| 1 | |
| 2 | Minutes of the GENI Experimenter Workflow and Services |
| 3 | Working Group Meeting |
| 4 | 30 October 2008 |
| 5 | |
| 6 | Recorded by Vic Thomas (GPO System Engineer) |
| 7 | |
| 8 | The GENI Experiment Services and Workflow Working Group met as part of |
| 9 | the GEC-3 conference hosted by HP Labs, Palo Alto, California. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Meeting agenda: |
| 12 | * Welcome and meeting objectives -- Jeff Chase, Duke University |
| 13 | (WG chair) |
| 14 | * Lifecycle of a GENI Experiment -- Vic Thomas, GPO (System |
| 15 | engineer supporting the WG) |
| 16 | * Project talk: GENI Experiment Control using GUSH-- Jeannie |
| 17 | Albrecht, Williams College |
| 18 | * Lightning talk: Slice Control and Programmability in Wireless |
| 19 | Sensor Networks -- Hongwei Zhang, Ohio State University |
| 20 | * Lightning talk: Orbit Management, Control & Measurement |
| 21 | Framework -- Max Ott, NICTA |
| 22 | * Project talk: Raven - A Provisioning Service for GENI -- John |
| 23 | Hartman, University of Arizona |
| 24 | * Project talk: Instrumentation Tools for a GENI Prototype -- Jim |
| 25 | Griffioen, University of Kentucky |
| 26 | * Lightning talk: Digital Object Architecture -- Giridhar |
| 27 | Manepalli, CNRI |
| 28 | * Project talk: Data Plane Measurements -- Deniz Gurkan, |
| 29 | University of Houston |
| 30 | * Next steps for the WG -- Vic Thomas, GPO |
| 31 | |
| 32 | Jeff Chase described the scope and activities of the working group. |
| 33 | He showed where this WG fit into the overall GENI architecture and |
| 34 | introduced the talks to be presented at this meeting. Jeff's |
| 35 | presentation includes a number of questions to be addressed by this |
| 36 | WG. The presentation also includes strawman GENI usage scenarios--- |
| 37 | canonical usage scenarios that can be used for discussions on |
| 38 | experimenter workflow and services. Time constraints prevented Jeff |
| 39 | from presenting this material; he hopes these issues will be discussed |
| 40 | on the WG mailing list and in future meetings. |
| 41 | Presentation: |
| 42 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/JeffChase-ExptSvcsWG.ppt |
| 43 | |
| 44 | Vic Thomas presented his view of the workflow for an experimenter |
| 45 | using GENI. For each step of the workflow he identified tools and |
| 46 | services needed to support that step. The objective of the |
| 47 | presentation was to get feedback on whether this workflow was |
| 48 | consistent with the thinking of the WG participants, to understand how |
| 49 | proposed projects and ideas fit into this workflow, and to identify |
| 50 | areas of disagreement. A person in the room pointed out that it would |
| 51 | be useful to have a tool that schedules experiments based on resource |
| 52 | needs and availability. |
| 53 | Presentation URL: |
| 54 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/ExptLifeCycle-GEC3-v2.ppt. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | Jeannie Albrecht described her project that is developing abstractions |
| 57 | and tools for addressing the challenges of managing multiple |
| 58 | applications. The project is developing Gush, a distributed |
| 59 | experiment management infrastructure based on her previous work called |
| 60 | Plush. Gush supports multiple steps in the experimenter's workflow: |
| 61 | Describing an experiment using application building blocks, acquiring |
| 62 | resources to run the experiment, configuring the resources, starting |
| 63 | the experiment, monitoring the experiment (including failure |
| 64 | handling), and finally cleaning up the resources used. Gush is being |
| 65 | built to integrate with the PlanetLab control framework. |
| 66 | Presentation URL: |
| 67 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/jeannie-gush-gec3.ppt. |
| 68 | |
| 69 | Hongwei Zhang gave a lightning talk on experimenter tools available on |
| 70 | Sensei, the wireless sensor network testbed from Ohio State. This |
| 71 | testbed provides "slice control" services. These services allow slices |
| 72 | to be moved, i.e. the set of sensor nodes that belong to a slice can |
| 73 | be changed dynamically to track events of interest to the experiment. |
| 74 | They also help experimenters maintain slice invariants and collect slice |
| 75 | statistics. |
| 76 | Presentation URL: |
| 77 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/Zhang%20-%20SliceControl-Programmability.ppt. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | Max Ott gave a lightning talk on experiment related measurements on |
| 80 | Orbit. The experimenter describes the experiment using a Ruby-based |
| 81 | language. The information to be collected is also specified using |
| 82 | this language. The measurements are collected in a relational |
| 83 | database. Orbit provides APIs for analyzing the data collected. |
| 84 | Presentation URL: |
| 85 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/OrbitMeasurementLayer-Max.ppt |
| 86 | |
| 87 | John Hartman gave a project talk on Raven for managing software |
| 88 | deployments for GENI experiments. Raven supports the deployment of |
| 89 | software to programmable components and updating this software while |
| 90 | the experiment runs. It builds on the Stork project and like Stork is |
| 91 | targeted to the PlanetLab control framework. Raven supports the |
| 92 | creation and distribution of packages and metadata files with configuration |
| 93 | instructions. Raven will also provide tools for resource discovery and |
| 94 | allocation. Raven and Gush are complementary projects: Raven |
| 95 | addresses software management while Gush addresses slice management. |
| 96 | Presentation URL: |
| 97 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/Raven-hartman.pdf. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | Jim Griffioen gave a project talk on the easy to use instrumentation |
| 100 | tools they are building so GENI experimenters have a better |
| 101 | understanding on the runtime behaviour of their experiments. They are |
| 102 | modifying the Edulab web interface to include experiment monitoring |
| 103 | pages. Examples of information that can be monitored include OS |
| 104 | performance/load, traffic graphs and packet traces. Pictures and GUIs |
| 105 | are used to specify the information to be collected. This project |
| 106 | complements Paul Barford's (U. of Wisconsin) project that is looking |
| 107 | at measurement data collection. |
| 108 | Presentation URL: |
| 109 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/GEC3_Kentucky.pdf. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | Giridhar Manepalli gave a lightening talk on CNRI's Digital Object |
| 112 | Architecture that includes a handle system, a digital object |
| 113 | repository and a digital object registry. The handle system is a |
| 114 | distributed and secure policy management system. It can potentially |
| 115 | be used for managing GENI principal records. The registry and repository can |
| 116 | potentially provide registration, discovery and storage services to |
| 117 | GENI entities such as principal, component and slice registries, and |
| 118 | code artifacts. Control frameworks interested in using the Digital |
| 119 | Object system should contact Larry Lannom or Giridhar Manepalli of CNRI. |
| 120 | Presentation URL: |
| 121 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/GEC3-CNRI-LightningTalk.ppt. |
| 122 | |
| 123 | Deniz Gurkan gave a project talk providing GENI experimenters with |
| 124 | measurements at the optical layer. Examples of measurements include |
| 125 | bit error rate, optical power, and SONET and Gigabit Ethernet performance |
| 126 | monitoring. This measurement work is especially useful for non-IP |
| 127 | networking experiments. The project will identify feasible optical |
| 128 | layer measurement technologies for GENI and will design a framework |
| 129 | that will allow experimenters to remotely configure and gather |
| 130 | instrumentation data. |
| 131 | Presentation URL: |
| 132 | http://groups.geni.net/geni/attachment/wiki/presentations/GENI%20GEC3%20DGurkan%20D_Meas-final.ppt. |
| 133 | |
| 134 | Finally, Vic Thomas listed the formal deliverable of this working |
| 135 | group. He, as the GPO system engineer, will draft these documents but |
| 136 | would appreciate active community involvement. At the very least |
| 137 | community members should comment on the documents. Text contributions |
| 138 | to the document will be greatly appreciated. WG discussions will be |
| 139 | carried out on the WG mailing list. |
| 140 | |