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Objectives

Team

Deliverables

Execution plan

The activity described here match closely with activities proposed for the GN2 project. EGEE as a major Grid project served by GEANT and the NRENs will collaborate in defining requirements, specifications and interfaces to new services provided by the network.

Full exploitation of these capabilities by EGEE requires their integration into the Grid middleware through appropriate interfaces and mechanisms, to allow automated access to the services provided or information derived. This means:

• making it possible for Grid middleware to access service levels and bandwidth reservation through an interface to the control plane of the network, in order to create the connections and flows by Grid applications through the dynamic reconfiguration of the network, and

• creating tools that allow measurements of network characteristics to be presented from a number of perspectives and for various purposes, allowing network performance to act as an input into the way Grid middleware organises and allocates resources to perform a Grid job.

The tasks below will be developed in accordance with the EGEE architecture defined by the Architecture Team, in which the network perspective will be represented by a participant drawn from this activity.

Network performance monitoring and diagnostic tools

Measurement of the performance characteristics of the network and diagnostic tools are needed in a Grid context for several purposes: problem diagnosis and rectification, services to facilitate resource allocation, performance monitoring and, in particular, SLA adherence. Typical clients might be:

• Grid middleware (e.g. resource brokers, data management)

• Grid operations centres and network operations centres (to monitor performance and service level, and to diagnose problems)

• Grid users (to determine when and where problems exist prior to reporting to a support or operations centre)

Bandwidth allocation and reservation

In order to meet the needs of both Grid and non-Grid users of the network, mechanisms will be required to control and balance usage of the network by highly demanding applications, and to categorise and prioritise traffic flows so that they receive the required level of service from the network. In particular, EGEE will need services to allocate network bandwidth to Grid applications both immediately and in advance, delivering specific levels of service.

IPv6 uptake

An additional task within this activity is to conduct a study of the usage of IPv6 in a Grid context, focussing in particular on the advantages which might be offered to EGEE through its use.