1. The Campus as key to Internet2 Engineering
San Diego
Guy Almes
4 December 2000

2. Outline of Talk Internet2 Engineering Objectives
The Logic of End-to-End Performance
Our Aspirations
Threats to these Aspirations
Promising Approaches to Success
The Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative

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

4. The End to End Challenge
Support advanced networking end to end
Performance
100 Mb/s across the country normative
several multiples possible in some cases
Functionality
Multicast
Quality of Service
IPv6
Measurements

5. What are our Aspirations?
Candidate Answer #1: Switched 100BaseT + Well-provisioned Internet2 networking ® 80 Mb/s
But user expectations and experiences vary widely

6. What are our Aspirations?
Candidate Answer #2: Lower user expectations and minimize complaining phone calls
There is a certain appeal I suppose...

7. What are our Aspirations?
Candidate Answer #3: Raise expectations, encourage aggressive use, deliver on performance/functionality to key constituencies.
Not the easy way, but necessary for success

8. Why should we Care? Advanced faculty needs:
Effective access to remote facility: quickly move large datasets. PPDG: 400 Mb/s to CERN by 2003.
Interactive access: video or control or VoIP. Very low loss/jitter.
We (in several senses) need to deliver the goods.

9. Why should we Care? "We" as the university community.
"We" as campus networking specialists.
"We" as networking professionals.
"We" as the (broad) Internet2 project.
Low aspirations are dangerous to us.

10. Abilene core November 2000 Seattle New York Cleveland Indianapolis
Sacramento
Denver
Washington
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Atlanta
Houston

11. Abilene Connections by (roughly) YE 2000

12. International Peering
Seattle
CA*net3, (AARnet)
STAR TAP
APAN/TransPAC, CA*net3, IUCC, NORDUnet, RENATER, REUNA, SURFnet, SingAREN, SINET, TAnet2 CERnet, (HARnet)
OC12
New York
DANTE*,
JANET,
NORDUnet, SURFnet CA*net3
Sunnyvale
(SINET)
Los Angeles
SingAREN, SINET
OC3-12
San Diego
CUDI
Miami
(REUNA, RNP2, RETINA)
El Paso
(CUDI)

13. The Current Situation
We have a combined Internet2 infrastructure of considerable capacity
examples of 240 Mb/s flows
End to end performance varies widely
but 40 Mb/s flows not always predictable
users don't know what their expectations should be
Note the mismatch

14. The Current Situation
We have a combined Internet2 infrastructure of considerable capacity
examples of 240 Mb/s flows
End to end performance varies widely
but 40 Mb/s flows not always predictable
users don't know what their expectations should be
Note the mismatch

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

16. Threats to End to End Performance
Network Path
local / department / campus
gigaPoP / backbone / exchange points
Host problems
OS / TCP
Hardware: NIC, CPU, memory, bus
Application

17. Threats to End to End Performance
Fiber problems
dirty fiber
dim lighting
'not quite right' connectors

18. Threats to End to End Performance
Fiber problems
Switches
horsepower
full vs half-duplex
auto-sense 10/100
head-of-line blocking

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

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

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

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

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

24. Active Measurements within Abilene
Surveyors with:
Active delay/loss measurements
Ad hoc throughput tests

25. Application to Performance Debugging

26. Application to Performance Debugging

27. Divide and Conquer
Systematically identify/isolate the network segment at fault
Can we make this systematic and (eventually) automated?

28. End to End Advanced Functionality
Multicast
IPv6
QoS

29. Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative
Distributed measurement infrastructure
Teams of performance analysis specialists (PERTs)
Dissemination of best practices

30. Defining End-to-End Success Metrics
Identify core applications / services
high-performance TCP
VoIP / videoconferencing
pervasive native IP multicast
Scope
How pervasive is it supported across the campus?
Timeliness
When are these metrics achieved?

31. Anticipated Partners NLANR Web100 Abilene partners
Leading campuses and gigaPoPs
Internet2 corporate partners

32. Initiative Phases 1st Gear 2nd Gear: Early Adopters Phase
Preparation, planning, early experiments
2nd Gear: Early Adopters Phase
Partner with selected campus
Develop PERTs, Measurement Infrastructure, etc.
Build tools, resources, and best practices
Expect RFP in late January 2001
3rd Gear: Dissemination
Increasingly pervasive PERTs, infrastructure

33. Creating Internet2 Value
Build the infrastructure together
Make end-to-end performance and advanced functionality routine
Identify and connect valuable resources for our faculty and students
Have fun