A Research Testbed for Services Based on Logistical Networking

University Of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville TN

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal is for creation of a distributed storage network testbed. The goal is to improve the performance of network based storage by deploying "logistical networking" facilities as uniform network services. Although such services as caches and buffers are familiar in networked information systems, but they are not explicitly modeled in the standard protocol stack and middleware of the Internet. The special case investigated here is replication of services which uses the Internet2 Distributed Storage Infrastructure as its experimental facility. To explore the more general case the Internet Backplane Protocol (IBP), developed by the PIs, is used for co-scheduling networking and storage resources. The plan is to develop and deploy basic functionality to the point where it is scalable and manageable to support a real application community. Prototype applications of IBP in early development include middleware for state management in Computational Grids, IBP-MIME to enable movement of very large files via email, and IBP memory servers for distributed sensory data.