April 21, 2023

The Abilene Observatory and Network Research

Rick Summerhill, Director Network Research, Architecture, and Technology, Internet2

Joint Techs

Salt Lake City, UT

Abilene Observatory - Summary

History and MotivationWhat is the Observatory?

• Collocation Projects• Internet2 and NOC Measurements• Data Collections

Examples of Research ResultsParticipation in Research ProposalsFuture Directions Issueshttp://abilene.internet2.edu/observatory/

History and Motivation

Original Abilene racks included measurement devices

• Included a single PC• Early OWAMP, surveyor measurements• Optical splitters at some locations

Motivation was primarily operationalData collections

• Collected and maintained by the NOC• How is the network performing?• Available to other network operators to understand network• It became apparent that the data was valuable for research

purposes

History and Motivation

An important decision was made during the last upgrade process (Juniper T-640 routers and OC-192c)

• Two racks with one dedicated to measurement platform• Potential for research community to collocate equipment

Created two components to the Observatory• Collocation - research groups are able to collocate

equipment in the Abilene router nodes• Measurement - data is collected by the NOC, the Ohio ITEC,

and Internet2, and made available to the research community

Abilene router node

Power

Out-of-band

Eth. Switch

T-640

(M-5)

Power (48VDC)

Measurement Machines

(nms)

Space!

Measurement(Observatory)

Rack

Dedicated servers at each node

Houston Router Node

• NMS machines• PlanetLab machines

Collocation Research Projects

PlanetLab – Nodes installed in all Abilene Router Nodes

• PlanetLab is a global overlay network for developing and accessing new network services

• Goal is deploy 1000 nodes in a variety of networks• Designed to support both short-term experiments and long-running services

• Larry Peterson, Princeton University is Research Lead

• http://www.planet-lab.org• Potential new direction using MPLS L2VPNs

Collocation Projects

The AMP Project – Active Measurement Platform, Deployed in all Abilene Router Nodes

• More than 150 nodes deployed worldwide• Measurements include path, round-trip-time, packet loss and on demand throughput tests

• Project of NLANR/MNA• Tony McGregor NLANR/MNA, Waikato University is Research Lead

• http://amp.nlanr.net

Collocation Projects

The PMA Project – Passive Measurement and Analysis, Deployed at Abilene Indianapolis Router Node

• Analysis of header traces from over 20 sites, including OC-192 circuits in Abilene

• Header traces of all packets in and out of the Indianapolis Abilene router – A router clamp

• Joerg Micheel, NLANR/MNA, San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD, is research lead

• http://pma.nlanr.net • http://pma.nlanr.net/Sites/ipls-2004/

Measurement Capabilities

One way latency, jitter, loss• IPv4 and IPv6

Regular TCP/UDP throughput tests – ~1 Gbps• IPv4 and IPv6; On-demand available (see “pipes”)

SNMP (NOC)• Octets, packets, errors; collected frequently

“Netflow” (ITEC Ohio)• Addresses anonymized by 0-ing the low order 11 bits

Multicast beacon with historical dataRouting data

• Both IGP and BGP - Measurement device participates in both• Japanese research techniques on routing research were

implemented

Databases – Date Types

Data is collected locally and stored in a distributed databases

Databases• Usage Data• Netflow Data • Routing Data • Latency Data • Throughput Data • Router Data • Syslog Data

Databases - Interface

Variety of Interfaces to data• Simple web based for usage data• Rsync for netflow• Simple web based for routing data• SOAP interface for latency data• SOAP interface for throughput data• SOAP interface for Router data• Syslog data still under development

Examples of Research Projects

Use of Data Collected by Abilene Network Measurement Servers

• Data sets: Usage, Netflow, Routing, Throughput, Latency, Syslog, Router

• A complete list of projects is available from http://abilene.internet2.edu/observatory

• Samples of previous and ongoing projects follow

Flow sampling and Anomaly Detection using Abilene flow data

• Wail: The Wisconsin Advanced Internet Laboratory• Paul Barford, University of Wisconsin, is research lead• http://wail.cs.wisc.edu

Examples of Research Projects

Spatio-Temporal Network Analysis• Boston University, Department of Computer Science and

Department of Mathematics and Statistics• Mark Crovella and Eric Kolaczyk, Boston University are

research leads

Assessing the Presence and Incidence of Alpha Flows in Backbone Networks

• Network Research Lab at Case Western Reserve• Vincenzo Liberatore, Case Western Reserve University is

research lead• http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~vxr11/netlab/

Examples of Research Projects

Modular Strategies for Internetwork Monitoring

• University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, Boston University

• Mark Hero, University of Michigan, research lead• http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~msim/

Algorithms for Network Capacity Planning and Optimal Routing Based on Time-Varying Traffic Matrices

• Columbia University• Vishal Misra, Abhinav Kamra, Columbia University, research

leads

Examples of Research Projects

Reconfiguration of the logical topology in WDM networks using simulation-based Markov Decision Processes

• University of Maryland• Mark Shayman, University of Maryland, research lead

Distributive Collaborative Data Streaming for Monitoring High-Speed Networks

• Georgia Tech University• Jun (Jim) Xu, Georgia Tech research lead• http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~jx/

Special Projects

Sizing Router Buffers• A project to experiment with the size of buffers on several routers on the Abilene network

• The buffers are reduced using configuration commands and the effect on traffic queues is examined

• Nick McKeown is research lead• http://yuba.stanford.edu/~appenz/pubs/sigcomm-extended.pdf and http://yuba.stanford.edu/~appenz/pubs/SIGCOMM04.ppt

Support for Research Proposals

The 100x100 project• Understanding the requirements to bring 100 mbps connectivity to 100 million locations

• Understand the technical, economic, and sociological aspects of the problem

• Project driven by the network research community• Hui Zhang is research lead, with many researchers participating in the project

• http://100x100network.org• Internet2 plays a supportive role only, potentially providing a MPLS tunnel across Abilene (or the equivalent on other infrastructure)

Support for Research Proposals

The Network Facilities Project• One year NSF Grant to determine and understand the needs of the network research community

• Determine what existing infrastructure can be used by researchers

• Determine what additional facilities would support research

• Rick Summerhill, Matt Zekauskas, and Jorg Liebeherr are project leads

• Recently awarded

Support for Research Proposals

Distributed Security Data Project• Two year grant from DHS• To create a distributed database of network attributes related to network security

• Participants from University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington, and Internet2

• Abilene Observatory data to be included in available datasets

Support for Research Proposals

UltraLight: An Ultrascale Information System for Data Intensive Research

• Grant from the NSF to investigate network requirements for the CERN Large Hadron Collider

• Goal is to study new and innovative ways to support large data transfers over long distances

• Project driven by the high energy nuclear physics community

• Will use Abilene and HOPI facilities, along with many others• http://ultralight.caltech.edu/

Future Directions

Abilene Observatory• Research input on large, correlated, distributed databases?• The types of data researchers would like available - for

example, a traffic matrix between routers?• Future research collocation projects?

Including other networks• GigaPoPs• Campus• International

Future infrastructures?• Observatory like activities will be a requirement for other

projects like MAN LAN and HOPI, and for the next generation network

Issues

Some research projects need more detailed data - for example, netflow data that is not anonymized

• Important projects to understand how the network works and to set future directions

• How does this affect privacy

Tension between ability to do valid research and maintaining privacy requirements

Should we provide more detailed data via special arrangements with universities?

URLs

http://abilene.internet2.edu/observatory • Pointers to all measurements/sites/projects

http://www.abilene.iu.edu/ • NOC home page. Weathermap, Proxy, SNMP measurements

http://netflow.internet2.edu/weekly/ • Summarized flow data

http://www.itec.oar.net/abilene-netflow/• “Raw” – matricies; (Anon) feeds available on request