Performance Update

1. Performance Update Eric Boyd Director of Performance Architecture and Technologies Internet2

2. Network support of Science • Science is a global community • Networks links scientists • Collaborative research occurs across network boundaries • For the scientist, the value of the network is the achieved network performance • Scientists should not have to focus on the network; good end-to-end performance should be a given

3. Large Hadron Collider • International Physics facility located in CERN Switzerland • Major US involvement • 2 major US data repositories (PetaBytes/year) • 17 US Institutions provide data analysis and storage • 68 Universities and National Laboratories with scientists looking at the data • Dedicated transatlantic networks connect US to CERN • Advanced network services required over existing campus, connector/regional, and national networks

4. Achieving Good End-to-End Performance • Internet2 consists of: • Campuses • Regional networks • Internet2 backbone network • Our members care about connecting with: • Other members • Government labs & networks • International partners • The Internet2 community cares about making all of this work

5. Talk to the other guys No other complaints Everything is AOK System Administrator LAN Administrator LAN Administrator System Administrator Campus Networking Campus Networking Backbone Gigapop Gigapop Identifying the Problem Hey, this is not working right! Others are getting in ok Not our problem Applications Developer Applications Developer The computer Is working OK Looks fine All the lights are green How do you solve a problem along a path? We don’t see anything wrong The network is lightly loaded

6. Status Quo • Performance is excellent across backbone networks • Performance is a problem end-to-end • Problems are concentrated towards the edge and in network transitions • We need to: • Diagnose: Understand limits of performance • Address: Work with members and application communities to address those performance issues

7. Vision: Performance Information is … • Available • People can find it (Discovery) • “Community of trust” allows access across administrative domain boundaries (AA) • Ubiquitous • Widely deployed (Paths of interest covered) • Reliable (Consistently configured correctly) • Valuable • Actionable (Analysis suggests course of action) • Automatable (Applications act on data)

8. e-VLBI Network

9. eVLBI Result • Use of integrated network monitoring helped to enable identification of bottleneck (hardware fault) • Automated monitoring allowed view of network throughput variation over time • Highlights route changes, network outages • Automated monitoring also helps to highlight any throughput issues at end points: • E.g. Network Interface Card failures, Untuned TCP Stacks • Integrated monitoring provides overall view of network behavior at a glance

10. Goal: No more mystery … • Increase network awareness • Set user expectations accurately • Reduce diagnostic costs • Performance problems noticed early • Performance problems addressed efficiently • Network engineers can see & act outside their turf • Transform application design • Incorporate network intuition into application behavior

11. Strategy: Build & Empower the Community Decouple the Problem Space: • Analysis and Visualization • Performance Data Sharing • Performance Data Generation Grow the Footprint: • Clean APIs and protocols between each layer • Widespread deployment of measurement infrastructure • Widespread deployment of common performance measurement tools

12. Tactics: Leverage position • Internet2 is leveraged to help provide diagnostic information for “backbone” portion of problem • Create *some* diagnostic tools • Make Abilene data as public as is reasonable • Work on efforts to more widely make performance data available (perfSONAR) • Contribute to ‘base’ perfSONAR development • Integrate ‘our’ diagnostic tools as ‘good’ example of perfSONAR services

13. From the scientist’s perspective On behalf of the scientist, network engineer or application can easily/automatically: • Discover additional monitoring resources • Authenticate locally • Authorized to use remote network resources to a limited extent • Acquire performance monitoring data from remote sites via standard protocol • Innovate where needed • Customize the analysis and visualization

14. Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative (E2Epi) • Includes: • Internet2 staff • Internet2 members • Federal partners • International partners • Building: • Performance monitoring tools • Performance middleware frameworks • Performance improvement tools

15. Support for E2Epi • Funded out of network revenues • Partnerships • Leveraging GÉANT2, ESnet, and RNP resources through consortium leadership • Grants • NSF Apps - Targeted Assistance and Instrumentation for Internet2 Applications • NSF SGER - Leveraging Internet2 Facilities for the Network Research Community • NSF SGER2 - Network Measurement for International Connections • NSF BTG - Bridging the Gap: End-to-End Networking for Landmark Applications • NLM Pilot - User Experience with the High Performance Internet Infrastructure: Critical Incidents of Success and Failure • NLM NDT - Enhancing the Web 100-based Network Diagnostic Tool

16. Performance Tools • Diagnosis • Throughput (BWCTL) • One-Way Delay (OWAMP) • Top 10 Problems in First Mile (NDT) • Solutions • Alternate congestion control (VFER) • Partition the session (Phoebus)

17. Network Performance Toolkit (NPToolkit) • Knoppix (v5.0) based Live-CD • Automatically starts 4 E2E performance tools with usable default configurations • BWCTL • NDT • NPAD • OWAMP • Easy customization scripts allows admin tailor system to site needs

18. Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) • New Simple Firewall Test added • Google Summer of Code project • Detects blocked ephemeral ports on server and client • New IPv6 address support • General code cleanup • Virginia Tech contribution • Client’s location can be plotted on map

19. OWAMP: One-Way Active Measurement Protocol • What is it? • Measures one-way latency: 1-way ping • Control connection used to broker test request based upon policy restrictions and available resources. (Bandwidth/disk limits) • Specification • http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4656.txt

20. OWAMP Flow Diagram

21. What’s New? (1) • Protocol status: RFC 4656 • IANA allocated port: 861 • Authentication/Authorization changes • Uses HMAC-SHA1 for message validation • Uses PBKDF2 for AES session key creation • keys are now session specific and dynamically generated from passphrases.

22. What’s New? (2) • Powstream is now a full supported application with documentation • As always - more bug fixes and ports • Details in the distribution

23. Availability • 3.0a release available • Source tarball • Supported release out in the next month after more extensive testing on Abilene measurement hosts • Supported releases will also be provided as RPM’s with many thanks to GA-TECH

24. Bulk Transport: Killer App • Q: What do we need fat pipes for? • A: Bulk Transport • Flavors: • Straightforward huge file transfer • Interactive high throughput • Instrument data transfer • Poor Performance (~3 Mb/s performance where we should have ~60-100 Mb/s) • #1 Reason for poor performance: Transport Protocols

25. VFER – Bulk Transport Tool • Command-line remote copy tool • SCP-style interface • Easy to use on today’s advanced networks • Download, make, install • Portable (no kernel mods) • Out-of-the-box performance • Tolerate minor non-congestive packet loss • Both static file transfer and interactive applications • Runs over UDP • TCP-friendly

26. VFER – Current Status • Alpha release v0.98 (http://vfer.internet2.edu) • Working, not polished, delay-based congestion control • SSH-based security

27. Network Performance Measurement Workshops • Example Course Materials: • http://e2epi.internet2.edu/npw/presentations.html Goals: • Grow installed base of BWCTL/Iperf, OWAMP, and NDT at GigaPoP and regional campuses. • http://e2epi.internet2.edu/pipes/pmp/pmp-dir.html • Begin integration into IT support processes. • Create an installed base for perfSONAR deployment. • Teach Internet2 community to use performance tools.

28. Bridging the Gap • Multi-discipline team addressing 2 major issues • Reset user expectations • 10 Mbytes per second is ‘acceptable’ • Problem resolution takes too long • Better tools and self-guided documentation to improve troubleshooting • Documentation that can be used by both novice and expert

29. Getting There: Build & Empower the Community Decouple the Problem Space: • Analysis and Visualization • Performance Data Sharing • Performance Data Generation Grow the Footprint: • Clean APIs and protocols between each layer • Widespread deployment of measurement infrastructure • Widespread deployment of common performance measurement tools

30. What is perfSONAR? • Performance Middleware • perfSONAR is an international consortium in which Internet2 is a founder and leading participant • perfSONAR is a set of protocol standards for interoperability between measurement and monitoring systems • perfSONAR is a set of open source web services that can be mixed-and-matched and extended to create a performance monitoring framework

31. perfSONAR Design Goals • Standards-based • Modular • Decentralized • Locally controlled • Open Source • Extensible • Applicable to multiple generations of network monitoring systems • Grows “beyond our control” • Customized for individual science disciplines

32. perfSONAR Integrates • Network measurement tools • Network measurement archives • Discovery • Authentication and authorization • Data manipulation • Resource protection • Topology

33. perfSONAR is a joint effort: ESnet GÉANT2 JRA1 Internet2 RNP ESnet includes: ESnet/LBL staff Fermilab Internet2 includes: University of Delaware Georgia Tech SLAC Internet2 staff GÉANT2 JRA1 includes: Arnes Belnet Carnet Cesnet CYNet DANTE DFN FCCN GRNet GARR ISTF PSNC Nordunet (Uninett) Renater RedIRIS Surfnet SWITCH perfSONAR Credits

34. R&E Networks Internet2 ESnet GÉANT2 European NRENs RNP Application Communities LHC GLORIAD Distributed Virtual NOC Roll-out to other application communities in 2007 Distributed Development Individual projects (10 before first release) write components that integrate into the overall framework Individual communities (5 before first release) write their own analysis and visualization software perfSONAR Adoption

35. More Information • Eric Boyd • eboyd@internet2.edu • 734-352-7032 • http://e2epi.internet2.edu/ • http://www.perfsonar.net/