|
Subject |
Draft minutes of 2nd GLIF Technical WG meeting |
|
From |
René Hatem <rene.hatem@xxxxxxxxxx> |
|
Date |
Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:57:19 -0500 |
Dear GLIF-tech participants,
Below are the draft minutes from our recent meeting in Salt Lake City.
Please have a read and advise one or both of the co-chairs of any errors
or omissions, especially in respect to attendence and action items. A
list of the action items can be found at the end of the minutes.
Thanks again to Kevin Meynell for taking the minutes and to our
Internet2 hosts Rick Summerhill and Linda Charlesworth!
Best regards
Erik-Jan Bos
René Hatem
GLOBAL LAMBDA INTEGRATED FACILITY TECHNICAL ISSUES WORKING GROUP
Minutes of the 2nd meeting of the GLIF Technical Issues Working Group
held on the 13th of February 2005 at the University of Utah, Salt Lake
City, United States.
PRESENT
Name Organization Country
---- ------------ -------
Erik-Jan Bos (Co-Chair) SURFnet The Netherlands
Heather Boyles Internet2 United States
Linda Charlesworth Internet2 United States
Mike Collins ESnet United States
Steve Corbato Internet2 United States
Steve Cotter Internet2 United States
Serge Figuerola i2CAT Spain
John Graham UKLight United Kingdom
René Hatem (Co-Chair) CANARIE Canada
Jun Jian CANARIE Canada
Mark Johnson MCNC United States
Akira Kato WIDE Project Japan
Otto Kreiter DANTE UK
Cees de Laat U. van Amsterdam The Netherlands
Tim Lance NYSERNet United States
Edoardo Martelli CERN Switzerland
Joe Metzger ESnet United States
Kevin Meynell (Sec) TERENA The Netherlands
Jörg Micheel NLANR United States
Roeland Nuijts SURFnet The Netherlands
Kevin Oberman ESnet United States
Mike O'Connor ESnet United States
Bill Owens NYSERNet United States
Donald Petravick Fermilab United States
Ana Preston Internet2 United States
Mark Prior AARnet Australia
Sylvain Ravot Caltech United States
Dave Reese CENIC United States
David Richardson U.Washington United States
David Sinn U.Washington United States
Jerry Sobieski MAX United States
Rick Summerhill Internet2 United States
Alan Verlo UIC & StarLight United States
Steven Wallace Indiana University United States
Rodney Wilson Nortel Tech Labs Canada
Linda Winkler StarLight United States
Chu-Sing Yang NCHC Taiwan
1. WELCOME
Erik-Jan welcomed everyone to the meeting. He explained that he had
asked René Hatem to share the chairing duties in order for the
meeting to gain from René's experience and that Erik-Jan could
better participate in some of the discussions.
He also thanked Rick Summerhill and Linda Charlesworth for
organising the meeting room and refreshments.
2. CHANGE OF WORKING GROUP NAME
Erik-Jan announced that he had received a request from TERENA to
change the (short) name of the working group from 'TEC' to 'Tech'.
This was because 'TEC' was well-known in Europe as an abbreviation
for the TERENA Executive Committee and there was the potential for
some confusion.
It was unanimously agreed that name of the group should be changed
to 'Tech' forthwith and that the mailing list address should also be
changed to reflect this.
ACTION 20050213-1: Kevin Meynell to change name of mailing list to
<tech@xxxxxxx>.
3. THE ROLE OF TERENA IN GLIF
Kevin gave a short presentation about TERENA's role in GLIF. It was
agreed during the GLIF meeting in Nottingham that TERENA would
assume responsibility for the secretariat functions, starting from 1
January 2005. TERENA is a not-for-profit association of European
NRENs, currently with 15 staff located in Amsterdam.
The secretariat functions entailed the hosting of the GLIF website
that had recently been moved from SURFnet to TERENA, and
was currently being updated and improved. The existing GLIF mailing
lists were also now being hosted by TERENA and included a general
list <all@xxxxxxx> for all those who had attended previous meetings
and those that wished to be subscribed, plus separate lists for each
of the working groups: Governance & Growth <gov@xxxxxxx>, Research &
Applications <rap@xxxxxxx>, Technical Issues <tech@xxxxxxx>, and
Control Plane & Grid Integration <controlplane@xxxxxxx>.
In addition to this, TERENA would administratively support the
working groups. Liaison persons had been assigned to each of these
as follows: Governance & Growth - Karel Vietsch, Technical Issues -
Kevin Meynell, Control Plane & Grid Integration - Licia Florio,
Research & Applications - to be determined.
Starting from 2006, TERENA would be responsible for organising the
annual GLIF meetings, probably in the format of a one-day open
seminar followed by a day of parallel working group sessions. The
2005 GLIF Workshop was being held in conjunction with iGRID2005 and
would be organised by them, although TERENA had been asked to assist
with the programme.
A contact address had been established for the GLIF Secretariat
which was <secretariat@xxxxxxx>.
4. BEST CURRENT PRACTICES IN GLIF
Erik-Jan presented an overview of the proposed contents of the GLIF
BCP, and the authors who had agreed to draft each section. These
were as follows:
1. Introduction (Erik-Jan Bos)
2. Management Summary ()
3. Overview of the GLIF (Jerry Sobieski)
3.1 Optical Exchanges
3.2 Links in the GLIF
3.3 The GLIF edge
4. Usage of the GLIF (René Hatem)
4.1 Definition of a Light Path
4.2 Connecting to the GLIF
4.2 Using the GLIF
5. Technical Details of the GLIF (Linda Winkler)
5.1 Building Blocks
5.2 Ethernet Framing
5.3 Protocol Conversion
5.4 10GE LAN PHY and WAN PHY
6. Further Reading (John Graham)
Appendix A. Glossary and Abbreviations
Appendix B. GLIF Topology Map
References
John suggested that some deadlines needed to be set if the document
was ever to be completed. René suggested that it should presented
at iGRID2005 in September, which would mean that it would need to
be finalised some time before that. It was therefore agreed that:
- each author should produce something for their sections by 15
March, and send it to the other authors for initial feedback
- a first complete draft should be compiled by 1 May and sent out
for comment to GLIF-tech
- first official version of the document should be complete by end
of summer
Erik-Jan asked who was willing to put together the document and
undertake any necessary editing. Kevin volunteered to do this, and
he also agreed to chase-up the contributions as well.
ACTION 20050213-2: Erik-Jan Bos, René Hatem, Cees de Laat, Jerry
Sobieski, Linda Winkler, and John Graham to draft core ideas for
their respective sections of the GLIF BCP by 15 March 2005.
ACTION 20050213-3: Kevin Meynell to chase-up contributions and put
together draft document.
ACTION 20050213-4: Jerry Sobieski to present final document at
iGRID2005.
René presented some ideas and work in regards to his section of the
BCP for discussion. Valuable feedback was received in regards to a
lightpath definition and in regards to network service descriptions.
Cees presented his earlier definition of a lightpath. Draft work is
to continue. Erik-Jan and Jerry also volunteered to adopt the draft
CA*net 4 service description model to their respective networks.
ACTION 20050213-5: Erik-Jan Bos and Jerry Sobieski to adapt draft
CA*net 4 network service description to their own networks as a
first step towards working to a service description standard.
5. LESSONS LEARNT DURING SC2004
Linda stated that the experiences of SC2004 had shown that better
organisation and understanding of requirements is needed in future.
There had been insufficient information on both the number of
circuits and booths required by the exhibitors, and this had led to
scheduling problems. Many issues ended-up being resolved very late
in the day, and whilst everyone's requests for circuits were
eventually met, this meant scheduling some demonstrations at odd
times.
The planning for SC2005 (12-18 November 2005) had already begun and
the requirements of equipment vendors and circuit providers would
need to be known by June. Users also needed to be made aware of the
steps they needed to take to get connectivity, because many assumed
they simply needed to make a request to conference organisers, when
in fact they also needed to make arrangements with NRENs and/or
other institutions.
René asked about the capacity and how users were matched with this.
Linda replied that SC2004 had 20 x 10 Gbps circuits which was a
five-fold increase on the previous year. Only a few users actually
required the full 10 Gbps, but most needed at least 2 Gbps which
ruled out the use of GE circuits. Scheduling was on the basis on
'first come, first served' although there were still a few clashes
that needed to be resolved and it made bandwidth sharing more
difficult.
Erik-Jan thought it desirable to make resource information available
on the web, in a format similar to that shown by Cees (see
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~delaat/sc2004/index.html). However,
this was related to the next agenda item and should be discussed
there. In the meantime, Linda and Jerry agreed to put the necessary
procedural information for SC2005 on the web before June.
ACTION 20050213-6: Linda Winkler and Jerry Sobieski to put
procedural information for SC2005 on the web before June 2005.
6. GLIF SCHEDULABLE RESOURCES
Erik-Jan said they had concluded during the Nottingham meeting that
whilst static maps provided a nice overview of resources for PR
purposes, they did not provide enough details, became outdated
quickly, and sometimes made incorrect assumptions (e.g. a few 1 Gbps
circuits were sometimes indicated as a single 10 Gbps circuit). It
was therefore felt that a more standardised system of representing
GLIF resources was needed which would enable users to automatically
find paths, spare capacity, and the type of connections available.
He had investigated how a dynamic system might be developed and
followed-up a suggestion from Franco Travostino that the semantic
web concept might be used. This is an attempt (led by Tim Berners-
Lee) to create a universal mechanism for information exchange by
associating content with machine-readable meanings. It aims to allow
highly-structured webs of information to be generated from the
existing World Wide Web, using the Resource Description Framework
(RDF) metadata model based on XML. If RDF is used correctly, it
should be possible to browse through the information and construct
the necessary metadata.
Erik-Jan proposed that the group investigate the possibilities of
the semantic web in more detail, and build a small prototype by
mid-April. This would require some clarification as to exactly what
were GLIF resources, and to come-up with a suitable (RDF?) template.
The group agreed this was worth further investigation and suggested
that Erik-Jan pursue this. René also agreed to help clarify the GLIF
resources.
ACTION 20050213-7: Erik-Jan Bos to investigate the suitability of
the semantic web for cataloguing GLIF resources by 15 April 2005.
ACTION 20050213-8: René Hatem to clarify CA*net 4 GLIF-available
resources, by 15 April 2005, in the hopes of initiating a discussion
on the best way to better identify all GLIF-available resources.
7. iGRID2005 PREPARATIONS
Linda announced that preparations were well underway for iGRID2005
and a preliminary compilation of unapproved demos was available (not
for general distribution) at
ftp://ftp.evl.uic.edu/pub/OUTgoing/maxine/igrid2005/. This meant
that work towards fully understanding users' networking requirements
would be starting in March. There is currently 50 Gbps into UCSD;
the hope is to increase this to 100 Gbps. In effect, this event is
likely to be a dress rehearsal for SC2005.
The timelines and milestones for iGRID were due to be agreed at a
meeting in a couple of weeks time, so these should be available
shortly afterwards. Linda was asked to send these to Kevin to put on
the GLIF website, whilst Kevin was also asked to establish links to
the iGRID2005 and SC2005 events.
ACTION 20050213-9: Linda Winkler to send iGRID2005 timelines and
milestones to Kevin Meynell in early March 2005.
ACTION 20050213-10: Kevin Meynell to put iGRID2005 timelines and
milestones on the GLIF website.
ACTION 20050213-11: Kevin Meynell to establish links to iGRID2005
and SC2005 from the GLIF website.
All requests related to iGRID2005 should be sent to Maxine Brown
<maxine@xxxxxxx>
8. SPEED MISMATCH AND END-END PERFORMANCE
Steve Wallace expressed concern over the issue of end-end
performance over lightpaths made up of the concatenation of
10G-BASE-R and 10G-BASE-W technologies. The issue can be
generalized to any lightpath configured in such a way that a network
capacity bottleneck exists in the core. Without proper buffering
and/or an end-end flow control mechanism, the capacity mismatch can
lead to high packet loss and poor end-end performance.
It was agreed that this issue is of importance to the GLIF community
and will be documented in the BCP, as planned.
9. OPEN OPTICAL EXCHANGES
Cees gave a presentation about optical exchanges and presented a
framework for the discussion and definition of an open optical
exchange.
Rick thought that the discussion over what was an open exchange or
not was often misleading as theoretically an open exchange could
still have restrictive policies (such as the requirement to have
peerings with two or more other providers). In addition, Tim
suggested that the discussion encompass the extra dimension of the
colocation space in which an optical exchange resides and the
meaning of neutrality in that context.
This led to a discussion on this issue, but due to time constraints,
Cees was asked to continue it on the mailing list. As this also had
implications for the Control Plane Working Group, it was suggested
this issue needed to be resolved before that group met.
ACTION 20050213-12: Cees de Laat to continue discussion on
definition of open optical exchanges and neutral colocation spaces
on the GLIF-tech mailing list.
10. PROTOTYPING LAMBDAMONS
Jörg gave a presentation on the lambaMONs developed by NLANR which
are used to passively measure DWDM optical networks. They enable the
collection and real-time analysis of IP packet data from any active
10 Gbps wavelength carrier on a DWDM optical link.
Cees mentioned that GlimmerGlass apparently also had an optical
monitoring system. Jörg replied these were actually standalone
devices that could not be built into racks.
OPEN ACTIONS
20050213-1 Kevin Meynell to change name of mailing list to
<tech@xxxxxxx>.
20050213-2 Erik-Jan Bos, René Hatem, Cees de Laat, Jerry
Sobieski, Linda Winkler, and John Graham to write their
sections for the GLIF BCP by 15 March 2005.
20050213-3 Kevin Meynell to chase-up contributions and put
together draft document.
20050213-4 Jerry Sobieski to present final document at iGRID2005.
20050213-5: Erik-Jan Bos and Jerry Sobieski to adapt draft
CA*net 4 network service description to their own
networks as a first step towards working to a service
description standard.
20050213-6 Linda Winkler and Jerry Sobieski to put
procedural information for SC2005 on the web before June
2005.
20050213-7 Erik-Jan Bos to investigate the suitability of
the semantic web for cataloguing GLIF resources by 15
April 2005.
20050213-8 René Hatem to clarify CA*net 4 GLIF-available resources,
by 15 April 2005, in the hopes of initiating a
discussion on the best way to better identify all
GLIF-available resources.
20050213-9 Linda Winkler to send iGRID2005 timelines and
milestones to Kevin Meynell in early March 2005.
20050213-10 Kevin Meynell to put iGRID2005 timelines and
milestones on the GLIF website.
20050213-11 Kevin Meynell to establish links to iGRID2005
and SC'05 from the GLIF website.
20050213-12 Cees de Laat to continue discussion on definition
of open optical exchanges and neutral colocation spaces
on the GLIF-tech mailing list.
