MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY HAYSTACK OBSERVATORY WESTFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 01886 Telephone: Fax: 978-692-4764 781-981-0590 18 April 2002 TO: Distribution FROM: Alan R. Whitney SUBJECT: 18 April 2002 e-VLBI telecon summary Attendees: Lee Foster, Pat Gary, Chuck Kodak, Bill Wildes – GSFC Tom Lehman, ISI Steve Bernstein, Lorraine Prior – Lincoln Laboratory Richard Crowley, Kevin Dudevoir, Hans Hinteregger, Arthur Niell, Alan Whitney – Haystack Observatory This telecon is one of an ongoing series of telecons to prepare for gigabit/sec e-VLBI demonstrations between NASA GSFC and MIT Haystack Observatory using a combination of network facilities including all or part of Glownet, Bossnet, ISI-E, SuperNet, Max and GSFC/HECN. Status Reports The attached figures of the e-VLBI path have been updated to reflect current status and are pretty much self-explanatory; critical status items are indicated in red. In addition, the following comments are relevant: − Lorraine reported that the Summit 5i at C1 and E3 have been replaced with Alpine 3804’s and a third λ has been added to the D1/D3 link. E11 no longer exists; test workstation E5 now connects directly to E3. Because one of LL radars is currently down for maintenance, e-VLBI can temporarily have a dedicated λ for testing (til mid-May 2002), which is much appreciated and should help speed up testing. − Tom reported some possible problem with one of the Bossnet transponders. Tom and Steve will consult with Peter Schultz at LL regarding this issue. − Steve reported that link F1 was severed on 9 April due to a car hitting a power pole in Somerville, MA. NStar has slightly re-rerouted the link between LL and 230 Congress St. Steve does not believe this is related to the possible Bossnet problem. − Kevin reported UDP transfer from Haystack to ISI-E (G7) of ~850-900 Mbps with ~0.5% drop rate; UDP has not yet been tried from ISI-E to Haystack. Above 900 Mbps, drop rate rises quickly; at 980 Mbps, drop rate increases to ~5-7% and is quite repeatable. TCP throughput is often <100 Mbps, though occasionally has climbed to as high as 400 minutes11.doc 4/19/2002 1 Mbps. Kevin has sent Tom a list of symptoms. − Tom will work with Kevin next week to try to resolve the poor TCP performance between Haystack and ISI-E. Two different workstations (one dual Pentium and one dual Alpha) at ISI-E have been involved in the tests, both showing similar performance. Tom suspects some tweaking is needed. − Pat reported that H9/H11 link will be in place by 26 April; H9 connection to H7 (Juniper M160). To make this link, Jerry Sobieski will retrieve an interface (cost ~$25K!) currently at ISI-E which he has agreed to put into H7 for these e-VLBI tests. − Pat will get details on test workstation at J1 from Jerry. − Testing from Haystack to GSFC/Bldg 28 can be conducted through the H8/J4 link through the Cisco 4912 (J3), but at reduced performance since the 4912 does not support jumbo frames. Workstation at K6 position can be used for this purpose. − Pat reported that test workstation at K6 will be moved to GGAO by 26 April. Position at K6 can probably then be ‘backfilled’ with another (as yet unidentified) G4 Mac test workstation. Haystack would like to hold onto Bill Wildes Dell test workstation (currently at B3) for a while longer since Haystack has no other suitable machine at the moment. − Alan asked anyone with recommendations for a good PC motherboard for supporting GigE; must also support 64-bit/66-MHz PCI. CPU in current motherboard (Dell motherboard with 1 GHz P3) nearly saturates during simple performance testing and must be upgraded. e-VLBI workshop at Haystack Observatory A 2-day international e-VLBI workshop was held at Haystack Observatory on 8-9 April (last week), attended by ~70 VLBI and network experts. Meeting information and presentations are available on-line at http://web.haystack.mit.edu/haystack/vlbisystems.html; a meeting summary will be posted soon at the same address. Other Pat suggests that we think ahead to how to keep the link alive after the conclusion of demonstration period, when loaned and borrowed equipment will inevitably have to be returned. In particular, the H9 connection into H7 (Juniper M160) and the G11 connection into H3 (Juniper M160) are temporary and need to be solidified with real dollars. Tom suggests we should get together with NSF and/or DARPA to establish a follow-on program to this demonstration, which may very well include procuring the equipment to replace currently loaned or borrowed pieces. Bill Wildes indicated that Jim Fisher (NASA?) is hosting a round table discussing future directions of computing for NASA Code Y. A future round table may include high-performance network discussions, and we should keep our eyes open for this. Bill also indicated that John LaBreque of NASA HQ is a big supporter of this e-VLBI demonstration experiment and is very interested in possibly launching a new initiative under Code Y to further e-VLBI development. minutes11.doc 4/19/2002 2 Pat suggests focusing on at least two things in future activities: 1) solidifying activities at 1 Gbps and 2) push the envelope to 10 Gbps as next generation. Tom indicated again that he expects to have 10GigE up between ISI-E and LL sometime this summer. Pat mentioned that Gary Carter of UMBC (ex-LL) had contacted him, indicating that he (Carter) is expecting some NASA money to work on high-speed networking problems that NASA may have. When Pat mentioned the e-VLBI work, Carter was very interested and thought he (UMBC) might be able to contribute. Steve said that he recalls that Gary is oriented more toward physical-layer problems. Pat will follow up on this with Gary. Action Items Pat: Make connections H9 and H11 by 26 April 2002. Pat: Move test workstation K6 to GGAO by ~26 April 2002. All: Think about follow-on activities. Next telecon Next telecon will be Monday, 6 May 2002 at 2 pm. xc: minutes11.doc 4/19/2002 Steve Bernstein, LL Jim Calvin, LL Lorraine Prior, LL Leslie Weiner, LL Herbert Durbeck, GSFC Lee Foster, GSFC Pat Gary, GSFC Chuck Kodak, GSFC Kevin Kranacs, GSFC Paul Lang, GSFC Aruna Muppalla, GSFC Bill Wildes, GSFC Dan Magorian, UMCP Tom Lehman, ISI Jerry Sobieski, Max Richard Crowley, Haystack Kevin Dudevoir, Haystack Hans Hinteregger, Haystack Arthur Niell, Haystack Joe Salah, Haystack 3 Westford Antenna Millstone RPE Bldg (Lorraine) Dedicated no scheduling GigE WS/ Mark 5 Summit 1i 1 A2 A1 GigE 8 Alpine A4 3804 A3 Dedicated no scheduling 28-1A 14 B1 GigE GigE Dell Poweredge 2500 Summit 15 28-1B B8 B6 B7 Hub B10 B9 To HS switch B3 WDM GigE 5i 100 Mb B4 C3 16 13 WS/ Mark 5 GigE B5 B2 Corr Cntl Cmptr GlowNet Congress St Boston (~50 km) Amp D2 Lincoln Lab (Lorraine/Steve/Jim) Schedule to be coordinated with LL Cisco 1500 Connection made for e-VLBI E3 GigE E2 E1 Alpine 3804 E4 GigE E5 Test WS GigE E6 (Shared with LL on scheduled basis) Cisco 1500 GigE B11 D3 WDM LL C2 Haystack Correlator WS/ Mark 5 Schedule to be coordinated with LL C1 3l (2 GigE + 1 OC-48) GlowNet (~100 km) D1 Bossnet (Steve/Jim) ISI-E Scheduling on Bossnet calendar E7 Juniper OC-48 1310 M20 E8 GigE MIT Campus WDM F1 155x Amp Amp F2 E9 Other users (no control) To be upgraded to OC-48 evlbi011.cdr Dell Poweredge 500SC (provided by Haystack) 18 Apr 02 Figure 1: e-VLBI Path - Haystack to ISI-E ISI-E (Tom) Scheduling on Bossnet calendar MAX @ ISI-E (Jerry) Need details Alpha Test WS WDM Switch G5 G7 Tuner Bossnet Summit 5i GigE G6 G8 G6 GigE H5 H1 G12 GigE MAX performance node; need details Test WS? H2 GigE No scheduling; sufficient capacity for e-VLBI H4 Backup plan OC-48 Trans- G2 ponder G1 OC-48 G9 G11 Juniper M40 G3 OC-48 Borrowed OC-48 interface - may not be able to keep G10 H3 H6 MAX/UMCP (Jerry/Dan) To be installed by 26 Apr 02 H7 Juniper M160 GigE H8 GigE H9 Primary e-VLBI path No jumbo frames J3 Test WS? J1 Need details J2 OC-48 Juniper M160 Other users ( no control) Cisco 4912 Switch GigE Summit 5i H10 GigE J5 J4 WDM GigE on loan from GSFC H11 2 GigE LuxN J6 To be installed by 26 Apr 02 LX (~14km) GGAO/Bldg 201 (Pat/Chuck) GSFC/Bldg 28 (Pat/Paul/Kevin/Bill F.) GigE K2 WDM Will try to schedule either K2 or K3 exclusively for e-VLBI experiment G4 Mac with Yellowdog Linux; need details (Bill Fink) K3 K1 K6 Test WS GGAO Antenna Trailer (Bill W./Chuck) K4 Summit 5i GigE LX (~7.25km) K7 1310 Dedicated - no scheduling necessary GigE Summit L1 5i (~500m) L2 K5 Test WS GigE L3 SX L4 L5 K6A Windows PC (Lee Foster) To be moved to GGAO by ~26 Apr 02 Figure 2: e-VLBI Path - ISI-E to GSFC/GGAO Mark 5 L6 Test WS (K6) evlbi012.cdr 18 Apr 02