News for and about the Internet2 community

["Michelle Pollak" <>]

INTERNET2 MAKES ABILENE OBSERVATORY RESEARCH DATA AVAILABLE TO GLOBAL
COMPUTER SCIENCE COMMUNITY

WASHINGTON, D.C. - October 20, 2003 - Today, Internet2(R) announced that
research data, collected during the past two years by the Abilene
Observatory project, is now available for use by the greater, global
computer science community.  Already providing support for network
researchers at its member universities, Internet2 invites computer
researchers to access the data freely and to make recommendations on other
types of network performance data that might be collected by the
Observatory.

"We hope that the computer science community will take advantage of the data
we have been collecting through the Abilene Observatory," said Rick
Summerhill, associate director of Backbone Network Infrastructure at
Internet2.  "The data provides researchers with a view into an operational
network that is often difficult to emulate in a laboratory environment.  It
is our hope that as future infrastructures become available, we will be able
to fold similar types of measurements into the overall Abilene Observatory
database."

The Abilene Observatory supports the development of an integrated data
archive of all performance and network status information collected on the
Abilene Network with the aim of providing access to researchers wishing to
study an operational, high-performance network in a manner not possible on
the commercial Internet.  In addition, the Observatory provides for the
collocation of network experiments and measurement servers developed by the
research community.

The Observatory gathers the network data it collects into several databases
distributed across a variety of servers on the network.  The various forms
of data can be viewed through a single, large correlated database that is
accessible by the research community.  A goal of the Observatory is to
provide tools that will allow researchers to access the data in a simple and
straight-forward manner.

Data gathered by the Observatory includes:

+ Usage Statistics - the amount of traffic on network links
+ Flow data - data that examines individual flows across the network (made
anonymous to protect user privacy)
+ Routing data - where packets are directed within the network
+ Latency data - how long it takes packets to reach their destinations
+ Throughput data - the capability of the network to support flows of
information
+ Router data - how the routers view the network
+ Syslog data - what the routers are reporting about the network

PlanetLab, a global overlay testbed managed and operated by Princeton
University, is currently the first collocated research project being
conducted on the Observatory.  It is designed to allow researchers to
develop and test powerful, new software not confined to a single computer
but run on many computers at once, treating the global network, as one
large, widely- distributed computer.

"The Abilene Observatory is now supporting Planet Lab in eight of the core
router nodes, and installation of the remaining three nodes is expected in
the near future," said Larry Peterson, chair, department of computer
science, Princeton University.  "In collaboration with the Observatory,
we're making progress on implementing an interface for researchers in
programmatic and investigative ways to use this information to build higher
performance and more robust network services."

There are several projects currently using Abilene data research including:

+ Internet Tsunami Warning System Project, Carnegie Mellon University
+ MINDS Project, University of Minnesota
+ Network Research Lab at Case Western Reserve University
+ The Wisconsin Advanced Internet Laboratory (WAIL)

"The availability of data across all layers of the network stack from the
Abilene Observatory has played an essential role in both the configuration
of our network laboratory facilities and in our on-going empirical research
here at Wisconsin," said Paul Barford, assistant professor, department of
computer science, University of Wisconsin.  "The longitudinal network
operation data coupled with the opportunity to collocate resources within
Abilene make the Observatory a unique and invaluable resource to the network
research community.  We expect to see many future studies based on use of
the Observatory."

The Abilene Observatory is an Internet2 program that supports the collection
and dissemination of network data associated with the Abilene Network, the
10 Gigabit-per-second national backbone network, supporting high-
performance connectivity for U.S. research universities and their broad set
of affiliates.  The Observatory serves both advanced network engineers - by
providing a view of the operational data associated with a large-scale
network - and, computer science researchers - by providing key data
associated with insights into the fundamental properties of basic network
protocols, network performance and protocol design advances.

To gain access to Observatory data or to make a recommendation on other data
that should be collected by the Abilene Observatory, please send an email to
.

                                                        # # #

About the Abilene Observatory
The Abilene Observatory is a program that supports the collection and
dissemination of network data associated with Internet2's Abilene Network.
The observatory serves network engineers by providing a view of the
operational data associated with a large-scale network, and the research
community by providing data associated with the fundamental properties of
basic network protocols.  For more information, visit:
http://abilene.internet2.edu/observatory/.

About Internet2(R)
Led by more than 200 U.S. universities, working with industry and
government, Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network
applications and technologies for research and higher education,
accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet.  Internet2 recreates the
partnerships among academia, industry, and government that helped foster
today's Internet in its infancy.  For more information about Internet2,
visit: http://www.internet2.edu/.

CONTACT:
Michelle Pollak
Internet2
(202) 331-5345


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Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 06:50:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Lucy E. Lynch" 
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Subject: Internet Policy Junkies
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The University of Oregon Multicast Team has a treat for you -

We will be multicasting the ARIN XII public meetings from Chicago
this Wednesday and Thursday, see:

http://videolab.uoregon.edu/

The agenda can be found here:

http://www.arin.net/ARIN-XII/index.html

Topics include micro-assignments for multi-homed networks, ARIN
assignments for Africa, and policy and scope for whois.

Discussion should be lively as many operators from this weeks NANOG
meeting have stayed on for ARIN as well.

Thanks, as always, to Cisco Systems for their support of our efforts.

Lucy E. Lynch                           Academic User Services
Computing Center                        University of Oregon
llynch  @darkwing.uoregon.edu           (541) 346-1774/Cell: 912-7998

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