Internet2 Engineering Challenges

1. Internet2 Engineering Challenges Campus Engineering Workshop, Houston Guy Almes <almes@internet2.edu> 10 April 2002

2. Outline • Advanced Services • Multicast • IPv6 • QoS • End-to-End Performance • Security

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

4. Advanced Services • Multicast • IPv6 • Quality of Service (QoS)

5. Multicast • By 1998, • Native IP multicast quite rare, but MBone no longer scalable • Considered key to new conferencing and streaming applications • Current native multicast support • PIM-Sparse, MBGP, and MSDP • Emphases on • Deployment and support for operations • Applications • Working to make it scalable • SSM

7. Current Multicast Emphases • Pressing ahead on Deployment • What are the current inhibitors to progress? • Applications / Content • Make it useful for your campuses • Explore the role of multicast in the future Internet • Improve Scalability • Press deployment of SSM • Explore the role of SSM

8. QoS • What if best-efforts networking will not meet the needs of advanced applications? • Stress of Interoperability • Stress of Application needs • Preserve core Internet values

9. IPv6 • Clarify motivation for IPv6 • End-to-end transparency and global addressability • Supports application innovation, e.g., peer-to-peer • Support deployment and engineering expertise on networks, especially on campus • Anticipate need for first-class support • E.g., 10 Gb/s Abilene upgrade • E.g., Linux, Windows XP

11. Current IPv6 Emphases • IPv6 Training Workshops • About 8-10 workshops this year • First: in Los Angeles, hosted by CENIC, in February • Get some IPv6 on each campus/gigaPoP • Prepare for native peering • Abilene to gigaPoP • gigaPoP to campus • continue within campuses to key departmental LANs • Explore applications, DNS, operational stability

12. The Drive to Native IPv6 • Tunneling IPv6 over IPv4 is/was key to early deployment • It allows you to deploy anywhere, but with poor performance • And the backbone routers were IPv4-only • Set of four Cisco 7200s • Tunnel to each other • Tunnel to gigaPoPs and campuses

14. The Drive to Native IPv6 • But, as mentioned, performance is poor • Cisco worked hard to support the DV video application, which requires about 32 Mb/s • The Abilene Upgrade will support: • 10 Gb/s interior circuits between pairs of Router Nodes • Dual IPv4-plus-IPv6 routers • Native IPv6 between pairs of Router Nodes • Native IPv6 only between Router Nodes and gigaPoPs or campuses • No support for tunnels to/from the Router Nodes

16. Demands on GigaPoPs • Plan on native IPv6 peering to Abilene routers • Tunnels will only be supported to the old 7200s • Aim for excellent IPv6 performance and support for unicast and multicast • Plan on native IPv6 peering to your campuses

17. Demands on Campuses • Plan on native IPv6 peering with your gigaPoP • Plan on IPv6 support for: • DNS • Network Management • Email, web servers, etc. • Support for early adopters

18. End-to-End Performance

19. The Current Situation • Our universities have access to an infrastructure of considerable capacity • examples of multi-hour 1.6 Gb/s flows with no loss and very little reordering • End-to-end performance varies widely • but 40 Mb/s flows not always predictable • users don't know what their expectations should be • A well-known mismatch

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

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

22. 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

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

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

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

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

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

28. 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, or that users don't need high performance networks

29. Security

30. Security: An unusual Internet2 Emphasis • Aspects of Security • Security of the infrastructure • Security of user host computers • Security of information and privacy • In the post-11-Sep environment • Society will be less tolerant of lax standards • Not a distinctly 'Internet2' concern • but one that all our universities share