GEC-4 substrate working group plans - seeking presentations

[John Jacob-2]

The substrate working group chairs and systems engineer are planning the
agenda for GEC4 and are now seeking volunteers from the GENI community
to present ideas and implementations on the topic of vertical
integration. Within the context of GENI, vertical integration defines
the software interfaces between substrate components or aggregates and
the component/aggregate manager of the control framework. This
discussion will be divided into two categories, the first is based on
specific implementations of these interfaces appearing in spiral-1
prototyping activities. The second category is a more general discussion
on a forward looking GENI design based on unification (generalization)
of interfaces for similar types of GENI resources (i.e. ethernet
switches, programmable routers, wireless access, optical switches,
processor clusters, etc.)

Category 1.  As spiral-1 integration is well under way, we are now in a
position to learn about specific integration solutions. The spiral-1
projects are working to meet specific milestones with aggressive
schedules in order to realize an operational GENI prototype  within the
next  several months. As such, this discussion is intended to provided a
basis for real-world GENI integration, and is not for critiquing
solutions or to suggest additional tasks. Each spiral 1 substrate
project is focussed on the  interfaces required to get their specific
aggregates integrated into their cluster's control framework to satisfy  
the primary goal of realizing an operational GENI prototype in year one.

If you are part of a spiral-1 substrate project  (i.e. listed in the
spiral-1 substrate catalog) please let us know if you can brief the
working group session on your designs and requirements regarding
vertical integration into your cluster's control framework.

Category 2.  Looking forward towards the "GENI design"  we would like to
open a community wide discussion on the topic of generalized interfaces.
In a simple model, vertical integration through an aggregate manager can
be viewed as a top layer (technology independent) abstraction belonging
to a specific control framework implementation defining how resources
are controlled. A lower layer is then necessary to translate the control
messages between the abstraction layer and very specific (technology
dependent) substrate components. It is believed that specific low layer
integration code will always be required as interfaces to  networking
and compute resources are make, model and version specific. However, the
question to be discussed in this category is whether an intermediate
interface can be defined which is general to all networking and compute
resources of the same type. For example, can all ethernet switches (HP
Procurve 5400, Raptor ER 1010e, Netgear GSM7224, Juniper Ex 3200)
providing programmable VLAN topologies and bandwidth integrate
vertically through a common, generalized interface? The same question
applies to all substrate technologies of the same type (i.e. all optical
switches, all wireless access, etc.), offering the same resources. The
intent of this discussion is to layout plans for subsequent working
group activity on specifying generalized interfaces for all substrate
aggregate and component types. These specifications will be captured in
a document per our stated working group deliverables.

As a member of the GENI community, if you have ideas regarding  
generalized (unified) interfaces, we would like you to present those
ideas during the substrate working group session.

We would like to have 2-3 presentations (15-20 minutes) for each
category. Please let us know within the next week if you are willing to
accept this invitation.

Thanks
John Jacob (Systems Engineer)
Joe Evans, Peter O'Neil, and Patrick Crowley (Substrate working group
chairs)

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