NLANR and Abilene

Wendy HuntoonPittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Carnegie Mellon University

NLANR: Engineering Services

September 28, 1998

NLANR Background

• NLANR – National Laboratory for Advanced Networking Research

– Full presentation today, 3:30-5:00 in Pacific JK.

• Funded by the NSF to provide:– Applications, Engineering and Measurement Analysis

• To– High Performance Network Service Providers (HPNSP)

– High Performance Connection (HPC) sites

Engineering Services

• What do we do ?

Provide engineering and technical guidance in how to connect and effectively use a high speed connection to an HPNSP.

Who Are We

• NLANR: Engineering Services– Based out of the Networking Groups at PSC and

NCAR.– Staffs have significant networking experience:

• Campus (CMU, NCAR)• MAN/Gigapop (Pgh Gigapop, Front Range Gigapop)• WAN (Commodity, vBNS)

– Support High Performance end-to-end applications (i.e., PSC, NCAR)

How Can We Help

• Provide campus/Gigapop perspective on Abilene– How to connect, configure and manage the

connection along with other connections.– End-to-End Performance

• Bottlenecks typically not backbone specific.

• Backbone providers not responsible for end-to end connectivity.

• Optimize network infrastructure.

• Tune Host configurations.

Infrastructure Plans

• Install Abilene Connection ASAP– Augments existing vBNS connection.– Seeking funding from the NSF for the

connection. • Received cost-sharing commitment from UCAID.

– Connection pending:Local loop availability (OC-12) Qwest PoP availability

More Plans

• Sharing Trouble Ticketing information– With Abilene NOC and CANARIE

• Will help identify and track problems

• Work with Abilene Partners– To understand, document and provide

engineering support for technologies used by the Abilene backbone.

Plans

• Work with HPNSP’s on interconnect issues:– How to support end-to-end performance across

provider boundaries• Already worked on these issues on vBNS/Esnet

applications

– How to support Intelligent Networking Services across provider boundaries

• Ex: Multicast, QoS, IPv6, etc.