# Presentation: 900261

## Network Working Group Report

**Shawn P. McKee**
**  ****University of Michigan**
**UltraLight Meeting, NSF**
**January 26, 2005**

**Network Working Group Report**

## UltraLight Network Report

****

**http://atlas.physics.lsa.umich.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2546**

**Overview of UltraLight Network**
**Backbone**
**UltraLight Sites**
**UltraLight Partners**
**Network Engineering**
**Effective Protocols for “Best Effort”**
**MPLS/QoS for “Sizeable Pipes”**
**Optical Path Management Plans for “Optical Circuits”**
**Monitoring**
**Disk-to-Disk Transfers**
**Milestones**
**Status and Summary**

- (MS Word, for PDF use 2547 rather than 2546)

## S. McKee (UM, Team Leader)
S. Ravot (LHCNet)
R. Summerhill (Abilene/HOPI)
D. Pokorney (FLR)
S. Gerstenberger (MiLR)
C. Griffin (UF)

**S. Ravot (LHCNet)**
**R. Summerhill (Abilene/HOPI)**
**D. Pokorney (FLR)**
**S. Gerstenberger (MiLR)**
**C. Griffin (UF)**

**The UltraLight Network Engineering Team**

**J. Ibarra (WHREN, AW)**
**C. Guok (ESnet)**
**L. Cottrell (SLAC)**
**D. Petravick (FNAL) **
**R. Hockett (UM)**
**E. Rubi (FIU)**

## UltraLight Backbone

**UltraLight has a non-standard core network with dynamic links and varying bandwidth inter-connecting our nodes. **
**Optical Hybrid Global Network**
**The core of UltraLight will dynamically evolve as function of available resources on other backbones such as NLR, HOPI, Abilene or ESnet. **
**The main resources for UltraLight:**
**LHCnet (IP, L2VPN, CCC)**
**Abilene (IP, L2VPN)**
**ESnet (IP, L2VPN)**
**Cisco NLR wave (Ethernet)**
**HOPI NLR waves (Ethernet; provisioned on demand)**
**UltraLight nodes: Caltech, SLAC, FNAL, UF, UM, StarLight, CENIC PoP at LA, CERN **

## UltraLight Network Infrastructure Elements

****

**Trans-US 10G ********s Riding on NLR, Plus CENIC, FLR, MiLR**
** ****LA – CHI (2 Waves): HOPI and Cisco Research Waves**
** ****CHI – JAX (Florida Lambda Rail)**
** ****Dark Fiber Caltech – L.A.: 2 X 10G Waves (One to WAN In Lab);****    10G Wave L.A. to Sunnyvale for UltraScience Net Connection **
** ****Dark Fiber with 10G Wave: StarLight – Fermilab**
** ****Dedicated Wave StarLight – Michigan Light Rail**
** ****SLAC: ESnet MAN to Provide 2 X 10G Links (from July): ****      ****One for Production, and One for Research **
** ****Partner with Advanced Research & Production Networks**
** ****LHCNet (Starlight- CERN), Abilene/HOPI, ESnet, NetherLight, ****	****GLIF, UKLight, CA*net4**
** ****Intercont’l extensions: Brazil (CHEPREO/WHREN), GLORIAD, ****	****Tokyo, AARNet, Taiwan, China**

## UltraLight Sites

**UltraLight currently has 10 participating core sites (shown alphabetically)**
**The table provides a quick summary of the near term connectivity plans**
**Details and diagrams for each site and its regional networks are shown in the technical report**
**(****see URL on second slide****)**

| Site | Date | Type | Storage | Out of Band |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| BNL | March | OC48 | TBD | TBD |
| Caltech | January  | 10 GE | 1 TB May  | Y |
| CERN | January | OC192 | TBD | Y |
| FIU | January | OC12 | TBD | Y |
| FNAL | March | 10 GE | TBD | TBD |
| I2 | March  | MPLS
L2VPN | TBD | TBD |
| MIT | May | OC48 | TBD | TBD |
| SLAC | Sept | 10 GE | TBD | TBD |
| UF | February | 10 GE | 1 TB May | Y |
| UM | March | 10 GE | 1 TB May | Y |

## International Partners

**One of the UltraLight program’s strengths is the large number of important international partners we have:**
**AMPATH **_**[http://](http://www.ampath.net/)**__**[www.ampath.net](http://www.ampath.net/)**_
**AARNet **_**[http://](http://www.aarnet.edu.au/)**__**[www.aarnet.edu.au](http://www.aarnet.edu.au/)**_
**Brazil/UERJ **_**[http://](http://www.hepgridbrazil.uerj.br/)**__**[www.hepgridbrazil.uerj.br](http://www.hepgridbrazil.uerj.br/)**__**[/](http://www.hepgridbrazil.uerj.br/)**_** **
**CA*net4 **_**[http://www.canarie.ca/canet4](http://www.canarie.ca/canet4)**_
**GLORIAD **_**[http://](http://www.gloriad.org/)**__**[www.gloriad.org](http://www.gloriad.org/)**__**[/](http://www.gloriad.org/)**_
**IEEAF **_**[http://](http://www.ieeaf.org/)**__**[www.ieeaf.org](http://www.ieeaf.org/)**__**[/](http://www.ieeaf.org/)**__**[ ](http://www.ieeaf.org/)**_
**Korea/KOREN **_**[http://www.koren21.net/eng/network/domestic.php](http://www.koren21.net/eng/network/domestic.php)**_** **
**NetherLight **_**[http://](http://www.surfnet.nl/info/innovatie/netherlight/home.jsp)**__**[www.surfnet.nl/info/innovatie/netherlight/home.jsp](http://www.surfnet.nl/info/innovatie/netherlight/home.jsp)**_
**UKLight **_**[http://](http://www.uklight.ac.uk/)**__**[www.uklight.ac.uk](http://www.uklight.ac.uk/)**__**[/](http://www.uklight.ac.uk/)**_
**As well as collaborators from China, Japan and Taiwan.**
**UltraLight is well positioned to develop and coordinate **_**global**_** advances to networks for LHC Physics**

## 	UltraLight envisions a 4 year program to deliver a new, high-performance, network-integrated infrastructure:
Phase I will last 12 months and focus on deploying the initial network infrastructure and bringing up first services (Note: we are well on our way, the network is almost up and the first services are being deployed)
Phase II will last 18 months and concentrate on implementing all the needed services and extending the infrastructure to additional sites (We will be entering this phase starting approximately this summer)
Phase III will complete UltraLight and last 18 months.  The focus will be on a transition to production in support of LHC Physics; + eVLBI Astronomy

**Phase I will last **_**12 months**_** and focus on *****deploying the initial network infrastructure***** and *****bringing up first services (***_**Note: we are well on our way, the network is almost up and the first services are being deployed**_***)***
**Phase II will last **_**18 months**_** and concentrate on *****implementing all the needed services***** and *****extending the infrastructure to additional sites (***_**We will be entering this phase starting approximately this summer**_***)***
**Phase III will complete UltraLight and last **_**18 months**_**.  The focus will be on a *****transition to production in support of LHC Physics; + eVLBI Astronomy***

**Workplan/Phased Deployment**

## UltraLight Network Engineering

_***GOAL:***_** Determine an effective mix of bandwidth-management techniques for this application-space, particularly:**
**Best-effort and “scavenger” using “effective” protocols**
**MPLS with QOS-enabled packet switching**
**Dedicated paths arranged with TL1 commands, GMPLS**
_***PLAN: ***_***Develop, Test the most cost-effective integrated combination of network technologies on our unique testbed:***
**Exercise UltraLight applications on NLR, Abilene and campus  ****	****	****networks, as well as LHCNet, and our international partners**
***Progressively enhance Abilene with QOS support to ******	******protect production traffic ***
***Incorporate emerging NLR and RON-based lightpath ******	******and ******	******lambda facilities***
**Deploy and systematically study ultrascale protocol stacks****    (such as FAST) addressing issues of performance & fairness**
**Use MPLS/QoS and other forms of BW management, and ****	****adjustments of optical paths, to optimize end-to-end ****	****performance among a set of virtualized disk servers**

**UltraLight Network Engineering**

## UltraLight: Effective Protocols

**The ****protocols**** used to reliably move data are a critical component of Physics “end-to-end” use of the network**
**TCP is the most widely used protocol for reliable data transport, but is becoming ever more ineffective for higher and higher bandwidth-delay networks.**
**UltraLight will explore extensions to TCP (****HSTCP, Westwood+, HTCP****, ****FAST****) designed to maintain fair-sharing of networks and, at the same time, to allow efficient, effective use of these networks.**
**UltraLight plans to identify the most effective fair protocol and implement it in support of our “Best Effort” network components.**

## Selecting the data Transport protocol

**Tests between CERN and Caltech**
**Capacity = OC-192 9.5Gbps; 264 ms round trip latency; 1 flow**
_***Sending station:***_** Tyan S2882 motherboard,  2 x Opteron 2.4 GHz, 2 GB DDR.**
_***Receiving station:***_*** (CERN OpenLab):***** HP rx4640, 4 x 1.5GHz Itanium-2, zx1 chipset, 8GB memory**
***Network adapter:***** S2io 10 GE**

**      ****Linux TCP     **Linux Westwood+******Linux BIC TCP****	****        ****FAST**

**3.0 Gbps**

**5.0 Gbps**

**7.3 Gbps**

**4.1 Gbps**

## MPLS/QoS for UltraLight

**UltraLight plans to explore the full range of ****end-to-end connections**** across the network, from ****best-effort****, ****packet-switched**** through ****dedicated end-to-end light-paths****. **
**MPLS paths with QoS**** ****attributes**** fill a middle ground in this network space and allow fine-grained allocation of virtual pipes, sized to the needs of the application or user.**

**UltraLight, in conjunction with the DoE/MICS funded TeraPaths effort, is working toward extensible solutions for implementing such capabilities in next generation networks**

- TeraPaths Initial QoS test at BNL

## Optical Path Plans

**Emerging “light path” technologies are becoming popular in the Grid community:**
**They can extend and augment existing grid computing infrastructures, currently focused on CPU/storage, to include the network as an integral Grid component. **
**Those technologies seem to be the most effective way to offer network resource provisioning on-demand between end-systems.**
**A major capability we wish to develop in Ultralight network nodes is the ability to dynamically switch optical paths across the node, bypassing electronic equipment via a fiber cross connect.**
**The ability to switch dynamically provides additional functionality and also models the more abstract case where switching is done between colors (ITU grid lambdas).**

## Network monitoring is essential for UltraLight.  
We need to understand our network infrastructure and track its performance both historically and in real-time to enable the network as a managed robust component of our overall infrastructure.  
There are two ongoing efforts we intend to leverage to help provide us with the monitoring capability required: 

IEPM http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/bw/ 
MonALISA http://monalisa.cern.ch

Both efforts have already made significant progress within UltraLight

**We need to understand our network infrastructure and track its performance both historically and in real-time to enable the network as a managed robust component of our overall infrastructure.  **
**There are two ongoing efforts we intend to leverage to help provide us with the monitoring capability required: **
**IEPM **_**[http://www-](http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/bw/)**__**[iepm.slac.stanford.edu/bw](http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/bw/)**__**[/](http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/bw/)**_** **
**MonALISA **_**[http://monalisa.cern.ch](http://monalisa.cern.ch/)**_
**Both efforts have already made significant progress within UltraLight**

**Monitoring for UltraLight**

## Monitoring for UltraLight

**Monitoring for UltraLight**

**Shown is one example of some of the progress that has been made in monitoring for UltraLight. **
**MonALISA**** has been augmented with a **_**real time**_** module that provides complete picture of the connectivity graphs and delay on each segment for ****routers****, ****networks**** and ****AS **

## End-Systems performance 

**Latest disk to disk over 10Gbps WAN: ****4.3 Gbits/sec (536 MB/sec)**** - 8 TCP streams from CERN to Caltech; windows, 1TB file **
**Quad Opteron AMD848 2.2GHz processors with 3 AMD-8131 chipsets: 4 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X slots.**
**3 Supermicro Marvell SATA disk controllers + 24 SATA 7200rpm SATA disks**
**Local Disk IO – ****9.6 Gbits/sec**** (1.2 GBytes/sec read/write, with <20% CPU utilization)**
**10GE NIC**
**10 GE NIC – ****7.5 Gbits/sec**** (memory-to-memory, with 52% CPU utilization)**
**2*10 GE NIC (802.3ad link aggregation) – ****11.1 Gbits/sec**** (memory-to-memory)**
**PCI-Express, TCP offload engines**
**A 5U server with 24 disks ****(9 TB)**** and a 10 GbE NIC is capable of 700 MBytes/sec in the LAN and 330 MBytes/sec in a WAN is $ 25k today.**
**Small server with a few disks ****(1.2 TB)**** capable of 120 Mbytes/sec (matching a GbEport) is $ 4K.**

## Network Connect Milestones

**January 2005:**** ****	****    NLR Cisco wave connecting LA to CHI**
**	****	****	****    ****BGP peering with Abilene & ESnet at CHI.**
**	****	****	****    ****MPLS upgrade at CHI.**
**	****	****	****    ****Two virtual fibers connecting CERN to Caltech**
**	****	****	****    ****End-systems at Chicago in UltraLight domain. **
**	****	****	****    ****Layer 2 connection to Abilene at Los-Angeles**
**	****	****	****    ****Extension of UltraLight Network to CERN**
**February 2005:****    Connection to HOPI at 10 GE**
**	****	****	****    ****Connection to FLR  at 10 GE **
**March  2005:****	****    ****10 GE link to UM via MiLR**
**	**** ****	**** ****	****    ****Connection to BNL at OC48**
**May 2005:****  ****	****    Connection to MIT at OC48**
**April 2005: ****	****    “Manual” provisioning across UltraLight**
**August 2005:**** ****	****    Semi-autonomous provisioning process. **
**September 2005:**** Connection to SLAC at 10 GE**
**	****	****	****    ****NLR Cisco wave from exclusive to scheduled use**

## UltraLight Near-term Milestones

**Protocols:**** **
**Integration and of FAST TCP (V.1)  (**_**July 2005**_**) **
**New MPLS and optical path-based provisioning (**_**Aug 2005**_**)**
**New TCP implementations testing (**_**Aug-Sep, 2005**_**)**
**Optical Switching:**** **
**Commission optical switch at the LA CENIC/NLR and CERN (**_**May 2005**_**)**
**Develop dynamic server connections on a path for TB transactions (**_**Sep 2005**_**)**
**Storage and Application Services:**** **
**Evaluate/optimize drivers/parameters  for I/O filesystems (**_**April 2005**_**)**
**Evaluate/optimize drivers/parameters  for 10 GbE server NICs (**_**June 2005**_**) **
**Select hardware for 10 GE NICs, Buses and RAID controllers (**_**June-Sep 2005**_**)**
**Breaking the 1 GByte/s barrier (**_**Sep 2005**_**)**
**Monitoring and Simulation:**** **
**Deployment of end-to-end monitoring framework. (**_**Aug 2005**_**)**
**Integration of tools/models to build a simulator for network fabric. (**_**Dec 2005**_**)**
**Agents: **
**Start development of Agents for resource scheduling (**_**June 2005**_**)**
**Match scheduling allocations to usage policies (**_**Sep 2005**_**) **
**WanInLab: **
**Connect Caltech WanInLab to testbed (**_**June 2005**_**)**
**Procedure to move new protocol stacks into field trials (**_**June 2005**_**)**

## Summary: Network Progress

**For many years the ****Wide Area Network**** has been the ****bottleneck****;****this is no longer the case in many countries thus making deployment of a data intensive Grid infrastructure possible!**
**Recent I2LSR records show for the first time ever that the network can be truly transparent; ****throughputs are limited by end-hosts**
**Challenge shifted from getting adequate bandwidth to ****deploying adequate infrastructure**** to make **_***effective***_** use of it!**
**Some transport protocol issues still need to be resolved; however there are many encouraging signs that practical solutions may now be in sight.**
**1GByte/sec disk to disk challenge. ****Today: 1 TB at ****536 MB/sec ****from CERN to Caltech**
** ****Still in Early Stages; Expect Substantial Improvements**
**Next generation network and Grid system**
** ****Extend and augment existing grid computing infrastructures ****(currently focused on CPU/storage) to include the network ****as an integral component.**

## Conclusion: We’re Ready for the next step

**The network technical group has been hard at work on implementing UltraLight.**
**Significant progress has been made, allowing us to build upon these achievements.**
**Our global collaborators are ready to work with us on achieving the UltraLight vision.**
**We are ready to ramp up our efforts and we need the additional resources of our second year funding to keep our momentum.**
**We look forward to a busy productive year working on UltraLight!**