1Computer Science

SERENATA D10: a brief critique

Saleem N. BhattiDepartment of Computer Sciencehttp://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/S.Bhatti/(With apologies from Tony Hey)

NETSYS CoE - http://www.netsys.ucl.ac.uk/

2Computer Science

Personal viewpoint(Nobody’s Fault But Mine)

• Critique of D10 from a Network Nerd:• I like to break networks … and then rebuild them• Deliberately provocative

1. Changing network landscape:• Tension and turmoil

2. “Services” for users:• Manage network, middle-boxes, apps … and people!

3. Capacity and QoS:• Charging considered necessary

4. Security and AAA• Not just the NRENs’ problem

3Computer Science

Changing network landscape

• Local vs. off-site/off-campus traffic:• Collaboration within Europe• Collaboration outside Europe• (Funding models and collaboration?)

• Bottlenecks:• 100Mb/s + 1Gb/s on the desktop available now• Traffic distribution inversion• The NREN as the bottleneck … coming soon

• Optical end-to-end timeframe not yet certain:• Hybrid/e-o-e paths will be around for a while• Optics folk and networking folk have to get together

4Computer Science

Services for users

• Users normally want to see a “black box” …• … until something breaks!• Network monitoring and network weather reports:

• General mechanisms• Dynamically, initiated by user• Hard to engineer, control and policeC

• Careful placement and management of services• A vertical cut of the infrastructure:

• Applications, middle-boxes and network components• Increase in heterogeneity and change

5Computer Science

Capacity and QoS

• Not just a question of higher speeds:• Though more capacity will help

• Need QoS control:• Traffic differentiation• Local policy and NREN policy control

• “Hard-core” systems research required:• High-speed systems with QoS control• Network management and monitoring

• Must have charging:• Tariffing must be considered carefully

6Computer Science

Security & AAA

• Security services for applications and users:• End-to-end services - user-to-user, app-to-app

• Education of users!• Integration with the applications:

• Ease of use• Trust relationships to “echo” real-life interactions:

• PKI is a long-time coming …• National/local policies and regulations:

• Cryptographic algorithms• National security concerns• Long running debate …

7Computer Science

Comment: fundamental problem

Networks and applicationservices get more complex

Users want to see increasingly easy useof the services and applications

8Computer Science

Some related work - networking

• TEQUILA (now MESCAL)• AQUILA• EU-DataGrid WP7• DataTAG• NetherLIGHT, STARLIGHT:

• UKLIGHT coming soon• NorthernLIGHT coming soon

• MB-NG (UK, SuperJANET)