Federating PlanetLab LSIR

							PlanetLab Federation
    Development
   Aaron Klingaman
  Princeton University
Overview
• Motivation For Federation
• Background and Refresher
• Our Current Approach
   – Federation Stages
   – Management Authorities
   – Slice Authorities
• Open Problems and Discussion Points




                             Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Motivation for Federation
• Need to maintain cohesion between new, separate
  PlanetLab instances
• Enhancing long term viability by giving organizations
  autonomy and control over their resources
• Enabling scalable management of PlanetLab by
  decentralization
• To overcome language barriers and time zone differences
  that can hinder management or slow conflict resolution




                               Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Background and Refresher
• Management Authority
   – Controls software running on node, secure boot up
   – Logs auditing information
• Slice Authority
   – Provides slice namespace management on nodes
   – Creates slices for users on nodes
• PlanetLab Central is both an MA and an SA



                               Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Federation Stages Overview
• 4 stages centered around breaking apart PlanetLab Central:
   – Stage 0/1 preliminary work to get future MA sites
      running
   – Stage 2 separates the MA out of the architecture
   – Stage 3 new SA
• Stage 2/3 can be developed simultaneously




                                Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Federation Stage 0 Overview
• New management sites get started
  while the federation work
  continues
• Primarily consists of:
   – Custom built node boot cd
   – No need for any management
     authority servers yet
   – Nodes will automatically switch over
     to Management Authority when up
     and running later stages
• Status: Completed

                                    Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Federation Stage 1 Overview
• Continue where stage 0 left off
• Bring online a server to handle the roles of the PLC web
  and boot server  Faster node installations
• A local team to handle support requests and node
  installation for nodes in the Management Authority
• All database related operations proxied back to PlanetLab
  central servers
• Status: Development complete, currently in testing



                                Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Federation Stage 2 Overview
• Goal is to create a fully independent Management
  Authority:
   – Develop and deploy own node software
   – Local team handles node management issues as they see fit
   – Ability to choose own slice authority in future
• PlanetLab Consortium will initially remain slice authority
• Status: Currently planning.




                                    Aaron Klingaman    Princeton University
Federation Stage 3 Overview
• Final stage
• Ability to create a new independent Slice Authority
• Majority of work to allow this will happen in Stage 2




                                Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
Open Problems and Next Steps
• Need collaborators for various problems:
   – What will the MA / SA communication protocols be?
   – What specifications will be necessary to implement the
     federation stages?
   – Slice naming schemes and interfaces for
     SAs/NodeManager?
• Research areas:
   – To what extent is resource management part of this
     federation work, and how will it fit?

                               Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University
More Information
• On going document describing these stages in more detail
  is available at:
  http://planet-lab.org/doc/federation_stages.pdf
• Subscribe to arch mailing list for future discussion
  (arch@lists.planet-lab.org)
• Working group session tomorrow




                               Aaron Klingaman   Princeton University