| 1 |
|
|---|
| 2 |
GENI Quarterly Status Report - September 2009 |
|---|
| 3 |
|
|---|
| 4 |
Project: GENI Experiment Control Using Gush |
|---|
| 5 |
Start: July 1, 2008 |
|---|
| 6 |
PIs: Jeannie Albrecht, Williams College |
|---|
| 7 |
Amin Vahdat, UC San Diego |
|---|
| 8 |
|
|---|
| 9 |
|
|---|
| 10 |
1. Major Accomplishments |
|---|
| 11 |
|
|---|
| 12 |
The main accomplishments this quarter were the completion of two |
|---|
| 13 |
summer undergraduate research projects involving the development of |
|---|
| 14 |
Gush. Danny Huang (class of 2011) integrated geniwrapper into Gush |
|---|
| 15 |
(with the public release of his code coming soon), and also added |
|---|
| 16 |
preliminary support for running applications on Emulab resources using |
|---|
| 17 |
Gush. Because of Danny's work, Gush can now seamlessly run |
|---|
| 18 |
experiments on PlanetLab, GpENI, and Emulab resources. Kelsey Levine |
|---|
| 19 |
(class of 2010) worked on enhancing the Gush GUI (Nebula). More |
|---|
| 20 |
specifically, she built a wizard and fixed several major bugs. I hope |
|---|
| 21 |
to use these new features to help students run experiments on |
|---|
| 22 |
PlanetLab in my Distributed Systems class this semester, and release |
|---|
| 23 |
the code publicly within the next few months. |
|---|
| 24 |
|
|---|
| 25 |
In addition, I acquired more Gush users this quarter. Several |
|---|
| 26 |
researchers at NYU, RENCI, MIT, University of Wuerzburg, HP, and WUSTL |
|---|
| 27 |
contacted me and requested access to the code. I am looking forward |
|---|
| 28 |
to receiving their feedback regarding the usability of Gush. |
|---|
| 29 |
|
|---|
| 30 |
1.1. Milestones Achieved |
|---|
| 31 |
|
|---|
| 32 |
a. Website and documentation - We had no major milestones due this |
|---|
| 33 |
quarter. However, we have continued to improve the website and |
|---|
| 34 |
provide enhanced documentation. As part of Danny's summer work, he |
|---|
| 35 |
wrote additional developer documentation for Gush. Kelsey also wrote |
|---|
| 36 |
some user documentation for the GUI. |
|---|
| 37 |
|
|---|
| 38 |
b. Gush release - Although our next official milestone is early next |
|---|
| 39 |
quarter (October 9th), this quarter we finished most of the necessary |
|---|
| 40 |
steps for the next public release of Gush that includes geniwrapper |
|---|
| 41 |
integration. |
|---|
| 42 |
|
|---|
| 43 |
c. Demo/presentation - At GEC 5, I demoed the basic functionality of |
|---|
| 44 |
Gush with preliminary geniwrapper support. I also presented an |
|---|
| 45 |
overview of the experimenter tools available to PlanetLab users during |
|---|
| 46 |
the Experiment Workflow and Services working group meeting. |
|---|
| 47 |
|
|---|
| 48 |
1.2 Deliverables Made |
|---|
| 49 |
|
|---|
| 50 |
The past three months of work on Gush have resulted in progress |
|---|
| 51 |
towards three of our deliverables: code development, code release, and |
|---|
| 52 |
documentation. In terms of code development, we finished integrating |
|---|
| 53 |
geniwrapper into Gush in place of the old PLCAPI-based communication. |
|---|
| 54 |
In terms of code release and documentation, we updated our website |
|---|
| 55 |
with additional details for developers. In particular, Danny created |
|---|
| 56 |
a new page documenting the steps required to run Gush on Emulab |
|---|
| 57 |
resources. |
|---|
| 58 |
|
|---|
| 59 |
In addition to code development and release, I also proofread and |
|---|
| 60 |
submitted feedback on Vic's document that cataloged the Experimenter |
|---|
| 61 |
Tools and Services for each of the control frameworks. In this |
|---|
| 62 |
context, I specifically focused on the section that addressed |
|---|
| 63 |
PlanetLab tools and services. |
|---|
| 64 |
|
|---|
| 65 |
|
|---|
| 66 |
2. Description of Work Performed |
|---|
| 67 |
|
|---|
| 68 |
2.1 Activities and Findings |
|---|
| 69 |
|
|---|
| 70 |
The main activities for the past three months have focused on helping |
|---|
| 71 |
undergraduate students contribute to the development of Gush. Despite |
|---|
| 72 |
the overwhelming size of the codebase, Danny and Kelsey made great |
|---|
| 73 |
progress this summer. Thanks to the generous support of a GENI travel |
|---|
| 74 |
scholarship, Danny was able to attend GEC 5. I think this was an |
|---|
| 75 |
excellent opportunity for him to gain a better understanding of the |
|---|
| 76 |
broad scope of the GENI project. His participation was also |
|---|
| 77 |
beneficial to the long-term success of the project since he is |
|---|
| 78 |
continuing his work with Gush this school year. |
|---|
| 79 |
|
|---|
| 80 |
With respect to administration, I attended a meeting in Boston in July |
|---|
| 81 |
at BBN regarding Spiral 1 status and Spiral 2 plans in Cluster B. The |
|---|
| 82 |
meeting gave the PIs an chance to discuss the overall status of the |
|---|
| 83 |
cluster, and help align goals and clear up misconceptions. I also |
|---|
| 84 |
negotiated Spiral 2 milestones this quarter. Major milestones include |
|---|
| 85 |
additional coursework integration and code development. |
|---|
| 86 |
|
|---|
| 87 |
2.2 Project Participants |
|---|
| 88 |
|
|---|
| 89 |
The PIs are Jeannie Albrecht and Amin Vahdat. Other participants to |
|---|
| 90 |
date include three undergraduates at Williams and a graduate student |
|---|
| 91 |
at UCSD. |
|---|
| 92 |
|
|---|
| 93 |
2.3 Publications |
|---|
| 94 |
|
|---|
| 95 |
Jeannie Albrecht and Ryan Braud. Application Management and |
|---|
| 96 |
Visualization. In Demo Session Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on |
|---|
| 97 |
Peer-to-Peer Systems (P2P), September 2009. |
|---|
| 98 |
|
|---|
| 99 |
Elliot Jaffe and Jeannie Albrecht. PlanetLab - P2P Testing in the |
|---|
| 100 |
Wild. In Demo Session Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on |
|---|
| 101 |
Peer-to-Peer Systems (P2P), September 2009. |
|---|
| 102 |
|
|---|
| 103 |
Jeannie Albrecht. Bringing Big Systems to Small Schools: Distributed |
|---|
| 104 |
Systems for Undergraduates. In Proceedings of the Fortieth ACM |
|---|
| 105 |
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), March |
|---|
| 106 |
2009. |
|---|
| 107 |
|
|---|
| 108 |
2.4 Outreach Activities |
|---|
| 109 |
|
|---|
| 110 |
I will participate in a panel/BoF session that focuses on topics |
|---|
| 111 |
related to using PlanetLab/GENI at SOSP 2009 in October. In addition, |
|---|
| 112 |
I gave two invited talks and a demo at P2P 2009 in September on Gush |
|---|
| 113 |
and PlanetLab. Both talks were very well received. |
|---|
| 114 |
|
|---|
| 115 |
2.5 Collaborations |
|---|
| 116 |
|
|---|
| 117 |
Our main collaboration to date has been with John Hartman at the |
|---|
| 118 |
University of Arizona and the GpENI group. We are working on |
|---|
| 119 |
integrating Gush with Raven and GpENI. |
|---|
| 120 |
|
|---|
| 121 |
In addition, we remain in contact with groups at UMass and Duke |
|---|
| 122 |
University about Gush-related collaborations. |
|---|
| 123 |
|
|---|
| 124 |
We have also been communicating with Rob Ricci regarding Emulab |
|---|
| 125 |
support in Gush. |
|---|
| 126 |
|
|---|
| 127 |
2.6 Other Contributions |
|---|
| 128 |
|
|---|
| 129 |
I attended GEC 2, GEC 3, GEC 4, and GEC 5 and presented at all |
|---|
| 130 |
conferences. I have also been involved with the Experiment Services |
|---|
| 131 |
Working group. I have agreed to serve as the Working group chair next |
|---|
| 132 |
year. |
|---|
| 133 |
|
|---|
