# Presentation: 211950

## ESnet On-demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System (OSCARS)

**ESnet On-demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System (OSCARS)**

***Chin Guok***
***Network Engineering Group***

**Thomas Ndousse Visit**
**February 6 2008**

**Energy Sciences Network**
**Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory**

***Networking for the Future of Science***

## Outline

- OSCARS Status
- OSCARS Related Research Areas
- Extending OSCARS to Layer 1
- Topology Exchange and Updates
- Path Computation and Scheduling
- Authentication and Authorization
- Ease of Use for End-User
- Monitoring and Troubleshooting

## OSCARS Status Update

- ESnet Centric Deployment
- Prototype layer 3 (IP) guaranteed bandwidth virtual circuit service deployed in ESnet (1Q05)
- Prototype layer 2 (Ethernet VLAN) virtual circuit service deployed in ESnet (3Q07)
- Inter-Domain Collaborative Efforts
- Terapaths
- Inter-domain interoperability for layer 3 virtual circuits demonstrated (3Q06)
- Inter-domain interoperability for layer 2 virtual circuits demonstrated at SC07 (4Q07)
- LambdaStation
- Inter-domain interoperability for layer 2 virtual circuits demonstrated at SC07 (4Q07)
- HOPI/DRAGON
- Inter-domain exchange of control messages demonstrated (1Q07)
- Integration of OSCARS and DRAGON has been successful (1Q07)
- DICE
- First draft of topology exchange schema has been formalized (in collaboration with NMWG) (2Q07), interoperability test demonstrated 3Q07
- Initial implementation of reservation and signaling messages demonstrated at SC07 (4Q07)
- UVA
- Integration of Token based authorization in OSCARS under testing
- Nortel
- Topology exchange demonstrated successfully 3Q07
- Inter-domain interoperability for layer 2 virtual circuits demonstrated at SC07 (4Q07)

## OSCARS Related Research Areas

- Extending OSCARS to Layer 1
- Topology Exchange and Updates
- Path Computation and Scheduling
- Authentication and Authorization
- Ease of Use for End Users
- Monitoring and Troubleshooting

## Extending OSCARS to Layer 1

- Current Implementation / Issues
- OSCARS supports both Layer 2 and Layer 3 virtual circuits from the user’s point of view
- Internally within ESnet both circuits “types” are carried as MPLS LSPs
- Research Directions
- Implementing a Layer 1 testbed to extend OSCARS into the optical layer
- Develop mechanisms to seamless integrate MPLS (Layer 2.5) with GMPLS (Layer 1)
- Collaborators: Internet2 DCN, DRAGON, Hybrid Multi-Layer Network Control (Hybrid-MLN) project

## Topology Exchange and Updates

- Current Implementation / Issues
- Topology information stored and exchanged is based on static configuration, time dimension is not integrated
- Exchange protocol between Inter-Domain Controllers (IDCs) is reasonably heavy weight, and not designed for dynamic topology updates
- Each IDC has global topology (n2 topology exchange)
- Research Directions
- Design network topology “listener” (e.g. OSPF-TE neighbor instance) to track real-time topology changes, and integrate Network Management System (NMS) and outage calendar into topology updates
- Design topology exchange protocol for more dynamic updates and global scalability between IDCs
- Collaborators: DICE Control Plane Group, NMWG, GLIF, Hybrid-MLN project

## Path Computation and Scheduling

- Current Implementation / Issues
- Reserving bandwidth in the future is difficult, especially when topology is non-static (i.e. line upgrades, unscheduled outages), optimizing bandwidth scheduling is extremely difficult (i.e. original computed path may be invalid and require recalculation) when time dimension is added
- Current implementation requires initiating IDC to compute end-to-end path based on static global topology, this may result in multiple tries before entire end-to-end  has availability
- Research Directions
- Research in “Augmented” path computation (i.e. static topology augmented with time dependencies, AUPs, domain specific contraints)
- Research sequential partial path computation (e.g. per domain vis-à-vis IP BGP routing)
- Determine best fit options to reduce multiple resource scheduling tries
- Collaborators: Dice Control Plane Group, GLIF, Hybrid-MLN project

## Authentication and Authorization

- Current Implementation / Issues
- Current implementation uses X.509 certificates for authentication across IDCs (requiring acceptance of trusted chain), authentication mechanisms are distinct to each IDC
- Using signed SOAP messages over SSL for messaging is costly (especially in the signaling phase)
- Research Directions
- Research alternative authentication and authentication methods (e.g. Shibboleth, VOMS)
- Consider using tokens for signaling phase, and pushing token validation out to network edge devices
- Collaborators: DICE Control Plane Group, GN2 JRA5, Universiteit van Amsterdam

## Ease of Use for End-User

- Current Implementation / Issues
- Current use requires end user to determine reservation parameters (i.e. source, destination, bandwidth, duration of use, etc)
- Use of ESnet SDN is based on user’s perception of what would be appropriate to provision a virtual circuit for
- Research Directions
- Investigate how to make use of this service in a manner that is transparent to the user, either by
- Putting the intelligence in the user’s application (e.g. middleware), or
- Designing the intelligence in the network (e.g. proxy)
- Collaborators: Internet2, DRAGON, Phoebus

## Monitoring and Troubleshooting

- Current Implementation / Issues
- This is the single largest deficit in deploying OSCARS as a production service in ESnet
- Research Directions
- Closer coupling between ESnet NMS and OSCARS
- Develop tools to monitor condition of local circuits
- Leverage perfSONAR to monitor end-to-end and local circuit status, utilization, etc
- Collaborators: DICE Control Plane Group, perfSONAR