Testbeds

1
Testbeds

• Henning Schulzrinne
• Columbia University

2
Questions to get started

• What are the fundamental networking questions?
• content distribution - distributed resource
• new architecture airport model
• gt 4 billion devices does IPv6 work?
• deploying new services (multicast, QoS)
• distributed data stream processing - computing in
  the core
• application-sensitive (video) dyn. resource
  allocation isolation
• tolerance to (say) long latencies
• security issues network or not?
• disconnected operation - network support
• low-power networking

3
Testbed goals

• Testbed as an end, rather than (just) means to
  another end
• Experiment with virtualization
• Create smaller self-contained domains
• Restructure the industry

4
Why testbeds?

• Which of these can be answered by testbeds?
• experimental system build, evaluate, write
• PlanetLab, Emulab
• deployment platform (e.g., Coral)
• to be used by people
• geographic scale (lots of users can reach it)
• scale for routing? --gt probably not
• show me (industry, other researchers)
• deploy things that are not yet mature

5
Why testbeds?

• Cant build it at one institution
• cost
• scale (distances, nodes)
• maintenance (technicians, programmers)
• Cant justify at one institution
• cost vs. usage intensity

6
Testbed models

• Internet3
• focus mainly on L2, L3
• high-performance, low-latency testbeds
• Testbeds from commodity parts (e.g., routers)
• subsystem components
• transfer of technology to real routers? (cf.
  Linux model)
• power as observable quantity
• Federation of institution test beds
• cooperative model (mutual resource sharing)
• PlanetLab on steroids
• resource-limited experiments (memory, CPU) who
  gets what? user count?
• needs resources -- tiny right now
• wireless motes, ORBIT sign up for time
• Kits and tools

7
Testbeds and users

• aware vs. oblivious users
• old Gigabit testbeds, DARTnet ... Internet2
• roll out applications without access to actual
  testbed (Internet access)
• performance isolation

8
Testbed desirables

• Representative testbed
• large potential user population
• running non-Linux
• SETI_at_HOME for networking
• Need programming model
• language abstractions
• data flow style, scheduling