Rick McGeerChief Scientist, US Ignite

March 17, 2014

The GENI Experiment Engine

A Fast, Simple On-Ramp for GENI

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“Hello, World” Across GENI in FIVE MINUTES

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Objectives

• “Hello, World” Across GENI in < 5 Minutes– Allocate GEE “Slicelet”– Upload/Deploy Program (one-click)– Execute– Tear Down

• Non-Objective: be all things to all people– Making things fast & easy means giving up some options– Easy to do something simple, go to “full GENI” for complex stuff

• Use as a starter for a “full GENI” slice

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GENI Experiment Engine Architecture

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2 Principles, 3 Services

• Design Principles– Don’t develop new GENI facilities: expose existing facilities– Pre-allocate to bring stuff up quickly

• Services– GEE Compute Engine: PaaS “Slicelet” + Deployment

service– GEE Storage Engine: Global filesystem across the GENI

Infrastructure– GEE Message Service: Distributed Messaging System

across the GENI Infrastructure

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GEE Compute Engine

• GEE Slicelet– Network of PlanetLab slivers– Private network between slivers (full port space)– Python VM installed and running in slivers

• Pre-allocated– Access through use-once key pair– Fixed topology, IP addresses, etc.

• Automated Deployment (optional)– Fabric-as-a-Service through GEE Portal

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GEE Network

• Two interfaces/sliver– Private network (full access)– Public internet (outbound only)

• Problem: how to expose the private network– IP addresses are specific to pre-allocated Slicelet– Programmer doesn’t know what addresses she’ll get per sliver– But she does know where slivers are (all Slicelets have slivers in the same

places)

• Symbolic addresses (Python constants) for Slicelet nodes on private network– Resolve to IP addresses in deployed sliver– E.g. GEENetwork.NORTHWESTERN binds to 10.24.128.7 – Resolution in simple binding in downloaded internal file

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GEE Network Implementation

• Tunneling using GRE• Use of VLANs

– Enough now, more coming– Performance/broadcast isolation within a

VLAN (TBD: experience)

• Overlay on Nick Bastin’s VTS…– Very attractive…

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GEE Filesystem

• Overall concept: POSIX Filesystem over the GENI substrate

• Will use standard Filesystem calls• Volumes to indicate file location• Implementation

– Swift repositories as block store– Syndicate as meta data repository

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GEE Message System

• Still in design phase• Global message queues• Current design: RabbitMQ-as-a-Service

– Multiple clients– RESTful API

• Still TBD: centralized vs. distributed• Plan on initial implementation GEC 20

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How Do I Use This Stuff?

• GEE Compute Engine (today! Well, almost…)– Login at site, ask for slicelet (4 clicks)– Unpack downloaded zip file

• (Easy) add experirment task to downloaded fabfile.py and run $ fab <task>• (Harder) ssh into slivers, yum, scp, run, etc…

• GEE Filesystem (GEC 20+)– Download Python library– Open, read, write, etc….

• GEE Message System (GEC 20, for sure)– Download Python library– Send, receive,….

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Current Status

• GEE Compute Engine– Slicelets allocated and demonstrated here(!)– Production Use by GEC 20

• GEE Network– Design alternatives being evaluated

• GEE Filesystem Engine– Swift Adapter for Syndicate written– Demonstratable for GEC 20

• GEE Message Engine– Preliminary version under test– Demonstratable for GEC 20

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GEE Team• Compute Engine:

– Andy Bavier, PW

• Networking– Joe Mambretti and Jim Chen, NW/StarLight

• Filesystem– Stephen Tredger, U Vic

• Message System– Rick McGeer, Ignite

• Overall Architecture– Rick, Andy, Joe, Jack Brassil (HP), Glenn Ricart (US Ignite), Marshall Brinn

• Thanks to our collaborators and friends– Jude Nelson, Nick Bastin, Rob Ricci, Niky Riga, Mark Berman

Thanks!