Case+Study –