Karen McPherson
C.S. Major
Radford University

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Authors: Raouf Boutaba, Wojciech Golab,
Youssef Iraqi, Tianshu Li, and Bill St. Arnaud published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.
Information as well as quoted material is from this source.

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Definitions
Introduction
Architecture
Security
Conclusion
Q & A

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Wavelength Division Multiplexing:
Technology by which optical lines are divided for traffic by wavelength
Dark fiber: Installed but unused fiber-optic cable
Lightpath Object: An abstraction of one or more lightpaths representing a connection between two or more switches

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Question: What is the best network support for the data intensive nature of grids?
Answer: Optical networks

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Optical networks provide the speed, reliability, and capacity ideal for huge data transfer
Emergence of new technologies such as
WDM reduces cost of implementation
Existence of a great deal of currently available dark fiber reduces costs further

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Problem: Existing optical resource management systems – implemented over the internet - are too slow and unreliable
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Solution: “User-Controlled Lightpath
Management System”

Customer
Administrator
Grid
Application
User Access Layer
Service Provisioning Layer
Resource Management Layer
Physical Layer
Cross-connect devices and lightpaths
Figure 1. The User Controlled Lightpath Management System is represented by three main layers: User Access Layer (UAL), Service Provisioning Layer
(SPL), and the Resource Management Layer (RML)

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Uses an HTML interface
Incorporates many XML and web based tools by implementing Java Web Services
Developer Pack from Sun Microsystems
Main role is to translate user requests into operations on the services in the Service
Provisioning Layer

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Consists of Globus Toolkit 3.0 and JBoss application server
XML based framework – application / platform independence
Maintains information on LPOs and users in a relational database
Main role is to provide services by manipulating Lightpath Objects (LPO)

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Each cross-connect device is represented by a “Resource Agent”
Main role is to provide control over the individual devices
Incorporates the ability to customize system control with Java byte code
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For example: creating your own monitoring policies

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These services - provided as grid services manage the LPO resources
A Lightpath Object is just that – an object. It contains fields for:
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 a unique ID the IDs of the current and previous owner advertisement and lease expiry dates a status indicating whether the LPO is reserved for use by the owner or has been advertised, partitioned, or concatenated and
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 bandwidth in kbps hardware parameters

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CreateRootLPO: This is the basic service managed by the appropriate administrators and utilizes the root LPOs mentioned in the previous section
AdvertiseLPO and LeaseLPO: Ownership of lightpaths is transferred by means of “leasing”
PartitionLPO and ConcatenateLPO: These services are key in creating division and formation of lightpath bandwidths

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AccessLPO: This service prepares a particular path for data traffic
ReconfigureLPO: This service is used for lightpath access policy control
EstablishEndToEndLPO: This service uses those above to form lightpaths, i.e., forming a path of a specific bandwidth between specific endpoints

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The foundation of the security defense presented by this research is achieved by capitalizing on the Grid Security
Infrastructure (GSI) supplied by Globus
Toolkit 3.0

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 mutual authentication - based on public key encryption and Secure Socket Layer transport layer security - httpg message layer security - XML encryption

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GSI insufficient to deal with user privileges in this lightpath management system
Researches implemented an additional, separate authorization mechanism
Implementing their own control allowed the researchers to add a customization feature to this authorization.

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The solution offered by “Grid-Controlled
Lightpaths for High Performance Grid
Applications” does appear to confirm optical answers to grid questions
The solution delivers grid level data transfer at a realistic cost
The management offered by this research also seems to address grid needs - by using a “gridcentric” approach such as the services provided in the SPL, this system may be utilized by grid applications in a very innate way