FEDERICA status and achievements Mauro Campanella GARR TNC 2009, June 9 th Malaga, Spain

2 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA at a glance What:European Community co-funded project in its 7 th Framework Program in the area Capacities - Research Infrastructures, 3.7 MEuro EC contribution, 461 PMs When:1 st January June 2010 (30 months) Who:20 partners, based on stakeholders on network research and management: 11 National Research and Education Networks, DANTE (GÉANT2), TERENA, 4 Universities, Juniper Networks, 1 small enterprise (MARTEL), 1 research centre (i2CAT) - Coordinator: GARR (Italian NREN) Where:Europe-wide e-Infrastructure, open to external connections

3 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA Vision An e-Infrastructure based on virtualization in both computers and network is a fundamental tool for researchers on Future (and current) Internet. The facility should allow researchers a complete control of their set of resources in a slice, enabling disruptive experiments at all communication layers. Particular care should be placed in reproducibility of the experiments and in the avoidance of complexity. Such e-Infrastructure can be built on existing infrastructures using a practical approach and should be able to federate with other facilities.

4 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA: an e-Infrastructure on NRENS e-Infrastructures Router/Switch Host for Virtual nodes Raw Ethernet 1Gbps (Fiber later)

5 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Infrastructure Status 1 Gbps Ethernet GARR IT DFN DE CESNET CZ SWITCH CH Red.es ES GRNET ICCS GR Hungarnet HU PSNC PL HEAnet IE i2CAT ES KTH SE NORDUN ET SUNET FCCN PT Each core PoP is equipped with a switch/router (Juniper) and two or more V-Nodes

6 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Project Timeline Slices Jan 2008 June 2009 Jun 2010 Month 11

7 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga From physical to virtual Virtual Internet

8 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga The Core Substrate - HW Switch:Juniper MX480, Dual CPU, 1 line card with 32 ports at 1Gb Ethernet. Virtual and logical routing, MPLS, VLANs, IPv4, IPv6, 2 of the 4 line cards have hardware QoS capabilities) V-Nodes:each is a 2 x Quad core 2GHz, 32GB RAM, 8 network interfaces, 2x500GB disks, Virtualization SW FEDERICA substrate

9 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga The Core Substrate - IP Management plane defined as an IP Autonomous System: AS: 47630(public, no transit, peers with GARR, PSNC which announce the AS to GN2 and General Internet) active IP v4: /23(public addresses) active IP v6:2001:760:3801::/48 (public) (to be configured soon) FEDERICA substrate NRENs and Global Internet

10 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Pictorial of creation of a Slice The user requests an Infrastructure made of L2 circuits, un-configured virtual nodes, to test a new BGP version. Creation of: 1. user credentials and authentication and a Slice 2. Virtual Gateway (in red) to bridge the user from outside into the slice 3. Create resources and connect them as specified by the user FEDERICA substrate (only CORE is shown) NRENs and Global Internet

11 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Offering Slices for any Research Using Virtualization technologies the FEDERICA e-Infrastructure creates slices composed by virtual resources (circuits, nodes, routers) FEDERICA substrate (only core is shown) Global Internet The slices are configured according to users requests Possible use cases: - new routing protocols - behavior on the network of distributed applications - Inter-domain services

12 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA vs. other projects Project:Onelab2/ Planetlab EmulabFEDERICA Operating systemfixed User choice (almost any) Control of lower layers Noemulationcontrol down to raw Ethernet IPMandatoryused to connect then emulation Used to connect, then not needed Physical delay and capacity choice NoemulationYes (up to 1 Gb) guarantees of reproducibility NoemulationYes User access limits Almost none, at any time regulated by a User Policy Board Costlimitednone Scalabilitymediumlargelimited

13 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga The User Policy Board tasks -First contact point for users: -advises and clarifies initial questions and points to / clarifies issues in the compilation of the requested documents (User Information kit) -Receives the official requests from users and evaluates technically (not scientifically !) the proposals (with the support of technical experts) -Ensures the implementation of slices according to agreed schedule -Follows a user with a dedicated FEDERICA person through the user project lifetime -Receives user feedback

14 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Users The project had its launch event end of November We have the current users / projects ongoing approved: - Onelab and monitoring testing (ELTE Hungary) - Openflow tests (Stanford, Germany, Sweden, Italy) - Monitoring (Czech Rep. - Internal) - PHOSPHORUS project Pending requests from Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany Many requests for interconnection capabilities between initiatives and laboratories and some requests for optical testing

15 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Federating FEDERICA We should differentiate between various forms of federation: 1.integrated ( the facilities can be used as one with a inter-domain common control plane) 2.partially integrated (only part of the control is exchanged, e.g. calendar, AAA information) 3.overlay (each facility just uses the services of the other without a common control plane, just a data plane, there is an exchange of information related to monitoring, faults, and so on) All these possibilities present challenges …

16 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA Data and Control Plane Physical Layer substrate Data Link layer substrate Network Layer substrate NRENs and Global Internet Fibre and Copper Ethernet IPv4 (and v6), AS snmp monitoring Access protocol : initially paper due to need for scheduling, security and technical agreements (no first come, first serve policy). Next step may be based on SOA (need standard representation of resources) Control plane is not fully automated and it is a set of tools and manual configuration (due to the combined network and system resources)

17 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Slice Data and Control Plane Physical Layer substrate Data Link layer substrate Network Layer substrate NRENs and Global Internet SLICE Physical Layer SLICE Data Link layer SLICE Network Layer SLICE Application Layer Fibre and Copper Ethernet IPv4 (and v6), AS May host any control plane Basic Data Plane is IP Fibre and Copper Ethernet

18 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Federating FEDERICA (cont) Having a common control plane in a multidomain environment is very difficult, as it places many constraints to each facility (in time, technology and developments). Need to develop standard resources representation schemas for virtual resources and virtual resource sets to exchange services. The inter-facility exchange of information and synchronization between facilities has to scale gracefully. The Intra-facility control plane is complex, due to resource scheduling and resources mapping from virtual topology (slice) to physical topology, especially if reproducibility or guarantees are mandated.

19 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga FEDERICA - Onelab2 pre-federation FEDERICA substrate NRENs and Global Internet Onelab Slice OneLab nodes can be hosted in a slice. Those node have full control of their network interface and circuits up to the egress from FEDERICA into General Internet. The slice can contain also a OneLab router

20 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga Conclusions An infrastructure based on virtualization, network and computing resources can offer a very useful platform for innovation and research at many (if not all) communication layers and can be realized on existing facilities. The physical resources functionalities and infrastructure engineering should ensure the functionality to guarantee thequality of the virtualization for reproducibility. Federation is of outmost importance (e.g. to access new technologies and to ensure a larger facility), but has many facets and complexities. A practical approach through a supportive or pre-federation is advised.

21 TNC 2009, June 9th Malaga References FEDERICA: NRENs: GÉANT2: