Internet2 Engineering Issues IBM T J Watson :: Hawthorne Guy Almes 25 July 2001

Internet2 Engineering Objectives A Provide our universities with superlative networking: • Performance • Functionality • Understanding A Make superlative networking strategic for university research and education

Engineering: Advanced Functionality A Multicast A IPv6 A QoS A Measurements A Support for End-to-End Performance

Internet2 Multicast A Multicast Working Group • Kevin Almeroth, Univ California Santa Barbara, chair A Encouraging more pervasive high-quality deployment of native IP multicast throughout the Internet2 infrastructure A Fighting fires A Keeping an eye on SSM A Clarifying the application story

Internet2 Multicast Architecture A PIM-SparseMode • multicast routing within an Autonomous System • quite scalable • notion of rendezvous points A MBGP • between Autonomous Systems A MSDP • Source Discovery

Longer-term WG Issues A Scalability (what happens if it does catch on?) A Exploring the role of Source-Specific Multicast

Could SSM be Enough? A 'Classic' Multicast • Group has global significance • A user creates, joins, sends to g • Others can join, then send to and/or listen to g • MBGP, PIM-SM, MSDP triad A Source Specific Multicast • Group has local significance • A user 's' creates, sends to • Others can subscribe to, then list to • No need for MSDP (or allocation of values)

Implications of SSM A Simplify Multicast Routing / Addressing • No need for global class-D address allocation • No need for source discovery A Complicates 'few-to-few' applications • Define all the members of the application-level group • Both a burden and an opportunity A Allows better Security, Scalability A Requires new version of IGMP

Multicast Summary A Full functionality supported now A Deployment steadily increasing A Some international peering, e.g., CA*net3 A Performance excellent A Scalability? A Applications?

Internet2 IPv6 A IPv6 Working Group • Dale Finkelson, Univ Nebraska, chair A Build the Internet2 IPv6 infrastructure A Educate campus network engineers to support IPv6 A Explore the Motivation for IPv6 within the Internet2 community

IPv6 Infrastructure A vBNS and Abilene both support IPv6 A Abilene IPv6 with IPv6/IPv4 • Four 'backbone' nodes: Cisco 7200 " Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Denver, and Indianapolis • Managed by the Abilene NOC A IPv6 WG: address allocation and engineering coordination

Education / Training Goals A IPv6 hands-on workshop • Lincoln, Nebraska; 17 May 2001 • starting from scratch, build an IPv6 network, including routers, hosts, DNS tools and various transition tools, ending up with a functional IPv6 network fully interconnected to the global Internet. A Materials from this workshop will be available to enable gigaPoPs and others to use in their own workshops.

Explore IPv6 Motivation A Why should our users, campus decision- makers, and community generally care about IPv6? • IPv6 preserves the classic end-to-end transparency of the Internet architecture • improved support for mobility • key for IPsec • key for the scalability of the Internet A The answers must be pragmatic.

Engineering: End-to-End Performance

The Current Situation A Our universities have access to an infrastructure of considerable capacity • examples of 240 Mb/s flows A End-to-end performance varies widely • but 40 Mb/s flows not always predictable • users don't know what their expectations should be A Note the mismatch

Threats to End to End Performance A BW = C x packet-size / ( delay x sqrt(packet-loss )) (Mathis, Semke, Mahdavi, and Ott, CCR, July 1997) A Context: • Network capacity • Geographical distance • Aggressive application

Threats to End to End Performance A Fiber problems • dirty fiber • dim lighting • 'not quite right' connectors

Threats to End to End Performance A Fiber problems A Switches • horsepower • full vs half-duplex • head-of-line blocking

Threats to End to End Performance A Fiber problems A Switches A Inadvertently stingy provisioning • mostly communication • happens also in international settings

Threats to End to End Performance A Fiber problems A Switches A Inadvertently stingy provisioning A Wrong Routing • asymmetric • best use of Internet2 • distance

Threats to End to End Performance A Fiber problems A Switches A Inadvertently stingy provisioning A Wrong Routing A Host issues • NIC • OS / TCP stack • CPU

Perverse Result A 'Users' think the network is congested or that the Internet2 infrastructure cannot help them A 'Planners' think the network is underutilized, no further investment needed, or that users don't need high performance networks

Promising Approaches A Work with key motivated users A 'Shining a flashlight' on the problem A Measurements A Divide-and-Conquer A Understanding Application Behavior A Getting it right the first time

Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative A Very recently hired / deployed staff • Cheryl Munn-Fremon, initiative director • Russ Hobby, chief technical architect • George Brett, chief information architect A $1.5M budgeted by Internet2

Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative A Distributed measurement infrastructure • Enable rapid effective understanding of why an instance of end-to-end performance is limited • Make the work of PERF participants rewarding • Enable initiation of tests by PERF participants A Teams of performance analysis specialists (PERF) A Dissemination of best practices

Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative A Distributed measurement infrastructure A Teams of performance analysis specialists (PERF) • members at campuses, gigaPoPs, backbones • socially and technically coordinated • committed to effecting radical change A Dissemination of best practices

Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative A Distributed measurement infrastructure A Teams of performance analysis specialists (PERF) A Dissemination of best practices • Identify key techniques, tools, and 'best practices' • Make them common • Work toward widespread / routine excellent user experiences • Improve the reputation / status of network engineers

Anticipated Partners A NLANR: DAST, MOAT, and NCNE A Web100 Project A Abilene partners A Leading campuses and gigaPoPs A Internet2 corporate members

Access to Key Resources A Optical telescopes in Hawaii A CRAFT Project A PACI Supercomputer Facilities A CERN