SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The Task The Plan The Experience The Lessons Peter Clarke Dept of Physics and Astronomy University College London The experience of Multicast Rollout in the UK

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / MULTICAST in a nutshell  Simple picture Source Receiver RP  A bit more than that Configuring “PIM-SM” Configuring “RP” Configuring MBGP /MSDP for inter-domain operation (thanks for diagrams borrowed form CISCO vi J.Couzens)

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / NorMAN YHMAN EMMAN EastNet External Links LMN Kentish MAN LeNSESWERN South Wales MAN TVN MidMAN Northern Ireland North Wales MAN NNW C&NL MAN GlasgowEdinburgh Warrington Leeds Reading London BristolPortsmouth EaStMAN UHI Network Clydenet AbMAN External Links FaTMAN Sites

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The Task  Enable MULTICAST independently in all administrative domains  SuperJANET (SJ4) CORE  Regional Distribution Networks  Connected sites  Make domains talk to each other The Plan  UKERNA published a multicast connection plan  url:  Expected incremental evolution from Core outward  Expected established communication lines to be used  A scaleable approach  ….. but

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The Killer Application  …then a killer application parachuted in: ACCESS GRID  Users wanted it to work yesterday  Some users did not appreciate complexity  Many “ill founded” frustrations bandied around... it forced the pace... !!!... Not necessarily a bad thing – as its still not all working... !!!

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The “easy” bits  In some cases it worked straight away  SJ4 Core  Some Regional Networks  Some sites  Often where some combination of the following occurred:  Expertise already developed  PIM-SM already configured  Same vendor equipment ( but even then instruction manuals were not always right )

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The “simple” problems  In some cases problems took longer to understand  Protocol mismatches  Firewalls – not many understand multicast  Inter-vendor incompatibilities  Concrete example: Firewall Unicast route Multicast route

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / The “difficult” problems  Some deployed equipment unable to support native multicast  Some still non understood inter-vendor problems  MPLS and Native Multicast don’t co-exist easily  One network is managed using MPLS.  Planned for a long time to use tunnels – but never really worked  Engineers have been working for months – possibly just solved !

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / Current Status ~ 9 months  Two regional networks not able to carry multicast yet  Some (few) key site networks still not working

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / Conclusion – the lessons Facts:  Widespread expertise/experience wasn’t there  Huge disparity between user expectation  reality  Equipment problems:  Some equipment not multicast capable  Firewalls  Some non understood inter vendor issues  Protocol problems:  MPLS  Incompatibilities in configurations

SERENATE meeting Brussels 17/18 Sept 2002 P.Clarke / Messages Non controversial  Put lots of effort into getting complex components deployed long before users want them. Possibly controversial  Its and end-to-end thing – so “locally connected” deployment not always best  Need systematic set of e2e commissioning tests Controversial  Sometimes need All people in one room at same time  Need FBNI (federal bureau of network investigation)