FEDERICA: Federated e-Infrastructure supporting research experiments on new Internet architectures and protocols

1. FEDERICAFederated e-Infrastructure supporting research experiments on new Internet architectures and protocolsStatus and Experience Mauro Campanella - GARRmauro.campanella@garr.it TNC2010 - Vilnius 1st June 2010

2. FEDERICA brief overview, framework & architecture Infrastructure status Service model, reproducibility Initial analysis of users Challenges and conclusions Agenda

3. What: European Community co-funded project in its 7th Framework Program in the area “Capacities - Research Infrastructures”, 3.7 MEuro EC contribution, 461 Person Months When: 1st January 2008 - 34 October 2010 (30 months) Who: 20 partners, based on stakeholders on network research and management: 11 National Research and Education Networks, DANTE (GÉANT), TERENA, 4 Universities, Juniper Networks, 1 small enterprise (MARTEL), 1 research centre (i2CAT) - Coordinator: GARR (Italian NREN) Where: Europe-wide e-Infrastructure, open to external connections FEDERICA at a glance

4. FEDERICA • Deploy and manage an e-Infrastructure (FEDERICA) based on virtualization in bothcomputers and network elements as a fundamental tool/playground for researchers on current and Future Internet, its uses and technologies. • It allows researchers a complete control • of their set of resources (a “slice”), • poses a minimum number of cons- • traints and enables disruptive • experiments at all communication • layers over a realistic substrate. Virtual Infrastructures Router/Switch Host for Virtual nodes Particular focus is placed in reproducibility of the experiments and in the avoidance of complexity. FEDERICA Physical Infrastructure GÉANT and NRENs Infrastructure

5. FEDERICA Framework • The infrastructure requirements brought to 2 key framework choices for the infrastructure, at the core of design: • The simultaneous presence of computing and network physical resources. These resources form the substrate of the infrastructure. • The use of virtualization technologies applied both to computing and network resources. • Virtualization will allow creating virtual, un-configured resources. • Framework is compatible with the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) used in “clouds”, including network layers and it may offer other services (e.g. Platform aaS and Software aaS).

6. FEDERICA - Current Architecture • Two levels: • The virtualization substrate. The physical infrastructure which contains all the hardware and software capable to create the virtual resources. • The level containing all virtual infrastructures (slices). Each slice contains a set of virtual resources and their network topology. • Two elementary resource entities: • 1. Connectivity. In form of a bit pipe (point to point circuit) with or without capacity guarantees and with or without a data link protocol. • 2. A computing element and its attributes, offering the equivalent of a computer hardware containing at least RAM, CPU and one network interface, mass storage is optional. The computing element is capable of hosting various operating systems and perform also functionalities (e.g. routing). This differs from some “Clouds” where storage is considered an independent entity.

7. Virtual Infrastructures (slices) The Resources Router/Switch Host for Virtual nodes Raw Ethernet 1Gbps (Fiber later) Substrate Architectural layers (pictorial) • The first order slices are vertical to indicate that there is no hierarchy between them. Virtual resources in different slices may be created in the same physical resource.

8. FEDERICA brief overview, framework & architecture Infrastructure status Service model, reproducibility Initial analysis of users Challenges and conclusions Agenda

9. Infrastructure StatusUp and operational (with users) KTH SE SUNET NORDUNET DFN DE PSNC PL HEAnet IE GARR IT CESNET CZ SWITCH CH Red.es ES GRNET ICCS GR FCCN PT i2CAT ES Hungarnet HU All links are 1 Gbps Ethernet Each PoP hosts one or more large PC and a network switch/router

10. FEDERICA Core PoP Other FEDERICA PoPs INTERNET Out-Of-Band Terminal server GEANT FEDERICA V-Node FEDERICA Juniper MX480 BGP Peering NREN Production Network FEDERICA V-Node • Notes: • Each V-Node has 7+1network interfaces at 1 Gbps Ethernet • OOB is not mandatory Legenda 1 Gbps Ethernet RS-232

11. NRENs and Global Internet FEDERICA substrate The Core Substrate - HW and IP Router / Switch: Juniper MX480, Dual CPU, 1 line card with 32 ports at 1Gb Ethernet. Virtual and logical routing, MPLS, VLANs, IPv4, IPv6, 2 of the 4 line cards have hardware QoS packet-based capabilities V-Nodes: each is a 2 x Quad core AMD @ 2GHz, 32GB RAM, 7+1 1000/100/10 Ethernet NICs, 2x500GB disks, VMware ESXi 3.5 Single IP Autonomous System: AS 47630 : (public, no transit, the 4 core nodes peer with local NRENs which announce the AS to GN2 and Global Internet) active IP v4 active IPv6 (under tests)

12. Monitoring: the whole system G3 system from CESNET, including Nagios, enhanced (e.g. for QinQ). Monitors all circuits and nodes (> 50K entities monitored), all slices Dynamic interval time, usually in ‘relaxed’ mode (longer delay between measures) 12

13. 8 CPUs each 1775 MHz = 14,2 GHz

14. Substrate behavior Network circuits and nodes can use all available capacity. Systematic measurement are ongoing and results will be published for the substrate.

15. Substrate behavior - V-Nodes The current set-up of the slices ensures there is no overbooking and behaviour of V-Nodes is stable.

16. FEDERICA brief overview, framework & architecture Infrastructure status Service model, reproducibility Initial analysis of users Challenges and conclusions Agenda

17. The basic service model • The FEDERICA basic service is the creation of “virtual infrastructures” with full user control. It is only lightly dependent on the underlying architecture. • The project made a choice to have two characteristics of the service that imply manual intervention in the initial phase of user access: • the User Policy Board to accept, register, prioritize and counsel • the users’ proposals (AAI is included here) • the reproducibility requirement which (up to now) is a manual • mapping from physical to virtual resources. Advanced • brokers / technologies / over provisioning may overcome this • limit (see ongoing work in clouds). • The user receives then full control of the slice.

18. Virtual Internet Virtual to Physical resource mapping • The step to map to the physical resources the virtual resources has been chosen to be performed manually in FEDERICA. • The motivations are: • ensure reproducibility • when requested • optimization of the use • of the infrastructure.

19. FEDERICA versus other projects

20. Global Internet FEDERICA substrate (only core is shown) Offering “Slices” for “any” Research • Using Virtualization technologies the FEDERICA e-Infrastructure creates “slices” composed by virtual resources (circuits, nodes, routers) • The slices are configured according to users’ • requests • Possible use cases: • - new routing protocols • - behavior on the network • of distributed • applications • - Inter-domain • services

21. FEDERICA ensures reproducibilityof the behaviour of a single virtual resource as a key requirement for quantitative evaluations of new ideas through experimentation. As an example, a virtual circuit may not be capable of offering a constant, fixed amount of bit per second, and a virtual computer image may not provide a constant CPU percentage and/or a constant disk access capacity. The project does not instead aims at providing QoS for sets of connected resources, or entire slices, as this is a research area still. Most of the projects/experiments do not request reproducibility in those cases a ‘good’ resources behaviour is provided anyway (see next slide). Reproducibility

22. The project engineered the substrate so that: there is a high level of network physical meshing at 1Gbps router/switches perform at line rate CPUs assist virtualization in HW Each V-Node has a large number of physical network interfaces at 32 GB RAM (4 GB for each core) multiple disks in separate channels Rules are followed when creating resources(strictly when reproducibility is requested, preferably in the other cases): only one virtual host runs in each core RAM is statically partitioned Each virtual host receives a dedicated physical network interface The circuits are never over-subscribed Reproducibility - How to

23. FEDERICA brief overview, framework & architecture Infrastructure status Service model, reproducibility Initial analysis of users Challenges and conclusions Agenda

24. Resource Usage per slice R < 10: Feasibility study, 40 < R < 100: Validation, 10 < R < 40: Functionality, 100 < R: Scalability Resources (R) Requested

25. Slice requested time duration Slice Lease Time

26. Motivation of research ICT research on networking ICT research on applications/services ICT research on both applications/services and networking Applied-ICT research on applications/services (eg medecine)

27. Rationale od the use of FEDERICA Economical: Renting vs. Buying Opportunity: Exploit large number of resources and/or fast provisioning Technical: Exploit new functionalities Federated: Exploit interconnection of infrastructures

28. FEDERICA brief overview, framework & architecture Infrastructure status Service model, reproducibility Initial analysis of users Challenges and conclusions Agenda

29. There are a some key challenges for the evolution of the project and tightly connected to virtualization : “Real” versus “Virtual”, i.e. reproducibility/QoS Virtualizationservice definition and automation of procedures, in particular resource mapping. Federation Complexity (virtualization may be recursive) Research areas (Challenges)

30. There are key challenges to provide a smooth and easily accessible service to researchers. Some lesson learned from experience: The user access should be as simple and convenient as much possible (reduce formal needs, automate proposal, provide examples and instruction). Needs substantial programming effort. Basic tasks should be automated both for the noc and for the users (circuit and V-Node provisioning, configuration, sample -preconfigured nodes, …) Support of research is different from support of a production environment and more time-consuming (more complex questions and requests) User Support Challenges

31. Conclusions • For Future (and present) Internet research and evolution, FEDERICA-like infrastructures, enable innovative paths, exploiting virtualization both in computers and networks. • FEDERICA creates virtual infrastructures, behaving almost like real ones, which can be seen as generalised, “cloud” infrastructures. The user access is simple from any place connected to Internet. Universities, Private Enterprises even schools may benefit from such ready-to-use environment. • Many challenges and research areas are still to be explored, analyzed to create a common set of standards. • Virtualization facilitates and draws a smoother path to federation too. • FEDERICA can start federating with other facilities.

32. More Information • Main source of information is http://www.fp7-federica.eu • (all deliverables and documents, user access portal redirection) • Dae Young Kim, Laurent Mathy, Mauro Campanella, Rick Summerhill, James Williams, Shinji Shimojo, Yasuichi Kitamura, Hideaki Otsuki, "Future Internet: Challenges in Virtualization and Federation," aict, pp.1-8, 2009 Fifth Advanced International Conference on Telecommunications, 2009, Venice/Mestre, Italy, May 24-May 28, ISBN: 978-0-7695-3611-8 • P. Sezgedi, S. Figuerola, M. Campanella, V. Maglaris, C. Cervello-Pastor: "With Evolution for Revolution: Managing FEDERICA for Future Internet Research", IEEE Communications Magazine Vol.47 No.7 pp. 34-39, July 2009 • M.Campanella, "The FEDERICA Project: creating cloud infrastructures", In Proceedings of Cloudcomp 2009 (CloudComp), October 19-21, 2009, Munich, Germany. ISBN 978-963-9799-77-6, • M.Campanella, V.Maglaris, M.Potts “Virtual Infrastructures in Future Internet”, in “Towards the Future Internet - Emerging Trends from European Research”, IOS press, April 2010, ISBN 978-1-60750-538-9

33. National Research & Education Networks CESNET Czech Rep. DFN Germany FCCN Portugal GARR (coordinator) Italy GRNET Greece HEAnet Ireland NIIF/HUNGARNET Hungary NORDUnet Nordic countries PSNC Poland Red.es Spain SWITCH Switzerland Small Enterprise Martel Consulting Switzerland NRENs organizations TERENA The Netherlands DANTE United Kingdom Universities - Research Centers i2CAT Spain KTH Sweden NTUA (ICCS) Greece UPC Spain PoliTO Italy System vendors Juniper Networks Ireland FEDERICA Consortium

34. Thank you for your attention