Simplified NIF for GN4 Input
Purpose:
This NIF form is to be used for the submission of New Ideas suggested for inclusion in the GN4
Phase1 and beyond proposals. Budget estimates, information about objectives, impact, benefits,
etc. as well as scope must all be supplied.
Submit to:
pmo@GÉANT.net by January 31st, 2014 with the subject label starting: GN4Input
Overview
Project Name:
Network To The Labs
Project Type: GN4
Phase1 or longer
term
GN4 phase1 for piloting
effort.
Duration proposed
Phase 1 og GN4. If
succesfull continue into
GN4 phase 2.
Project Proposer:
Brian Bach Mortensen
Estimated Project Costs (best effort!)
GN4
phase
2-N
for
production deployment of
service
Phase 1 should focus on
defining the solution and
testing in at least 5 use
cases (innovation/research
labs or similar).
Manpower in personmonths also identifying
specific expertise
required
Manpower for various tasks:
Product Management
Task Leading: 8MM
and
D6 : 4MM
D12: 2MM
M2: 4MM
M6: 8MM
M8: 8MM
M10: 2MM
Total over phase 1: 34MM
Deliverables
proposed (If any can
be defined at this
stage)
D6 – Deliverable describing
the service architecture and
how it should interoperate
with the MD-VPN service
as transport solution. This
should especially cover
how
operations
and
maintenance is going to be
handled.
D12 – Deliverable summing
up the effort and the
NIF: New Idea Form
Hardware and
equipment:
Each participating lab should
be equipped with a relatively
cheap piece of network
equipment, which will be
installed with a standard
configuration template that
allows access to Geant
network
services
as
delivered and described in
joint
Géant
service
catalogue.
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achieved results or lack of.
Milestones proposed
(If any can be
defined at this stage)
M2 – Define what functions
are needed by the CPE
boxes in order to connect
and manage via the the
Geant
connectivity
services.
Other costs
Team meetings and travel to
use cases:
30000euro
Equipment cost: 10000euro
M6 – Testing and validation
of
different
hardware
equipment
should
be
completed. The outcome
should be selction of one
model that the project will
use for delivering NTTL
service.
M8 – Operations and
maintenance work flow
should be defined. A
standard
configuration
template should be defined
and
tested,
enabling
access and control of
service delivered at the
Labs are controllable from
Geant side.
M10 – 5 use cases should
be identified and put in pilot
production to access the
concept and the possibility
to carry further on in the
GN4 project phase2.
1
Background and Reasoning
Provide background information and the context of the project. Explain the reason for the project. What do you
want to be different? What do you hope to improve? Why is the project needed? This should be the reason for
the project, not the solution.
Research and innovation labs are largely scattered in the European area. These labs are often located and
connected through campus/university networks, which again is connected to regional networks and then finally
NREN networks. The above mentioned labs may both be productions labs that need to transport data in a
virtual private network towards one or more predefined network locations. Other labs may be focussed more on
the research and education aspect of networking and will most likely need to connect to other network labs for
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the sake of doing experimental network research. In order to lighten the access to different network services
the aim of this project is to provide a simple way of connecting the above mentioned labs to the network service
cloud that the Geant network service activities (e.g. current GN3plus SA3) is providing.
The main idea in this project is to lend labs a piece of network equipment that connects to the MD-VPN network
cloud possibly through a simple VLAN tunnel or similar. This tunnel may stretch both campus/and regional
networks if they don’t participate in the MD-VPN network service. The network equipment in the lab will be
paid, maintained and co-branded by the Géant project. The network equipment has to be configured with a pre
defined configuration template in order to ensure fast, reliable and scalable roll out of network equipment.
By providing a standardised solution in the labs that supports multiple network services and termination points,
Geant will be able to provided fast and flexible network services directly to end users in a collaboration with
partners from campus/regional/NREN area. In order to participate in the project a lab has to document that is
has “legimate” intentions with the equipment. Furthermore, it should document that it is able to get a network
tunnel connection back to the (nearest) Géant service point with support from local campus and regional
network operators.
The NTTL equipment may serve a number of different network services as indicated below:

L3VPNs

L2VPN P2P

L2VPN MP2MP (VPLS)

BoD (Bandwidth guaranteed and reservation based L2 P2P connection)
Furthermore it may be used to backhaul traffic to SDN (Software Defined Networks) and NaaS (Network as a
Service) network platforms existing in the Géant project. The BoD service effort should be migrated with the
MD-VPN service providing prioritised network capacity as needed and available by the users.
The status and performance of the CPE equipment should be monitored by a central monitoring instance.
These data should be fully available to NOC and eduPert members for validation and service assurance
purposes. Furthermore, lab users should be able to monitor simple statistics from this centralised instance
using credential that can be authenticated with the eduGain service and software components already existing
in GN3plus. For GN4 phase 2 a more complete service catalogue portal could be produced offering a wider
range of selectable service based on user requirements.
The following figure illustrate the concept that the NTTL project will potentially enable for lab users:
Device that might be used to deliver the service at the lab are

Juniper SRX100

Juniper ACX100
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Objectives, Impact and Benefits
2
Provide one or more bullet points to briefly describe the primary objective(s) of the project in terms of the
desired outcomes. This should be expressed in the form: ‘To ensure…’, ‘To implement…’, 'To service...', 'To
improve...', 'To innovate...', 'To optimize...', 'To save...', etc. For each objective mention the benefits to
identified stakeholders (e.g. end-users, NRENs, large international research projects, industrial research
partners, high level education, etc.) should be mentioned. A description of the expected overall impact must
also be provided.

To service research and innovation labs in the European region with network services as per user
requests

To deliver private and dedicated network capacity to labs as agreed with the lab and in coordination
with local network adminstrators (From NREN edge to labs edge)

To identify performance issues and help users to mitigate both in local networks and NREN networks,
done in collaboration with local NOCs and the eduPert team.

To establish private network tunnels all the way to the labs and compute centers ensuring high
troughput and avoding firewall performance degradation issues.

The service may also be applied as a so called “Science DMZ” solution where the local CPE equipment
is configured as simple blocking router based on source IP and ports, should there be a need for that.
Scope
3
Describe the areas expected to be covered or impacted by the proposed activity, such as organisational areas,
systems, processes, resources.. i.e. what is ‘in scope’. This is not a list of what will be done but identifying the
services, areas or what, will be affected.
Also please enumerate specific items which although they could perhaps be related are intentionally not
addressed by your proposal ("Out of Scope").
3.1
In Scope

Outreach to potential users in coordination with joint account management team

Definition of criterias that CPE boxes must support

Test and validation of CPE boxes

Definition of service architecture in accordance with MD-VPN service cloud

Coordination with user labs and university/regional network operators.
3.2
Out of Scope

Defining new network services between NRENs.
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General Information
4
Outline any potential issues, risks, dependencies, assumptions, constraints and limitations or any other points
that may be useful to help assess the proposal.

Potentially there is a risk that networks adminstrators in regional and campus may oppose to the idea
of bringing the Géant network services closer to the user. In order to reduce this risk we need the
potential users to demonstrate that the “trunking” of traffic back to the Géant services is achievable.
This way of delivering services have been tested in the NREN community before with succes but not as
part of a multi domain effort.

There is a risk that network operators feel they are not represented as delivering the service to the
users. To migigate this risk the service should be co-branded between project and the local/regional
network operators.

This (technical) approach is widely adopted in the commercial world and has proved to be a succesfull
business model. There is no identications that a similar service should not be feasible in the Geant
project if the prerequisites are met as described above..
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