Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of ViSE-4Q08-status

Timestamp:

05/27/10 10:24:33 (14 years ago)

Author:

jtaylor@bbn.com

Comment:

--

ViSE-4Q08-status

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+[[PageOutline]]
+
+= ViSE Project Status Report = 
+
+Period: 4Q08
+== I. Major accomplishments ==
+In the first quarter of the ViSE project we accomplished our initial set of bootstrapping
+milestones and began work on the software and hardware infrastructure to complete
+future milestones. We first provide details relating to the work behind achieving the two
+1st quarter milestones below.
+
+=== A. Milestones achieved ===
+'''[1a]''' Assembly of three x86 sensor nodes. (2mo) Note: No budget allocated for hardware
+development, which will be funded from other sources as needed. They are deployed on
+the CS Building, UMass MA2 Tower, and Mount Toby, and are network accessible.
+Also includes deployment of the !RayMarine radars at the three locations. (December
+1st). Completed.
+
+Milestone 1a was more challenging than anticipated due to the departure of a key staff
+member (Brian Donovan) prior to the subcontract's start date. Brian's primary project
+focus had been construction, integration, and maintenance of three modified !RayMarine
+radars, one of three ViSE sensors with a "rich" set of programmable actuators. As a
+result, other staff members learned both the software interface to the radar (e.g., through
+an Adlink Data Acquisition Card and USB-to-PIC) as well as the details of radar to the
+ViSE hardware platform (e.g., programmable PIC for radar control, data and control
+connections, power and battery connections). While the learning curve had not been
+planned for the 1st quarter, the results should ease the completion of future milestones
+since much of the radar control software will have to be modified to complete future
+milestones 1f and 1h in the fourth quarter of Spiral 1.
+
+Milestone 1a also required reconstructing nodes from a previous project (the Off-the-Grid
+radar project) to accommodate the anticipated sharing and "deeply programmable" nature
+of GENI. The modifications to the hardware platform were primarily the addition of a
+more robust computing platform, two additional sensors called for by ViSE, and a
+cellular backplane for out-of-band Operations and Management connections. The
+computing platform includes a processor capable of running the Xen Virtual Machine
+Monitor, which we will use to sliver node resources by allocating resources to virtual
+machines created on-demand for user slices. The platform also includes a processor with
+a higher clock-speed than the previous one (1.86Ghz) and more memory (2GB) and
+storage (32GB Flash). ViSE adds both a weather station and a Pan-Tilt-Zoom video
+camera to the sensor nodes in addition to the !RayMarine radar. Finally, our previous
+experiences managing partially inaccessible node deployments motivated our integration
+of a cellular backplane. We connected each main node to a Linux Gumstix Embedded
+node with a connection to a commerical cellular network using a serial GPRS modem.
+The Linux Gumstix includes both serial connections (for remote consoles) and wired
+Ethernet connections to the main node and is capable of powering the main node using
+Wake-On-Lan. At present, we are prototyping this backplane functionality on just the CS
+Building ViSE node, but have found it useful thus far.
+
+In addition to deploying these nodes, we have also set up a testing environment in our lab
+with an identical node and sensors attached, including a deconstructed (and nonradiating)
+radar for testing. The testing environment will prove useful for future software
+development (Milestons 1f and 1g). Finally, we documented each component of the
+hardware platform for the GENI Substrate Catalog and forwarded it to John Jacobs at his
+request.
+
+'''[1b]''' Field deployment of three sensor nodes; native non-virtualized drivers; software
+testing. (January 1st). Completed.
+
+We have field deployed the nodes constructed in milestone 1b, and installed a base image
+that includes the 3.2 version of Xen as well as the appropriate drivers for each sensing
+device and wireless/wired card. Since the driver for the PCI9812 Adlink Data
+Acquisition Card did not run under recent versions of !XenLinux (2.6.18) we modified the
+source of the driver to support these; additionally, we obtained the most recent driver
+from Adlink under a new NDA and are currently testing its compatibility with Xen in the
+lab. Additionally, since the development of the base image is a tedious process we
+heavily documented it on the ViSE Trac Web Site (http://vise.cs.umass.edu).
+The documentation should prove useful to both the project, by preventing unnecessary
+work in replicating configurations/images, and users, by providing a detailed description
+of the node's foundational software layer (similar, in principle, to the Substrate Catalog
+for documenting GENI hardware). Additionally, we also set up an initial
+Trac web site and SVN repository for ViSE related software. The initial import into the
+SVN repository includes the drivers and firmware for the radar and a framework for
+developing Xen-compatible device drivers for each sensing device. In addition to
+installing the base image we have codified and documented appropriate settings for
+the wireless network card to communicate over long distances via 802.11b.
+
+'''Milestones in Progress'''[[BR]]
+The next major milestone for ViSE Spiral 1 is 1b: Initial Shirako/ORCA integration. Xen
+and Shirako software running on three sensor nodes, non-slivered, no radar control via
+Xen by February 1st. We are well-positioned to complete this milestone at the present
+time. We have a test deployment of Orca running in our lab, and the base software image
+completed for Milestone 1b is compatible with Orca's existing framework for creating
+and managing slices of Xen VMs. One minor modification to Orca is also necessary to
+complete the milestone since Orca's existing codebase assumes a fully connected
+topology (i.e., the management authority server assumes connectivity to any nodes in the
+physical substrate). Since our wireless mesh does not adhere to this assumption, we
+require a mechanism for the management authority to communicate with interior mesh
+nodes. Our initial plan is to augment Orca node managers to forward messages (at the
+application-level) from the management authority into the mesh using pre-configured
+static routing tables.
+
+Work for subsquent milestones is also underway. Milestone 1d is a demo at GEC4. We
+plan to demo both the Orca control framework on ViSE, as well as the capabilities of
+radar actuation. We have also begun development of Xen drivers (Milestone 1f and 1h)
+for the Camera, Weather Station, and radar sensors. We hope to use the same basic
+framework for each sensor, and, since both the Camera and Weather Station interfaces
+are well-documented, we are focusing on these two sensors in the initial stages of the
+development, while working on the radar in parallel.
+
+=== B. Deliverables made ===
+The first quarter of the project resulted in three primary deliverables: the ViSE chapter of
+the GENI Substrate Catalog, the ViSE presentation and poster at GEC4, and the ViSE
+Trac website and SVN repository for posting software and documentation. Details on the
+completion of these milestones is provided in the previous section.
+
+== II. Description of work performed during last quarter ==
+
+=== A. Activities and findings ===
+The primary work during the quarter, including our Activities and Findings, centered on
+achieving the milestones described above. In addition to attending GEC4, we held
+monthly Cluster D group meetings via teleconference. The first meeting centered on
+finding out about each project's goals and substrate characteristics. The second meeting
+focused on coordinating for GEC4, while the third meeting included a demo of the Orca
+control framework and a discussion of how each project fits into that framework. In
+addition, one of our research staff sat in on a teleconference for demonstrating the Orca
+control framework to BBN staff, and provided input on how Orca may integrate with
+ViSE as well as other Cluster D projects.
+
+=== B. Project participants ===
+The primary PI is Prashant Shenoy. Co-PIs are Michael Zink, Jim Kurose, and Deepak
+Ganesan. Research Staff is David Irwin.
+=== C. Publications (individual and organizational) ===
+No publications resulted from the 1st quarter of work; we are preparing work related to
+the actuator virtualization in ViSE for submission in the next quarter. Once completed,
+this document will be publicly posted on the ViSE Trac website as a UMASS technical
+report.
+=== D. Outreach activities ===
+In the first quarter we had no significant outreach activities.
+However, during the summer we held a seminar for REU Undergraduate
+Students on the construction of ViSE nodes and sensors
+=== E. Collaborations ===
+We have been working closely with the DOME project in our cluster at UMass and with
+the Orca-BEN project at Duke. We are planning to integrate the Orca control framework
+before their official release data 6 months into Spiral 1, and, as noted above, envision
+only minor obstacles to completion. Additionally, we aided DOME in setting up a prerelease
+of the Orca control framework to experiment with before an official release.
+Finally, at GEC3 we discussed integration with the Kansei project at Ohio St.
+=== F. Other Contributions ===