MRI: Development of a Testbed for Overlay Network Research and Education

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal #: 12-29553 PI(s): Crowley, Patrick; Turner, Jonathan S Institution: Washington University Title: MRI/Dev.: A Testbed for Overlay Network Research and Education Project Proposed: This project, developing an instrument for experiments used in a controllable, high-performance and experimental overlay network research and education, enables researchers to experiment with overlay network algorithms, protocols (peer-to-peer, novel Internet architectures) and understand workloads in great details including cost coming from routers, switches and servers in a safe manner. Building upon and leveraging an existing Internet-accessible community resource, the Open Network Lab (ONL, www.onl.wustl.edu), it adds high performance components that can be configured and extended to support a wide range of controlled and repeatable experimental computer networking projects. Through the integration of additional switches and servers and the addition of platform-level server virtualization, this instrument extends the function of ONL by expanding the available physical resources in ONL by a factor of two and, via server virtualization, expanding the effective virtual resources by a factor of approximately eight. The enabled research ranges from future Internet architectures, overlay networks, to peer-to-peer systems. Broader Impacts: The proposed instrument can greatly impact the research in future Internet. The instrument is likely to have significant broader impact on undergraduate and graduate education, as well as contribute in attracting more students to careers in science and engineering, thus increasing their participation.