Sponsored by the National Science Foundation GEC14 Session: SDN * in GENI Marshall Brinn, GPO July 11, 2012 * Software-Defined Networking

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation2July 11, 2012 Outline Overview Guest Speakers: –Joe Mambretti, ICAIR –Ilia Baldine, RENCI –Nick Bastin, Big Switch Discussion

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation3July 11, 2012 Overview Some top-level questions: –How does GENI infrastructure provide a sandbox for experimenters? [“Slicing the network”] –How does an experimenter operate within that sandbox? [“Programming the network”] –What constraints does GENI impose on the experimenter in terms of operating within the sandbox? –What assumptions can the experimenter make about the isolation properties of that sandbox? The goal of this session is to characterize the programmable network substrate GENI will provide to network researchers.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation4July 11, 2012 Slicing the Network and Programming the (Sliced) Network Physical Network Sliced Network ….. Network traffic within a GENI slice is segregated along some fixed dimension (e.g. VLAN ID), providing a sandbox for researcher. Experimenter may customize network flows or modify frames/packets at provided programmability loci (e.g. OF switches) Slice ID=1 Slice ID=N NB: whatever dimension is used for slicing the network may not be modified by researcher in programming the network.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation5July 11, 2012 Overview [2] Drilling-down on these Questions: –What role should OpenFlow play in providing a sandbox for experimenters? –What role should OpenFlow play in allowing experimenters to manipulate that sandbox? –What software abstraction of the network should GENI provide to experimenters for “deep programming”? –What impact does our approach to stitching across campuses have on the experimenter’s ability to program their network substrate? –Should experimenters be provided with visibility and control to (unrequested) intermediate nodes? –How close can we come to the goal of providing sandboxes without human-in-the-loop?

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation6July 11, 2012 Proposal: GENI-SDN Resource We suggest thinking of an GENI-SDN as a resource (like other resources managed and sliced at an Aggregate Manager). An GENI-SDN is a virtual, sliced network representing some administrative domain –A complete topology may need to be stitched across multiple GENI-SDN’s Much like other resources, an GENI-SDN may be programmed as part of the allocation process –As well as during run-time

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation7July 11, 2012 Sample Physical Topology OF Switch GENI Rack Data Center Wireless Opt-In User Campus Regional Backbone The campus may have multiple administrative domains: the data center, plus ‘west campus’ and ‘east campus’, say. The Regional and Backbone may have nodes at many cities in the region that constitute an SDN- enabled topology. Some nodes may have GENI Racks, others don’t.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation8July 11, 2012 Mapping Physical Topology to Aggregates OF Switch GENI Rack Data Center Wireless Opt-In User Campus Regional Backbone The campus presents three aggregates: one for each ‘campus’ plus the data center. Each aggregate presents its computation/storage resources plus its topology as a GENI- SDN resource. The Regional and Backbone present aggregates for each GENI rack plus a single aggregate presenting the topology as a GENI-SDN resource. It may be that the granularity to view and control network topologies is not the single node, nor the whole network, but, because of administrative domains, somewhere in-between.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation9July 11, 2012 Some Principles for this Discussion Nothing should be off the table for this discussion –Different Encapsulation / Tunneling protocols –Different Software and Hardware switches Let us be informed but not constrained by current S/W or H/W limitations –If we can describe the way things ought to work, we can develop a plan that approximates this ideal in the near term, and improves over time. OpenFlow is a critical piece of the GENI vision for Software-definable networks –But we should not engineer a solution that precludes other SDN approaches

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation10July 11, 2012 Some Principles for this Discussion [2] It is acceptable to impose some limitations on the experimenter’s operations within their sandbox –So long as they are well-documented, relatively fixed and relatively narrow We should be mindful of trust and administrative boundaries as we design our sandboxing approach –Key materials should only be required to flow between entities that trust one another Be inspired but not constrained by how these capabilities have been provided in Meso-scale GENI nor by any plans currently on the drawing board

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation11July 11, 2012 Outline Overview Guest Speakers: –Joe Mambretti, ICAIR –Ilia Baldine, RENCI –Nick Bastin, Big Switch Discussion

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation12July 11, 2012 DISCUSSION

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation13July 11, 2012 Overview Some top-level questions: –How does GENI infrastructure provide a sandbox for experimenters? [“Slicing the network”] –How does an experimenter operate within that sandbox? [“Programming the network”] –What constraints does GENI impose on the experimenter in terms of operating within the sandbox? –What assumptions can the experimenter make about the isolation properties of that sandbox? The goal of this session is to detail the programmable network substrate GENI will provide to network researchers.