Cabo: Concurrent Architectures are Better than One Nick Feamster, Georgia Tech Lixin Gao, UMass Amherst Jennifer Rexford, Princeton

2 Today: ISPs Serve Two Roles Infrastructure providers: Maintain routers, links, data centers, other physical infrastructure Service providers: Offer services (e.g., layer 3 VPNs, performance SLAs, etc.) to end users Role 1: Infrastructure ProvidersRole 2: Service Providers No single party has control over an end-to-end path.

3 Coupling Causes Problems Deployment stalemates: Secure routing, multicast, etc. –Focus on incremental deployability cripples us Shrinking profits and commoditization: ISPs cannot enhance end-to-end service –No single ISP has purview over an entire path As of 5:30 am EDT, October 5 th, [2005], Level(3) terminated peering with Cogent without cause…even though both Cogent and Level(3) remained in full compliance …We are extending a special offering to single homed Level 3 customers. Cogent will offer any Level 3 customer, who is single homed to the Level 3 network on the date of this notice, one year of full Internet transit free of charge at the same bandwidth currently being supplied by Level 3. … How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe.. we have spent this capital and we have to have a return … there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. –Edward Witacre Peering Tiffs: End-to-end connectivity is in the balance

4 Proposal: Concurrent Architectures are Better than One (Cabo) The business entities that play these two roles may be the same in some cases Infrastructure providers: maintain physical infrastructure needed to build networks Service providers: lease slices of physical infrastructure from one or more providers

5 Similar Trends in Other Industries Commercial aviation –Infrastructure providers: Airports –Infrastructure: Gates, hands and eyes, etc. –Service providers: Airlines Other examples: Automobile industry SFO ATL BOS ORD

6 Communications Networks, Too! Packet Fabric: share routers at exchange points FON: resells users wireless Internet connectivity Infrastructure providers: Buy upstream connectivity, broker access through wireless Nomads: Users who connect to access points Service provider: FON as broker Two commercial examples Broker

7 Application #1: End-to-End Services Secure routing protocols Multi-provider VPNs Paths with end-to-end performance guarantees TodayCabo Competing ISPs with different goals must coordinate Single service provider controls end-to-end path

8 Application #2: Virtual Co-Location Problem: ISP/Enterprise wants presence in some physical location, but doesnt have equipment there. Today: Backhaul, or L3 VPN from single ISP Cabo: Lease a slice of anothers routers, links TokyoNYCATL

9 Challenge #1: Simultaneous Operation Problem: Service providers must share infrastructure Approach: Virtualize the infrastructure –Nodes (lessons from PlanetLab will help) –Links (previous lessons in QoS?) Tomorrows talk on VINI –Cabo will exploit many of the same functions that are needed for VINI –Cabo philosophy: virtualization is the architecture

10 Challenge #2: Substrate Problem: Service providers must be able to request physical infrastructure (infrastructure providers must be able to instantiate it) –Discovering physical infrastructure Decision elements (cf. 4D proposal) –Creating virtual networks Requests to decision elements (initially out of band), which name virtual network components –Instantiating virtual networks Challenges include embedding and accounting

11 Economics Questions Being a service provider: a great deal –Opportunity to add value by creating new services Infrastructure providers –Profit margins may be low –Back to CLEC/DSL battles? Who will become infrastructure providers?

12 Partial Wish List Router virtualization –Scheduling of node CPU, link bandwidth, etc. Programmable software in each slice –Service providers will customize Support for substrate –Out-of-band communication –Accounting features

13 Summary ISPs are infrastructure + service providers --- Problematic –Deployment stalemate –Commoditization Cabo: Concurrent Architectures are Better than One –Separate infrastructure from service providers Applications –Multi-provider VPNs, end-to-end services and protocols, … Challenges –Simultaneous operation –Bootstrapping More Information: