 End to End Performance Initiative 1 October 2001 EDUCAUSE October 2000 Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative or Fat Pipes Are Not Enough Copyright George H. Brett and Cheryl Munn-Fremon, This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author. 

What is Internet2? A project of the university community working with our corporate colleagues and government to close the gap between the potential and reality of the Internet

Internet2 187 University Members Over 70 Internet2 Corporate Members Over 40 Affiliate Members Over 30 International Partners

Internet2 Mission Develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow’s Internet.

Why University Leadership? The Internet originated in the higher education community Stanford – the Internet protocols NSFNet – the scaled-up Internet CERN – The WWW protocols University of Illinois – the Web browser Universities require an advanced Internet and have demonstrated they can develop new Internet capabilities

People on the Internet Source: Nua Internet Surveys Millions of People

Why Internet2? The Internet was not designed for: Millions of users Congestion Multimedia Real time interaction But, only the Internet can: Accommodate explosive growth Enable convergence of information work, mass media, and human collaboration

Today’s Internet Doesn’t Provide reliable end-to-end performance Encourage cooperation on new capabilities Allow testing of new technologies Support development of revolutionary applications

Advanced Applications Distributed computation Virtual laboratories Digital libraries Distributed learning Digital video Tele-immersion All of the above in combination

Anatomy and Surgery Workbench and Local NGI Testbed Network  Allows students to learn anatomy and practice surgery techniques using 3-D workstations  Network testbed evaluates the effectiveness of workbench applications Stanford University School of Medicine

Real-Time Tele-Operation of Remote Equipment  Computerized excavation backhoe  Remotely operated, used in hazardous situations  Quality of Service is Guaranteed North Carolina State University

Remote Mentoring and Auditioning  First orchestra to become an Internet2 member  Distance coaching to train musicians  Real-time, high- quality audio and video New World Symphony

Internet2 Network Infrastructure Today Backbones operate at 2.4 Gbps (OC48) capacity today GigaPoPs provide regional high- performance aggregation points Local campus networks provide 100 Mbps to the desktop

Internet2 Backbone Networks Donna Cox, Robert Patterson, NCSA

Internet2 Abilene Backbone Connections 200 leading-edge universities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico 37 Research and education networks in other countries 14 state education networks

Abilene International Peering CHICAGO/STAR TAP APAN/TransPAC, Ca*net3, CERN, CERnet, GEMnet, IUCC, KOREN/KREONET2, MIRnet, NORDUnet, RENATER, SURFnet, SingAREN, SINET, TAnet2 (ANSP, RNP2) OC12 NYCM BELNET, CA*net3, HEANET, JANET, NORDUnet, SURFnet, TEN-155* SEA/SNNAP AARNET, CA*net3 (TANET2, TransPAC) SNVA GEMNET (SingAREN, SINET,WIDE) LOSA SINET, UNINET AmPATH REUNA, RNP2 (RETINA) OC3 UT El Paso (CUDI) CALREN2 CUDI * ARNES, CARNET, CESnet, DFN, GRNET, HEAnet, RESTENA, SWITCH, HUNGARNET, GARR-B, POL-34, RCCN, RedIRIS 22 August 2001

Tomorrow’s Internet Billions of users and devices Convergence of today’s applications with multimedia (telephony, video-conference, HDTV) Support mission-critical applications Interconnect personal computers, servers, and embedded computers New technologies enable unanticipated applications and create new challenges

Internet2 December Gigabits per second backbone Optical transport capability (Lambda) using DWDM Flexible provisioning to support point to point optical connection Native IPv6 deployment concurrent with IPv4

What We Have Learned High performance infrastructure is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient of high performance network capability Middleware is required to scale up advanced network capabilities and applications The Internet marketplace is slow to deploy advanced capabilities The biggest challenges are organizational, not technological

What we are doing End-to-End Performance Initiative Internet2 Middleware Project Expanded Access

End-to-End Performance When it’s built can it deliver? The negative feedback loop Ensure that the infrastructure is delivering to its full potential Facilitate and coordinate communications

Context for E2E Performance High performance backbones are in place. Now, under certain conditions within particular regional and local network environments, we can experience the full benefit of this infrastructure in the development and use of advanced applications.

Context, cont. However, most of us experience a significant gap between the reality and potential of the national high- performance networking infrastructure.

The Mission To enable the researchers, faculty, students and staff who use high performance networks to obtain optimal performance from the current infrastructure on a consistent basis. Raw Connectivity Applications Performance

True End-to-End Experience User perception Application Operating system Host IP stack Host network card Local Area Network Campus backbone network Campus link to regional network/GigaPoP GigaPoP link to Internet2 national backbones International connections EYEBALL APPLICATION STACK JACK NETWORK...

First Step Workshop in Ann Arbor on 9 January, participants Each participant provided a short paper on “What does E2EPerformance Mean?” Planned agenda was not used in order to respond to more pressing issues from participants. Design team formed to create an overall vision paper.

Summary of Discussion Input focused on both technical and human factors: Developing people infrastructure to support performance initiatives Managing communications and managing expectations Developing the measurement architecture, analysis standards and deploying them consistently Creating clearer definitions of “performance”

Areas of the Initiative Applications Host/OS Tuning Measurement Infrastructure Performance Improvement Environment (PIE) Operations and Human Communications Performance Evaluation and Review Framework (PERF)

Applications Work with specific application communities to help solve their performance problems. Use a few key, general purpose applications for performance testing.

Host/OS Tuning Provide Best Practices for getting the most from your computer. Locate or build tools for Host/OS performance diagnostics. Work with computer vendors on Internet2 Performance Packages.

Measurement Infrastructure Bring together current measurement efforts and projects in the community. Establish an End-to-End Measurement Infrastructure from the intersection of these works. Create diagnostic tools to determine the health of the network and locate performance problems.

Operations and Human Communications Establish communications among common interest groups System administrators LAN administrators Campus NOCs GigaPoP Application support staff Establish communications between groups for operations and problem resolution.

Performance Improvement Environment (PIE) Develop a dynamic environment where collaboration and information sharing will happen. Identify, collect and disseminate appropriate information for end-to-end related issue. Include success stories,measurement statistics, reference materials, measurement tool documentation. Include pointers to materials already developed by other communities.

Performance Evaluation and Review Framework (PERF) Establish a framework for resolving performance problems Provide known solutions by using the PIE Tap community knowledge by facilitating group communications Coordinate a team of experts to solve hard problems

Internet2 Organization Role Staffing Cheryl Munn-Fremon, Initiative Director Russ Hobby, Technical Architect George Brett, Information Architect Lisa Wilberding, Communications Coordinator Terri Saarinen, Program Assistant

Internet2 Organization Role cont’d. Funding Facilitate seeking sources of funding Internet2 will invest about $1.5 million per year Communications coordination Web site Workshops, meeting presentations, …

E2E Performance Improvement Environment (pie) Performance Improvement Environment aka The Knowledge Base a repository a collaboratory living and archival documents connections to other resources

E2Epie – Background E2E Design Team White Paper: Called for “A web-based information system / knowledgebase… to function as a distributed document and resource repository.” Elements should include: documentation, training materials, information resources, downloadable tools, mechanisms for discussion groups, links to related resources, contact information

E2Epie – Background (continued) E2Epie principles and guidelines: Provide active leadership and facilitation. Build trust. Create an economics of recognition. Leverage existing resources. Think big and start small. Major components People to people (directories & collaboration space) People to content (directories of projects & tools, Case studies) Problems to solutions (knowledgebase, expertise connection)

E2Epie – Current Status Developing web site content to reflect recommendations of the Design Team and Consultant documents. Actively looking for supporting materials and resources to include in web site. Mail to:

E2Epie – next steps Begin collecting stories. Using interviews and other channels we will begin collecting stories about performance improvement issues. We will work with EDUCAUSE Effective Practices and Solutions database for publishing the E2Epi stories.Effective Practices and Solutions Identify and collect information about projects, resources, and tools. With help of Technical Advisory Group and other E2Epi participants we will make sure to have up-to-date and correct information. Explore resources and tools for collaboration efforts. Discussion forum:

Specific Action Examples Establish repositories for ‘Best Practices’, ‘War Stories’, and tools Deploy broad measurement capability Build client performance assessment tools Implement reference sites for interesting applications Establish a working relationship with specific applications communities and disciplines Develop online collaboration environments

Anticipated Partners Campuses Faculty and discipline communities GigaPoPs International partners NSF-sponsored engineering efforts NLANR, Web100 Project, Internet2 corporate members Federal labs and agencies

Calls For Participation Identify core applications and services Seek participants in the various work areas Seek stories and best practices Issue later this Fall

Success Criteria Community is involved and integrating what is learned Performance Improvement Environment (E2E pie ) provides satisfactory resources to the community Operational environment meets the needs of application users and supporters End-users understand what to expect and how to get it

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