SOXREGIONAL: GENIatSOX-status-Aug2012.txt

SOXREGIONAL Project Status Report

Period: Through August 31, 2012

I. Major accomplishments

A. Milestones achieved

 • SOXREGIONAL: S4.a Review network design. (Completed early 03/07/12)

 • SOXREGIONAL: S4.b Deploy switch and connections to Clemson and Georgia Tech (Due 04/30/12, completed 6/23/12)
       - physical connectivity established in June with VLAN 1750 plumbed to GT's campus and VLAN 1751 plumbed to Clemson. Both campuses have the connections in place to support the GENI racks.

 • SOXREGIONAL: S4.c Meso-scale demo (Due 07/31/12 (late))
       - demonstration of full slicing functionality has been delayed by unanticipated configuration challenges with the switch

 • SOXREGIONAL: S4.d Integrate and test with GENI racks and meso-scale (Due 08/30/12)
       - pending arrival of GENI racks

 • SOXREGIONAL: S4.e Open resources to experimenters (Due 09/30/12)
       - pending arrival of GENI racks

B. Deliverables made

GEC 13 was attended by Russ Clark
GEC 14 was attended by Matt Sanders

No specific deliverables were planned during this period. 

II. Description of work performed during last quarter

* The SoX team has procured and installed the NEC PF 5820 Switch. The original design and procurement included 10GE optics for interconnections with NLR and I2 with 1GE connections to SoX campuses.

* The switch was installed in June. The originally planned 10GE connection with I2 has been installed as a 1GE connection. The 10GE optics that were ordered for the SoX switch have never been shipped by the vendor. Also, the I2 end does not currently have a 10GE port available. 

* The NLR connection is indefinitely postponed pending the provisioning of a port by NLR.

* The SoX team installed a controller host running FlowVisor and FOAM aggregate manager in time for GEC 14. Both software tools were upgraded to the latest versions in August.  

* The SoX team worked with the GMOC to establish contact information and procedures and configured active monitoring of the SoX FOAM installation by the GMOC in July.

* The SoX team confirmed their intent to support the GENI Aggregate Provider Agreement in July.


A. Activities and findings

The switch we installed is the NEC PF5820. This is a OEM'd version of the IBM G8264. While this switch has been used by I2 and a few other sites, it is very different from the NEC IP8800 that we have previously used. This made testing and configuration more difficult. 

The major finding during this period was the discovery that the switch deployed does not support a true hybrid mode OpenFlow operation. This limitation was confirmed after significant hours spent by the SoX and GENI teams on debugging and testing connectivity. The end result is that our original design for doing VLAN translation through the copper GigE ports on the switch will not work. While this is disappointing, this is apparently not a unique problem for SoX and we are continuing to work with the GENI team to identify a new architecture to support the wide scale experimental goals of GENI.

B. Project participants

  Russell Clark - PI - Southern Light Rail and Georgia Tech
  Cas D'Angelo - Network Architect - Southern Light Rail
  Scott Friedrich - Network Manager - Southern Light Rail
  Matt Sanders - Senior Research Scientist - Georgia Tech

C. Publications (individual and organizational)

No publications were planned during this period.

D. Outreach activities 

The PI presented the GENI project and the GENI@SoX opportunity to the SoX member institutions at the annual SoX meeting in Atlanta on April 13, 2012.

E. Collaborations

The SoX team worked closely with the GPO team, especially Tim Upthegrove, Josh Smift, Chaos Gulibitsky and Heidi Picher Dempsey

The I2 team was also critical in getting the link established to the GENI backbone, especially Matt Zekauskas.

F. Other Contributions

Promoted GENI through additional activities in the campus outreach programs, EDUCAUSE, the NSF iCorps, and US Ignite programs.