Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

an Application Controlled Photonic Network

Dr. Paola GrossoUvA - Universiteit van Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Applications controlling networks

Research efforts around the world: UCLP, AutoBahn, DRAGON, G-Lambda, Enlightened

Research efforts in the Netherlands:SURFnet and CPL, EnlightenYourResearch and … StarPlane

When do applications need this level of control?- Research involves very large datasets- Data needs to be transported securely- No hick-ups in the connection allowed- Remote collaborations- Access to distributed resources- Use of HD-video or high quality media (4k digital cinema)

e-Science applications need more

control over the network

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Lightpaths

Lightpaths provide the best service

Two approaches to delivery of lightpaths:- Static: ‘Here is your path, bye.’ - Dynamic: ‘Tell me when you need it, tell me when

you are done’

Two approaches to control of the paths characteristics:

- Provider controlled: ‘Tell me what you need’.- User/application controlled: ‘Do-it-yourself’

Lightpaths are:

- Dedicated connection in the network;- Guaranteed QoS: jitter, delay and bandwidth;- Use optical/photonic equipment: lambdas

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

The StarPlane project

StarPlane is an NWO-funded project. UvA and VU (Vrije Universiteit) perform the research together, in close cooperation with SURFnet and Nortel Networks.

Dynamic and application controlled lightpaths

Five DAS-3 clusters communicate over the WAN using controllable lightpaths in a portion of SURFnet6.

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Network setup

The ‘traditional’ LAN side: Ethernet siwtches to connect to the local area network

The ‘innovative’ WAN

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

CPL and WSS

Dordrecht1

Breda1

Tilburg1

DenHaag

NLR

BT

BT NLR

BT

Zutphen1

Lelystad1

Subnetwork 4:Blue Azur

Subnetwork 3:Red

Subnetwork 1:Green

Subnetwork 2:Dark blue

Subnetwork 5:Grey

Emmeloord

Zwolle1

Venlo1

Enschede1

Groningen1

LeeuwardenHarlingen

Den Helder

Alkmaar1

Haarlem1

Leiden1

Assen1

Beilen1

Meppel1

Emmen1

Arnhem

Apeldoorn1

Bergen-op-ZoomZierikzee

Middelburg

Vlissingen Krabbendijke

Breukelen1

Ede

Heerlen2Geleen1

DLO

Schiphol-Rijk

Wageningen1 Nijmegen1

Hilversum1

Hoogeveen1

Lelystad2

Amsterdam1

Dwingeloo1

Amsterdam2

Den Bosch1

Utrecht1

Beilen1

Nieuwegein1Rotterdam1

Delft1

Heerlen1

Heerlen1

Maastricht1

Eindhoven1

Maasbracht1

Rotterdam4

3XLSOP

IBG1 & IBG2Middenmeer1

CPL- Common Photonic Layer

- dark fiber network (6000Km) with Nortel DWDM and TDM equipment;

- DAS3 sites connected on one ring.

WSS- Wavelength-Selective Switches

- allow to redirect a selected input color to a selected output fiber;

- goal is sub-second switching, and topology reconfiguration.

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Slide material courtesy of Roeland Nuijts

Network topologies

TUD

UvA

VULU

2,

1,

34,

7

6

85

1

TUD

UvA

VU

LU

1 1

35

4

7

82

TUD

UvA

VU

LU

1 1

3

5

4

7

6

8 2

Star network Ring networkMesh network

TUD

UvA

Leiden

VU

DAS-3 optical channel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

StarPlane management plane

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Monitoring the paths

Lightpaths provide applications with deterministic QoS/QoE.

End-to-end performance monitoring via rTPL package.

Applications need end-to-

end monitoring

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

First applications: SCARIe

eVBLI: correlation of astronomical data. Lightpaths transport data from telescopes to correlation centers.Software correlation: dividing the incoming data into small chunks of data that are correlated independently.SCARIe over StarPlane:dynamic photonic lightpath switching is an efficientsolution to distribute datasets for network intensive tasks.

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

First applications: AWARI

AWARI: a distributed game-tree search.

Performance on distributed cluster approaches that of a single large cluster.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Slide material courtesy of Kees Verstoep

Session 9A, 25 October 2007 eChallenges e-2007 Copyright 2007 StarPlane: www.starplane.org

Conclusions

First results:- First batch of applications making use of the

StarPlane network.- Starting to test the integration of the management

plane and the control plane (SPMP and DRAC).

Work ahead:- Involve more applications;- International links and expanding infrastructures,

Grid5k in France.

More information:- StarPlane web site: www.starplane.org- StarPlane monitoring:http://rembrandt0.uva.netherlight.nl/rtpl/das3/table/net_data.html