| 31 | | During this past quarter, we have been working with UMass Lowell IT |
| 32 | | network services staff led by Steve Dresche on establishing the VLAN |
| 33 | | connectivity from Internet2 POP at Boston to the Computer Architecture |
| 34 | | and Network Systems (CANS) Lab at UMass Lowell (Ball Hall 406). There |
| 35 | | is only one existing connection to the regular Internet due to |
| 36 | | historical reasons. Therefore, to have a dedicated new L2 connection |
| 37 | | to Internet2 is a major undertaking for the university and the PI. We |
| 38 | | had a series of meetings with the campus network services staff |
| 39 | | including Steve Drescher (Director of Network Services) and Marcie |
| 40 | | Byrd (network security specialist). UITS is eventually chosen as the |
| 41 | | service provider. (UITS is part of University of Massachusetts |
| 42 | | systemÕs network service provider, and the ISP of our current Internet |
| 43 | | connection.) |
| 44 | | |
| | 25 | During 1Q10 quarter, we have worked with UMass Lowell IT network services staff on establishing the L2 VLAN connectivity from Internet2 POP at Boston to the Computer Architecture and Network Systems (CANS) Lab at UMass Lowell (Ball Hall 406), with the support from UITS (University of Massachusetts system’s network service provider) and BBN. Prof. Jason Liu and Dr. Julio Ibarra at Florida International University have agreed on setting up an inter-campus VLAN connection to facilitate future experiments involving PrimoGENI and UMLPEN projects. Both UML and FIU are able to connect to the nearest POP through regional networks. However, the final connectivity tests across NLR were paused due to the time limitations of students and staff before GEC8. |
| 59 | | We leverage the timestamp registers on the PNIC and periodic message |
| 60 | | exchange with the host to synchronize with the reference clock on the |
| 61 | | host. In such a way, the processing cores on the NIC can perform |
| 62 | | timing related tasks. The programmable cores on PNIC have times- tamp |
| 63 | | registers which are incremented every 16 cycles (about 11 |
| 64 | | nanoseconds). The timestamp register is use- ful to track the time |
| 65 | | elapse between events. However, the PNIC lacks an onboard real-time |
| 66 | | clock. To address this issue, we rely on the system clock of the host |
| 67 | | to maintain clock synchronization, assuming the host runs a NTP-like |
| 68 | | protocol to keep itself synchronized with an atomic clock. The clock |
| 69 | | synchronization operation be- tween the PNIC and host is as |
| 70 | | follows. First, the host sends a special message with its current |
| 71 | | clock value to the PNIC through a basic message passing API. Then the |
| 72 | | PNIC recognizes this special "time"packet and extracts the clock |
| 73 | | time Th from the packet. Next, a packet processing core of PNIC writes |
| 74 | | Th to SRAM and reset the timestamp register . Finally, when the time |
| 75 | | value is needed, the processor reads value t1 from the timestamp |
| 76 | | register and calculates the current time T as T = Th+t1. The software |
| 77 | | architecture of the design is shown in Figure 2 (below). |
| | 36 | The Programmable Edge Node (PEN) project has been enhanced to include a user space Linux toolset for packet capture and duplication. In order to utilize this toolset, the end user may access the Programmable Edge Node through the ProtoGENI flash interface. When requesting a PEN resource from the flash interface, a custom set of scripts are launched which create a virtual container hosted on the PEN platform. This allows for multiple experiments to share the PEN resources simultaneously. |
| 83 | | ''The Usage'' |
| 84 | | |
| 85 | | We have developed requires software to be run on both the network |
| 86 | | processor and the host cpu. We have developed macros in microcode on |
| 87 | | the network processor that allow access to the timestamp register and |
| 88 | | perform the necessary unit conversions. Through our APIs, the macros |
| 89 | | that we've developed can be integrated into any microcode project on |
| 90 | | the IXP2400 and 2800 network processors. On the host side, the job of |
| 91 | | initializing the card is performed by a userspace Linux application |
| 92 | | we've written. The network processor card we're using is the Netronome |
| 93 | | NFEi8000, and the code we use to communicate with the card depends on |
| 94 | | Netronome's API's. As long as a Netronome card is in use, our |
| 95 | | timestamp initialization program will open up a new messaging instance |
| 96 | | with the card and send the appropriate message to initialize the |
| 97 | | timestamp registers. |
| 98 | | |
| 99 | | Figure 2. Clock synchronization at NIC. |
| 100 | | |
| 101 | | ==== 3. Enhancement of PEN virtual router templates and set-up scripts ==== |
| 102 | | |
| 103 | | The PEN project is comprised of a number of scripts designed to work |
| 104 | | in conjunction with ProtoGENI clearinghouse. These scripts are |
| 105 | | designed to handle calls to virtual machines of type pcPEN described |
| 106 | | in the Emulab database. We have enhanced the scripts for the new |
| 107 | | ProtoGENI component manager API version 2. The scripts are available |
| 108 | | in tarball format with detailed information regarding any |
| 109 | | modifications which may be required to implement a PEN deployment at a |
| 110 | | new site. Implementation of these scripts results in a physical host |
| 111 | | capable of providing resource sharing through virtual machines. The |
| 112 | | VMs provided at UMass Lowell provide support for the Netronome network |
| 113 | | interface card, which is another feature of the PEN project. |
| 114 | | |
| 115 | | ==== Plan for Demonstration at GEC7 ==== |
| 116 | | |
| 117 | | Our GEC7 demo is on the PEN integration and usage within ProtoGENI |
| 118 | | control framework. The main goal of our demo is to demonstrate the |
| 119 | | integration of Programmable Edge Node with ProtoGENI control |
| 120 | | framework, and the use case of the clock synchronization function |
| 121 | | implemented on the NIC of PEN. |
| | 44 | Our GEC8 demo is on the PEN integration and usage within ProtoGENI control framework. The main goal of our demo is to demonstrate the integration of Programmable Edge Node with ProtoGENI control framework, and the use case of packet capture function implemented on the NIC of PEN. |
| 136 | | Yan Luo, Timothy Ficarra, Eric Murray and Chunhui Zhang, The Design, |
| 137 | | Performance Evaluation and Use Cases of a Virtualized Programmable |
| 138 | | Edge Node for Network Innovations, Accepted by International Journal |
| 139 | | of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, to appear 2010. |
| | 59 | Yan Luo, Network I/O Virtualization for Cloud Computing, Accepted by Special Issue on Cloud Computing of IEEE IT Professional, to appear 2010. |
| 152 | | The PI and five students attended GEC7 and gave a demo of the |
| 153 | | integration of UMLPEN with ProtoGENI control framework and the clock |
| 154 | | synchronization scheme implemented on NIC. Julie Bissell, Amon Faria, |
| 155 | | Guofu Yuan and Eric Murray attended the GEC7 (including the tutorial |
| 156 | | sessions and the main conference), with the support from the REU |
| 157 | | supplemental grant. |
| | 69 | Julie Bissell, Amon Faria, Guofu Yuan, Amanda Thomas and Eric Murray are working as undergraduate researchers with the support from the REU supplemental grant. |
| | 70 | |
| | 71 | Yan Luo gave seminar talks titled “Science and Engineering Issues in Network Virtualization” in UMass Amherst on April 4, 2010 and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications on June 3, 2010. |
