How networks can fulfil today s and tomorrow s Grid

How networks can fulfil today‘s and tomorrow‘s Grid demands - Organisational and Technical Challenges Marcus Pattloch, Karin Schauerhammer, Klaus Ullmann (DFN-Verein, Germany, pattloch@dfn. de) 29. March 2007, ISGC 2007, Taipei 1

Contents • User Collaboration Structure • Economical and Technical Challenges – Some Technical Definitions – Examples: X-Wi. N, Geant 2 and the LHCOPN – OPN Building Blocks – Forecasts • VPNs/OPNs, Grids’ Role for Networking, Transmission Technology, User Demands – Conclusions • Bandwidth Provision, Future Developments and Needs • Organisational Challenges 2

How do networked users collaborate? • Research collaboration has in almost all cases an international dimension • Example: For LHC collaborations the processes for the four experiment‘s data evaluation has an international dimension of networking which is vital for success • NRENs (National Research Networks) and Geant 2 (Pan European Network) have to adapt to that situation - not only for the LHC experiment evaluation process 3

Economical and Technical Challenges 4

Some Technical Definitions • VPN: Virtual Private Network – a „user-owned network“ which is built from a basic technical platform (IP / SDH / DWDM. . . ) • OPN: Optical (Virtual) Private Network – a VPN based on optical technology • Hybrid Network – Router based network using a VPN / OPN as a platform 5

Forecast (F 1) • Communication Market – F 1: Liberalisation of communication market in all European countries will continue, will (amongst others) give better opportunities for research networks and will decrease the „digital divide“ (or the economic conditions for that divide) 6

Example 1: X-Wi. N (German NREN) 7

X-Wi. N (1): Topology inc. cross-border fibre KIE Fibre A AWI Fibre B DKRZ DES ROS HAM Fibre C Fibre D BRE Surfnet POT HAN MUE BIE BRA MAG TUB ZIB FFO PSNC ZEU HUB ADH DUI FZJ AAC BIR JEN FRA Geant 2 BAY ESF KAI HEI ERL FZK Renater CHE ILM GSI SAA DRE LEI KEH REG STU GAR Richtung Basel Switch/GARR 13. 10. 2006 8

X-Wi. N (2): (Hybrid network) Features • Platform available for national VPNs/OPNs and for the national part of international VPNs/OPNs • Possible due to lively fibre market in Germany • Optical technology delivers ample bandwidth, i. e. 160*10 Gbit/s per link • Costs per 10 Gbit/s link are relatively low (as in Geant 2) - in the order of 90 K€/a for 10 Gbit/s 9

X-Wi. N (3): Targets (network design) • More performance – performance increase by factor 4 since 01/06 (same costs) – more performance available as of 01/07 (for the same price) • More flexibility – no volume charging (and no usage limitation) – Ethernet as additional access technology – hybrid Po. Ps enable VPNs • Higher availability – during design for backbone implicitly taken into account 10

X-Wi. N (4): Optical platform • Toolbox for the provision of – DFNInternet (10 Gbps to 10 Mbps) – VPNs/OPNs based on optical links – services like DFNVideo. Conference, DFN-PKI, DFN -CERT, DFNRoaming, DFNNews unchanged • New cost structures for optical networks enable very economic network solutions for specialised services like Grids (for example OPNs) 11

X-Wi. N (5): Router Platform for IP EWE BRE GOE KIE ROS GRE TUB HAN BIE BRA MAG CRSHAN FFO CRSPOT DRE POT KAS DUI FZJ CRSFRA CRSERL BAY CHE AAC ERL GIE ADH AWI MUE MAR HUB ZIB DES HAM FRA BIR REG WUE SAA KAI GSI LEI HEI JEN AUG FZK STU GAR ILM XR 43 CISCO 7609 KR 1 GE 10 GE 2 x 10 GE 12

X-Wi. N (6) - Status • Technical concept backbone – backbone consists of (dark) fibre and leased circuits – operational responsibility: DFN – more than before bought in partial services like 24/7 hotline – much more than before DFN Po. Ps • Economic concept – backbone put together from different service offerings from the market and integrated under DFN responsibility – most effective usage of competition on the market 13

X-Wi. N (7): Scalability of architecture • Options for transfer – 10 Gbit/s ~ 1014 Byte/d or 100 TByte/d – eleven 10 Gbit/s links -> more than 1 PByte/d or roughly 0. 5 Exa. Byte/a • If one 10 Gbit/s link per T 1 is not sufficient – installation of just another 10 Gbit/s link T 0 - T 1 if possible on physically separated fibre path – architecture covers this completely – upper limit of the technology is 160 links per optical path 14

Conclusion (C 1) • Bandwidth Provision – C 1: Bandwidth provision, which has been a major economic problem for any research network over the past decade, will not be a big problem in the future (for 10 Gbit/s and below) 15

Forecasts (F 2 & F 3) • VPNs / OPNs – F 2: VPNs/OPNs will in a few years carry the bulk of scientific data in European networks (NRENs/Geant) and perhaps also world-wide – F 3: Migration to that scenario is an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process defined by user group’s needs and available new network technology 16

Forecasts (F 4 & F 5) • Role of Grids – F 4: Grids and Grid like systems will for the time being be a major driver for the VPN migration scenario process (examples LHCOPN, DEISA network etc. ) – F 5: Networking technology developments like network management (example: monitoring of VPNs/OPNs in multi domain environments) or network security are still needed for serving „Grid infrastructures“ 17

OPN Building Blocks 18

OPN Building Blocks (1): E 2 E Links • E 2 E Links are dedicated optical multi-gigabit connections • Essentially P 2 P links, usually using SDH/SONET or Ethernet GEANT 2 E 1 NREN 2 E 2 E Link 3 E 2 NREN 3 E 2 E Link 2 • E 2 E Links are planned as a regular service of Géant 2: • Cooperation of several NRENs needed to operate E 2 E Links • Users need Single Point of Contact (SPOC) • E 2 E Link Coordination Unit (E 2 ECU) brings together Users and NRENs during operations 19

OPN Building Blocks (2): Workflow E 2 ECU • Workflows define the interaction between Actors • Actors: Authorized Users (no End Users), e. g. – LHC GGUS (Global Grid User Support) – E 2 ECU (End-to-End Link Coordination Unit ) – NREN TNOCs (Thin Network Operation Centres of NRENs) • Mostly human/organisational communication • Full life cycle of E 2 E links is covered • For now, only Workflows for technical aspects are defined • Refinements still under discussion in GN 2 -JRA 4/WI 3 20

OPN Building Blocks (3): E 2 E Link Monitoring • Status information corresponds to network layers 1/2 • Multiple technologies / vendors used to provide an E 2 E service – Status information is logical abstraction from vendor solution – No information about physical devices necessary • Status of partial links (within domains and connecting domains) is provided by NRENs • E 2 E link status is an aggregation of partial links 21

Demo Monitoring • http: //cnmdev. lrz-muenchen. de/e 2 e 22

Example 2: Geant 2 23

Geant 2 topology as of 09/06 24

Example 3: LHCOPN 25

LHC TIER 0 – TIER 1 OPN, scenario based on work by R. Sabatino (DANTE) RAL Nordu. Grid BNL FNAL CERN T 0 TRIUMF S-Janet ASCC Nordu. Net SWITCH Surfnet GEANT 2 Renater SARA DFN GARR GRIDKa Rediris IN 2 P 3 PIC CNAF 26

LHCOPN in Europe • T 1 -T 0 primary connection – for „Geant 2 fibre cloud NRENs“ through Geant 2 • T 1 -T 1 secondary connection – on separate fibre paths through other fibre. Secondary connections provide resilience • OPN approach – high data volume expected, Grid middleware driving this approach; „low“ prices for optical links due to liberalised situation per country enables it 27

T 2 communication to T 1 in DE (1) • Open Issues – Which access pattern is requested by the T 2 s to T 1? Only Grid. Ka or other T 1 s as well? „Other T 1 s“ would be T 1 s in other NRENs. – Which access pattern is requested by the T 2 s to other T 2 s or T 3 s? – What are quantitative access patterns of T 2 s? 28

T 2 communication to T 1 in DE (2) • No specification available yet • In Germany T 2 - and T 3 -sites are known, networking them is now on the agenda • Principles for this part of networking could be: – T 2 sites need 1 Gbit/s access to T 1 (which one? ) – Build resilient ring of core-T 2 sites in Germany – T 3 sites access data through extended DFNInternet service • Problem has to be solved in 2007 29

Forecasts (F 6 - F 8) • Transmission Technology – F 6: On a (per user-) stream basis 10 Gbit/s will be the main bandwidth to be used for the next 2 -3 years, perhaps even longer - the difficulty is to get data from sources to sinks at higher speeds than 10 Gbit/s – F 7: 40 Gbit/s or 100 Gbit/s per (user-) stream will follow – F 8: 10 Gbit/s equipment will be very „cheap“ 30

Forecasts (F 9 & F 10) • Qualitative User Demands – F 9: The user (group) demand in the research area is in almost all cases „multi-domain / multi vendor“ in networking terms (--> see LCG example) – F 10: Users will require „intelligent networks“, i. e. network technology which adapts (at best dynamically) to their requirements 31

Conclusions (C 2 & C 3) • Developments – C 2: One of the main future challenges for the developments of research networking is to further work out solutions for multi-domain environments for operational purposes – C 3: Work started in Geant 2 („E 2 E“) but solutions have to be driven further according to developing demands for example from Grid communities like the particle physics community 32

Conclusion (C 4) • Future Needs – C 4: Intelligent networks (i. e. „intelligent“ VPNs / OPNs adaptable and more flexible to user needs) have to be further developed in the future, i. e. VPNs „on demand“ or dynamic VPNs 33

Organisational Background 34

Governing Structure • Presently the NREN Policy Committee (NRENPC) is successfully governing the networking policy definition and always devised a flexible substructure (for example Exec) to adapt to management needs 35

The NRENPC as of 01/07 Country NREN Austria Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic Cyprus Germany Estonia France Greece Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands (ACOnet) (BELNET) (BREB/ISTF) (CARNet) (CESNET) (CYNET) (DFN) (EENet) (RENATER) (GRNET) (HUNGARNET) (HEANet) (IUCC) (GARR) (LATNET) (LITNET) (RESTENA) (Uo. M) (SURFNET) Country NREN Nordic Countries (Nordu. Net) Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden Poland (PSNC) Portugal (FCCN) Romania (Ro. Edu. Net) Russia (JSCC) Slovakia (SANET) Slovenia (ARNES) Spain (Red. IRIS) Switzerland (SWITCH) Turkey (ULAKBIM) United Kingdom (UKERNA) Plus Non-Voting Members: DANTE, TERENA Perm. Observers: CERN, AMREJ, MARNET 36

Summary • Economic situation for data networks improved drastically within the last 10 years • 10 Gbit/s VPNs economically achievable today • High performance network technology is/has been introduced in a couple of NRENs and Geant 2; they will be upgraded according to available new network technology • Main development topic: multi-domain issues • Close coordination between demanding user groups and networkers is absolutely necessary 37