Sample Resource Specifications for Substrate Components

Dear substrate working group members,

At the recent GENI engineering conference, it was suggested that we
begin generating example resource specifications (Rspecs) for the
various substrate components people are currently contemplating (or
building). The exercise has two explicit objectives: 1) to get substrate
creators to think about how to characterize the assets they offer, and
2) to get the control working group members thinking about how to
characterize, control, and allocate the rich variety of substrate types
that people care about.

After a bit of discussion, Ted, Rob and I have two examples to offer to
get the conversation started. Below, you will find two sample Rspecs:

1. A PC, and
2. A Supercharged PlanetLab Platform (something we've built at WU)

As you can see, there is no explicit, machine-readable syntax in place
yet; so do not feel constrained by syntax in any way. We hope that the
examples are rich enough to get you started, and to help you uncover
anything that may be difficult when trying to generate an Rspec for your
favorite substrate type.

Please use this mailing list to publish your example Rspecs, along with
any questions or feedback you may have. Ted and Rob are both members of
this email list, and they (and I) will no doubt value your contributions
and questions.

We hope to have a nice batch of examples to discuss at the July GEC. We
hope and expect that all of the substrate presenters from the recent GEC
will submit example Rspecs to the email list; you know who you are (and
so do we).

Sincerely,
Patrick

Strawman Rspec for a PC (from Ted & Rob)
****************************************

I think what we're looking for (Rob will correct me if I'm wrong) is
constrained attributes for each category.  If you add new ones, give an
idea what attributes would be needed to cover your substrate.  For
example a PC advertisement might look like (for a 1.8 Ghz x86 processor
with 2 network interfaces configurable as bare HW or w/Linux):

Computation: 1.8 Ghz x86 (2 attribs speed and type)
External Communication: 100 Mb/s Ethernet
External Communication: 100 Mb/s Ethernet
Storage: 2 GB DRAM
Storage: 200 GB rotating disk
Extended options
Interface: Bare 386, Lunix RH4

I've sort of implicitly defined some attributes that I'll make explicit:
processor speed
processor type
interface bandwidth
interface MAC
storage size
storage type
PC interfaces: x86, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, AmigaDOS

That will give us an idea how many attributes need to be in the core
RSpec and where there's overlap.  Constraints might look like this:
(
Computation: 1.8 Ghz x86
External Communication: 100 Mb/s Ethernet
External Communication: 100 Mb/s Ethernet
)
OR
(
Computation: 2.5 Ghz x86
Computation: 2.5 Ghz x86
External Communication: 100 Mb/s Ethernet
)
Storage: 2 GB DRAM
Storage: 200 GB rotating disk
Extended options
Interface: Bare 386, Lunix RH4

Indicating that one could get a dual processor or a dual ethernet
machine, but not both.  That sort of advertisement might come from an
aggregate rather than a single component.

Strawman Rspec for Supercharged PlanetLab Platform (SPP, from Patrick)
**********************************************************************

I am providing two types of specifications:
- Physical resources, i.e. "system characteristics that determine class
of system"
- Requestable resources, i.e. "available control interfaces and resources"

Note that we decided to define entities hierarchically.

SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS
**********************

GPE_x86:
   Computation: 2 Ghz Dual-core Xeon x86
   Computation: 2 Ghz Dual-core Xeon x86
   V Storage: 4 GB DRAM
   NV Storage: 37 GB rotating disk
   Interface: RH4 Linux, Planetlab Version 3.1.15
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (GGE)


NPE_IXP2850:
  Computation: 1.4GHz IXP 2850
  Computation: 1.4GHz IXP 2850
  V Storage: 768 MB DRAM per IXP #total of 1.536 GB
  V Storage: 26 Mb SRAM per IXP #3 Banks of 8 MB each and
                                #1 Bank of 2 MB (total of 52 MB)
  V Storage: 18 Mb TCAM # Shared between IXPs, each with
                        # a dedicated interface
  Interface: Bare IXP 2850, RH4 Linux, Planetlab fast paths
  Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (NGE)


Linecard_IXP2850:
   Component: NPE_IXP2850
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (LCGE)
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet
   External Communication: 1000 Mb/s Ethernet

SPP:
   Component: GPE_x86 (G1)
   Component: GPE_x86 (G2)
   Component: NPE_IXP2850 (I1)
   Component: NPE_IXP2850 (I2)
   Component: Linecard_IXP2850 (L1)
   Component: Backplane_10GE (B)

Backplane_10GE:
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (BGE1) -> G1/GGE
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (BGE2) -> G2/GGE
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (BGE3) -> I1/NGE
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (BGE4) -> I2/NGE
   Internal Communication: 10 Gb/s Ethernet (BGE5) -> L1/LCGE
   Internal Communication: Crossbar, Fully provisioned

RESOURCES THAT CAN BE REQUESTED
*******************************
PlanetLab 3.1.15 node
PlanetLab fast paths: Bare IXP 2850, IPv4, I3
Network links: 1-10
Link bandwidth : 1-1000 Mbps
Link service: Best Effort, Guaranteed


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