Adopt-a-GENI Project Status Report

Period: Post GEC 22 Report

I. Major accomplishments

The following highlights our accomplishments during the last reporting period.

A. Milestones achieved

• Incorporate SDN resource allocation functions with Jacks, including whatever compute resources are available through Jacks.

• Develop monitoring capability to verify correct connectivity and functioning of user-defined SDN-controlled path.

B. Deliverables made

• We integrated Jacks with the GENI Desktop so that users can allocate OVS nodes, together with other compute resources through the GENI Desktop.

• We developed a flow monitoring module in the GENI Desktop that can monitor the user-defined path to verify its correctness.

II. Description of work performed during last quarter

The following provides a description of the progress made during the last reporting period.

A. Activities and findings

Our activities this last reporting period have been primarily focused on integrating Jacks with the GENI Desktop and diveloping a flow monitoring module for observing the performance of a selected flow in the SDN-controlled path.

Jacks provided the function to allocate both OVS nodes and other compute resources. As a joint effort with the GENI Desktop project, we integrated Jacks with the GENI Desktop. We customized Jacks to create special icons, including the AAG controller node and the AAG OVS node. Users can drag the AAG controller into the experiment. It is a custom image we created that includes OpenDaylight code and runs the OpenDaylight controller once the node is up. The AAG OVS node contains a custom OVS image we created that includes the AAG initialization script and related code. It can initialize and configure the OVS node and point the OVS node to the AAG controller so that the controller can issue OpenFlow commands to OVS nodes and control the behavior of the switches.

We designed a Flow Monitoring Module (FMM) in the GENI Desktop to verify that a flow is correctly installed and to monitor the traffic that is part of the flow. The user can pick a flow to monitor and determine at which node to collect the traffic information about the flow.

We can get the statistics about the number of packets (bytes) matching a flow entry from the controller. However, they are the cumulative counts since the flow entry was installed. Therefore, it does not show the changes or trends of the flow of interest. It is hard and time-consuming for an experimenter to figure out the changes manually.

The FMM provides a live monitoring functionality by periodically querying the controller to get these statistics over a period of time. Luckily, the controller does not restrict the frequency with which we can query statistics from it. The FMM transforms the collected data into a dynamic time series plot that depicts the flow’s performance over time since the data collection began. The plot is updated in real time as more data are collected from the controller. Therefore, it provides live monitoring of the behavior of the flow.

The figure shows an example output where peaks can be easily identified by the experimenter. The module allows the experimenter to decide the time interval covering the displayed data. The user can either zoom in or zoom out the chart for a more detailed or more general visualization of the flow performance.

B. Project participants

The following individuals are involved with the project in one way or another:

• Zongming Fei - Project PI (Kentucky)
• Jim Griffioen - Project Co-PI (Kentucky)
• Kobus van der Merwe - Project Co-PI (Utah)
• Rob Ricci - Project Co-PI (Utah)
• Hussamuddin Nasir - Technician/Programmer (Kentucky)
• Jonathon Duerig - Research Associate (Utah)
• Sergio Rivera Polanco - Ph.D. Student (Kentucky)

C. Publications (individual and organizational)

D. Outreach activities

• We demonstrated the flow monitoring function at GEC 22. We

also demonstrated how to use Jacks integrated with the GENI Desktop to allocate OVS nodes and other compute resources.

E. Collaborations

• Most of our collaborations have been between the Kentucky team and the

Utah team.

F. Other Contributions