Adopt-a-GENI Project Status Report

Period: Post GEC 21 Report

I. Major accomplishments

The following highlights our accomplishments during the last reporting period.

A. Milestones achieved

• Integrate the AAG path selection function with the GENI Desktop.

• Demonstrate the AAG path selection function in the GENI Desktop at GEC21.

B. Deliverables made

• We developed a module in the GENI Desktop for integrating the AAG path selection function into the GENI Desktop.

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 developing a module for integrating the AAG path selection function into the GENI Desktop.

The GENI Desktop was designed to be extensible in the sense that new modules can be written to include new functionalities. We took advantage of this property of the GENI Desktop and write a module for the AAG function. While creating a module is straightforward, the major task is to modify the exiting AAG code to handle the interactions between the GENI Desktop and the AAG module. There are two aspects.

One aspect is how to get the information about a slice. In order to verify and set up the user-selected path, the AAG module needs information about the slice, such as the topology, IP addresses, MAC addresses, etc. The original AAG code obtained this information from the manifest, which was provided as a textual file in XML format. As a part of the GENI Desktop, the AAG module gets the slice information from the parser of the GENI Desktop. The parser obtains the slice information from aggregates and provides the manifest as a JSON object. The AAG code was modified to accommodate this change.

The other aspect is how the user selects the path. The GENI Desktop provides a graphical user interface (GUI) showing the topology of the slice. Instead of providing a list of desired nodes, the user can pick the nodes via the GUI of the GENI Desktop. There is a mechanism in the GENI Desktop to pass this information from GUI to an associated module. The AAG module processes this information and installs the flows to the switches.

We demonstrated the AAG module at GEC 21. The topology is shown in the Figure above. We can invoke the module called "OpenFlow Paths" from the module launcher. The user provides the IP address of the controller. After selecting a path, the module will call AAG controller and set up the OpenFlow rules at the switches.

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 presented the AAG path selection module of the GENI Desktop during the demo session at GEC 21.

E. Collaborations

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

Utah team. We continued our discussion on what functions need to be provided in Jacks for the AAG project and how Jacks can be integrated with the GENI Desktop.

F. Other Contributions