1. Network Control and Management Research at NC State
Rudra Dutta, CSC, NCSU
BEN Day presentation

2. Networking @ NC State Two departments, 25 faculty members
~12 regular graduate courses
Most accompanied by hands-on labs
Several special topic courses each year
Extensive research support
Many grants
Networking Technology Institute
A dedicated graduate level degree
First of its kind in the US
Business School involvement in MCN degree
Service engineering a new focus area

3. Testbeds Testbeds in support of networking research
Distinct from (teaching) labs
Distinct from networks supporting other research
Protocol research - Linux boxes, SmartBits boxes, Cisco switches (educational donations)
WiSeNeT - indoor sensor mesh, Soekris boards, MicaZ motes
Structural Health Monitoring - mechanical equipment from CFL, mica motes, fabricated sensor board
CentMesh - outdoor wireless mesh, Metrix boxes, Linux boxes, pushcarts (still in development)

4. Research NOT Enabled Optical communications research
Non-traditional wavelengths, modulations, ...
Optical networking
PHY informed network protocols
E.g. Impediment or switch-crosstalk aware routing
Grooming, survivability, ...
Control and management frameworks
Requiring ability to affect routing/forwarding at optical channel level
Problems: equipment too costly for academic researchers to procure; production equipment cannot be disrupted

5. Relevant Projects/Efforts
SILO (Services Integration, controL and Optimization)
SDO (Software Defined Optics)
Optical PHY
Photonic transmission and optimization systems
SOSI (Secure Open Systems Institute)
Recent effort
Bootstrapped by SOSI grant through ARO
Current foci: secure virtualization, secure transport of virtualized environment

6. The FIND Program Networking research aspect of GENI
“What will the edge of the network look like in 15 years? How might the network architecture of 15 years hence best accommodate sensors, embedded systems, and the like?”
“How might the network of 15 years from now support what users really do (and care about)? How might such functions as information access, location management or identity management best fit into a new overall network architecture?”
“What will the core of the network look like in 15 years? How might the changing economics of optical systems affect the overall design of the larger network?”

7. Are there any “right” protocols?
Are the current network protocols the right protocols?
Are there any “right” protocols?
Are the same protocols right for every application?
Every host? Every physical medium?
Is flexibility good?
If everything is flexible, is there “a network” left?
What is “a network”, anyway?
If change is (or is supposed to be) a way of life in the Internet, is anything ever “wrong” with it?
Can you really “design for change?”
Is it true that a community is smarter than any individuals, in the long run?

8. A Reconstructed Protocol Stack
App
Physical Channels
Transport
Network
Data Link
Physical
Physical Channels
App
silo &
service
mgmt
Composability
Constraints
m11
m11
m13
m21
m31
m43
m62
m61
Cross-
Service
Tuning
m31
m21
m42
Tuning
strategies,
hints
m62

9. A Big Picture Stratified Network - Graded Entry
“Transport in layers, control and secure across layers”
Single Point of Policy and Certification
Control Agent
Need-based
per-flow stacks
Generic Authentication
Composable Service with Control Interface
Portable Configuration
Redundant Path Delivery
??? (Future Service)
Smooth integration of evolving security

10. Service Composition Ontology of services Composition
Constraints on composition
Relations - “requires”, “not / above” “not / immediately above”
Application provides some service requirements
“Need encryption”
Composition
Find a permissible ordering for (expanded) set of services
Later - ontology as a repository for :
Recipes, policies, tuning strategies, reasoning about performance effects

11. Composition Problem Given a set of essential services
“Unary required”, specified by application
Obtain a valid ordering of these and additional services
Or identify conflicts with constraints
Simple approach
Start with any service
Within essential set if possible
Perform allowed compositions
Stop when impossible to proceed - check satisfaction of essential constraints
High complexity
Essential complexity - NP?
Undecidable with repetition?
Some results - Any one ordering constraint (together with Requires) is polynomial
But reduces to special cases of very short stacks
m11 s1
m52
m32 s2
m21
m42 s3
m42 s4
m42

12. Software Architecture
class SILO_API {
public:
SILO_API() {
//silo_id = 0;
_request_id_init=0; }
//build up a set of requires/forbids constraints
//such as: APP requires/forbids services A->B->C->NULL
ERROR_CODE create_required_srv (int request_id, list<srv_ID> srv_list);
ERROR_CODE create_forbidden_srv (int request_id, list<srv_ID> srv_list);
ERROR_CODE release_request(int request_id);
//... };
App
// register a silo, load the needed DSOs
RecipeId RegisterRecipe(const string &recipe);
// remove a recipe
void DestroyRecipe(const RecipeId &recipeId);
// create a new silo given a recipe ID
SiloId CreateSilo(const RecipeId &recipeId);
// delete a silo
void DestroySilo(const SiloId &siloId);
RecipeId GetRecipeIdForSilo(const SiloId &siloId);
SILO Management
Method
silo
SILO Construction
// manages a collection of silos and passes data through them
class SiloManager {
public:
typedef unsigned int RecipeId;
typedef unsigned int SiloId;
static SiloManager &Instance();
// process data
void ProcessTxBuffer(const SiloId &siloId, unsigned char *buf);
void ProcessRxBuffer(const SiloId &siloId, unsigned char *buf);
class SILO_Knob {
public:
SILO_Knob() { ; }
inline int get_max() {return _knob_intf.nMax;}
inline int get_value() {return _knob_intf.nValue;}
inline bool set_value(int nValue) {
_knob_intf.nValue = nValue;
return true; }
//... };
SILO Tuning
Ontology of Services,
Composability Constraints,
Recipes, Tuning Strategies

13. Software Defined Optics
Optical substrate can no longer be viewed as black box
Collection of intelligent and programmable resources:
optical monitoring, sensing mechanisms
amplifiers, impairment compensation devices
tunable optical splitters
configurable add-drop
programmable mux-demux (e.g., adjust band size)
adjustable slot size
Impairment-aware routing
Traffic grooming
Network resiliency
Enabled by the SILO control/management framework

14. Summary Relevant networking research at NC State
Can benefit from experimental work
Interest from State researchers