Technical Task Forces Progress in Paradise
January 25, 2013 - Presentations given by Internet2, NetherLight, Mid-Atlantic Crossroads, and Indiana University set the scene for the new task force of the GLIF Technical Working Group on Inter-domain SDN (Software Defined Network) Architecture. The draft charter of the task force has been presented and opened for further comments. The Dynamic GOLE Services Task Force introduced its new chair, Gerben van Malenstein (SURFnet), who is going to circulate the revised charter of the task force that aims at putting the AutoGOLE pilot to the next level. The GLIF Performance Verification Architecture Task force is eager to find more contributors motivated by a new concept paper and re-scheduled conference calls. The recently created task force on Defining the GLIF Architecture has published its green paper, written by Bill StArnaud, Erik-Jan Bos (NORDUnet), and Inder Monga (ESnet), that facilitated lively discussion among the meeting participants.
The GLIF Technical Working Group held its winter meeting on 17 January 2013 at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, United States. This was organised in conjunction with the TIP2013, a joint conference of APAN and Internet2 Joint Techs meetings. Forty participants from all around the globe had a productive meeting co-chaired by Lars Fischer (NORDUnet) and Eric Boyd (Internet2). In his introduction Lars mentioned the need for re-structuring the GLIF Tech meetings that are currently not evenly distributed along the year. Three Tech WG meetings per year would fit better to the actual workload of the task forces therefore, for the first time, GLIF Tech is trying to be co-located with the TERENA Networking Conference in June, 2013. Good experiences may lead to a tradition.
The Inter-domain SDN Architecture Task Force held its kick-off discussion facilitated by four prominent presenters of the GLIF community and a draft charter presented by Eric Boyd (Internet2). The meeting participants felt that a common vocabulary is needed; especially the definition of an SDN domain must be clarified in a clear vision statement document. Potential use cases must be collected and priorities must be set in order to define and prototype the inter-domain SDN architecture. Influencing the major SDN vendors not to forget about the inter-domain aspects would be the main objective of the demonstrations planned.
Jeroen van der Ham (UvA) and Inder Monga (ESnet) pointed out the importance of the distributed topology exchange. The DToX Task Force has been able to show the need for topology exchange, supported the creation of a topology representation, and performed a questionnaire to find community opinion. In close collaboration with the AutoGOLE pilot the task force is now calling for action to demonstrate the possibility of the distributed topology exchange.
The Dynamic GOLE Services Task Force (aka. AutoGOLE) thanked the outstanding efforts of Jerry Sobieski (NORDUnet) who has been stepped down as the chair of the task force and fully supported its new leader Gerben van Malenstein (SURFnet). Gerben is willing to bring the AutoGOLE pilot to the next level by improving the facility to be a good vehicle for real use cases and applications even between the regular demonstrations. The revised charter of the task force will put the stakes in the ground focusing on NSI 2.0 implementations and the close collaboration with the DToX Task Force.
Jerry Sobieski (NORDUnet) gave an update to the Performance Verification Task Force. The task force will issue a paper that describes the notion of performance verification, why the current performance verification architecture is broken and why the existing tools cannot be used. All service specifications must be explicate and measureable in the end supported by an appropriate verification architecture. The task force, with re-scheduled conference calls, is waiting for more contributors to prototype and demonstrate this concept.
The green paper about the GLIF end-to-end architecture was presented by the Defining GLIF Architecture Task Force co-chaired by Bill StArnaud, Erik-Jan Bos (NORDUnet), and Inder Monga (ESnet). As it is stated in the paper, GLIF is currently a network-to-network construct and the question is how we can truly develop an end-to-end architecture right to the application or user's desktop. Developments in the area of scientific applications, traffic engineering, SDN networks and inter-domain aspects must be seriously considered when answering this question. The green paper is seeking for the actual interest of people what they can bring together under the GLIF umbrella. The floor remained open for further discussion off-line.
At the end of the exhausting day, Lars Fischer (NRODUnet) summarised the main achievements of the 19th GLIF Tech meeting and, on behalf of SingaREN, kindly invited everyone to the 13th Annual Global LambdaGrid Workshop to be held on 2-4 October 2013 in Singapore. As a closing remark, Peter Szegedi (TERENA) announced the recent changes to the internal structure of the GLIF Secretariat continued to be provided by TERENA.
About GLIF -- The Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) is an international virtual organisation of NRENs, consortia and institutions that promotes lambda networking. GLIF provides lambdas internationally as an integrated facility to support data-intensive scientific research, and supports middleware development for lambda networking. It brings together some of the world's premier networking engineers to develop an international infrastructure by identifying equipment, connection requirements, and necessary engineering functions and services. More information is available on the GLIF website at http://www.glif.is/