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Overview
Activities in development of the GENI Instrumentation and Measurement Systems over the past quarter have been focused in development of the GIMS specification, development of the GIMS systems, organization of the First GENI Measurement Workshop and preparing for and participating in GEC4. In summary, excellent progress has been made in all areas. While the deadline for submission of the 1.0 version of the GIMS specification was missed, the document will be complete, submitted and open for comment by Friday 5/8. We are well ahead of schedule on development of the prototype GIMS systems and will be able to demo a version in the Wisconsin Advanced Internet Lab by the end of May. The response to invitations to the First GENI Measurement Workshop has been very strong - 27 accepts to date (includes 4 from GPO, 2 from NSF and the 3 GIMS PIs) and a couple more invitations are still out. Finally, the entire GIMS team attended GEC4 and PI-Barford gave a talk on the GIMS architecture.
GIMS Specification
An initial v0.1 version of the GIMS specification was delivered to the GPO on 2/27/09. The specification embodies all four of the specification deliverables originally describe in the GIMS SOW (System Interface, measurement system, repository system and instrumentation and measurement test suite). The intention of the milestone was to produce a document that captures the framework of requirements and capabilities sufficient to begin building the prototype systems. The v0.1 version was sufficient in that regard except for the interface specification. The reason for this is that we made a relatively significant change to the overall architecture of the system mid way through its development.
The change in architecture separated interface functionality between the control framework and the measurement systems by adding a "measurement aggregate manager". This component adds a level of indirection to GIMS that enables the measurement systems capabilities and status to be exported to the control framework and the measurement systems configurations from any control framework to be pushed down to the instrumentation systems (see attached PDF).
A new version of the specification will be ready by 5/8/09. At that point, we will consider this milestone accomplished. However, the GIMS specification was never meant to be static. After completion of the milestone, we will solicit feedback from the community and intend to continue to enrich the specification over time based on that feedback and our own experiences with the systems.
GIMS Systems Prototypes
Development of the GIMS system prototypes has proceeded in four areas based primarily on the functional decomposition of the system. First is the development of a configuration interface that is part of the ProtoGENI control framework. Second is the development of the GIMS aggregate manager. Third is development of the measurement instrument. Fourth is development of the test and evaluation suite.
The initial ProtoGENI interface is complete. It reports GIMS instruments that are available and enables simple configuration of those devices. The focus of this interface is on basic functionality. Many of the potential bells and whistles will be added as ProtoGENI becomes more stable and as more capability is available from the measurement systems. All of the work on this interface is being done with an eye toward making the interface portable to other control frameworks.
The initial version of the GIMS aggregate manager is complete. This system has an initial set of functions that accept XML-based configuration information from authenticated GENI users who are using the GIMS configuration interface, and accept status information from the GIMS instruments. It also has the ability to push XML-based information to the ProtoGENI GIMS user interface and configuration information to GIMS instruments.
An initial version of the GENI measurement instrument is nearly complete. We have been working on commodity hardware to develop packet capture capability based on the XML configurations pushed by the aggregate manager. The system has basic capability to install multiple packet capture filters and store captured data locally. We are working on the capability to stream this data out to high capacity storage. When this function is complete, that will constitute completion of the prototyping milestone.
We have begun the process of implementing a regression suite that we will use to test and evaluate the GIMS prototype systems. This suite will be built over time and there is no projected final completion date. The objectives are to fully exercise the functionality of the various components and to stress test the system.
In summary, development of the GIMS systems prototypes are ahead of schedule. We anticipate an initial prototype to be complete by early June, 2009.
The First GENI Measurement Workshop
We received approval to move forward with the First GENI Measurement Workshop on 3/28/09. The intention is to bring together thought leaders on Internet measurement and GENI to discuss operational and technical issues specific to GENI and longer term measurement and instrumentation issues that are challenges to the community. The workshop will take place on Friday 6/26 in Madison, WI. The intention is to keep the workshop small and to have focused discussions on a specific set of topics. Invitations were sent out on 4/6/09 and to date 27 people are scheduled to attend (this number includes 4 people from the GPO, 2 from NSF and the 3 PIs). A number of invitations are still outstanding. Local arrangements are now complete and a follow-up email to all participants will be sent in the next two weeks. This email will provide logistical information and specify what will be expected from the participants. In addition to a lively discussion, the workshop will produce a summary on the key topics that will be forwarded to the GPO.
GEC4 Activities
All three of the PIs attended the GEC4 in Miami. PI-Barford gave a talk on the GIMS activities.