CISE Research Resources: A National Logistical Networking Testbed

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EIA 02-24441Beck, Micah D.Dongarra, Jack J.; Livny, Miron; Plank, James S.; Wolski, RichardUniversity of Tennessee - Knoxville CISE RR: A National Logistical Networking Testbed This project, investigating a distributed network storage architecture based on the Internet Backplane Protocol (IBP) and the external node (exNode) data structure, explores an approach to communication infrastructure, called Logistical Networking. This approach applies the Internet model of community resource sharing to network storage to infuse the network itself with storage resources that can be shared, scaled up, and exposed for external scheduling just like IP datagram delivery. A resource fabric that unifies the co-management of scheduling of data transport and data storage results, creating conditions for interoperable state management among distributed applications. The resources of the National Logistical Networking Testbed (NLNT) proposed attract the kind of diverse and heavy usage necessary to carry out critical research and testing on this technology under real world conditions. NLNT, an experimental communication fabric, places large "depots" of sharable storage on the nation's high performance network for the unbrokered use of the research community. These depots support the exploration and testing of Logistical Networking technology under meaningful loads by diverse middleware and application research groups. Its leading characteristics follow. NLNT1. Storage: scalably sharable. To help maximize the share use of time-limited lightweight allocations of network storage resources, NLNT uses a network storage technology, Internet Backplane Protocol (IBP). IBP closely models IP datagram service and follows Internet design principles for scalable sharing to create shared storage service that can scale globally.2. Target capacity: 1 Petabyte. Planned project funding and contributions from industrial partners support NLNT capacity of 100TB in year three. As the technology shows value, capacity grows.3. Deployment: aims for ubiquity. To provide high performance access and support heavy use, NLNT locates massive "depots" at two major Gigapops with direct access to the national backbone. High value of well-provisioned local depots encourages ubiquitous provisioning of storage.The growth of the fully realized NLNT will be seeded by three storage depots: an advanced 11.68TB Storage Area Network system donated by Yotta Yotta; a special purpose 16GB RAM-only storage depot to be used for middleware research on high performance overlay networks; and a third storage cluster planned as a 88TB system attached to the network via a fast, non-blocking switch. The units will be placed at Gigapops in Chicago (Starlight) and near Washington D.C. (MAX). NLNT software foundation, IBP, has already been implemented and tested. Basic software components (xNode toolset for aggregating distributed storage allocations, the Network Weather Service (NWS) for monitoring and forecasting the performance of distributed resources, and the Logistical Backbone (L-Bone) for NLNT resource discovery) support NLNT middleware research, including scheduling with dynamic network topology, tools and methodologies to provide runtime support for key storage functions (e.g., replication, caching, etc.), and high performance overlay network technology. The research involves collaborators from the Universities of California-Santa Barbara (Wolski) and Wisconsin-Madison (Livny).