Towards a Well-ManagedNext Generation Internet!

Hot Research Topics in Next Generation Internet PanelNY Systems/Networking Summit, NYU

Aman ShaikhAT&T Labs – Research

ashaikh@research.att.com

November 17, 2006

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 2

Jen/Paul/Aman Generation Internet• Internet is not built with

manageability in mind– Hard to answer basic

questions, e.g., • “What path traffic took from

A to B some x hours ago?”

– Much of Network Management is “reactive”!

• Network core is not simple – Scale, geographical span,

diversity, constant churn

• Best effort is not enough!– We rely on the Internet for

pretty much everything

StatisticsStatistics

Optical networkingOptical networkingIP/MPLS networkingIP/MPLS networking

Data miningData mining

AlgorithmsAlgorithmsVisualizationVisualization

SecuritySecurity

Machine LearningMachine Learning

AutomationAutomation

SoftwareSoftwareBusinessBusiness

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 3

What Are Network Management Tasks?

• Network trouble-shooting

• Maintenance/upgrades

• Configuration management

• Security

• Customer provisioning

• SLAs

• …

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 4

Trouble-shooting• Trouble-shooting Life-cycle

– Monitor, Detect, Localize, Diagnose, Fix and Verify• Vision: rapid, automated response

– How to assure every step of trouble-shooting lifecycle is extremely fast?• Challenges

– Monitoring• How to gain maximum information about the network with minimal effort?

– Detection• How to find (possibly large) needles in (massive) haystacks?

– Localization/Diagnosis• Need to build diagnosis capabilities into the protocols

– Fix• Need seamless workflow and business processes

– Verify• Need models for “normal” operation of the network

• Can we design next generation Internet so that we don’t have to trouble-shoot?

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 5

Maintenance/Upgrade• Maintenance/Upgrades Life-cycle

– “Day-shift”: schedule, “Night-shift”: perform upgrade

• Vision: pain-free, seamless maintenance/upgrade -- both for operators and customers

• Challenges– Scheduling

• Handle huge scale and large set of constraints• Gauge impact of a proposed maintenance/upgrade on network and

customers

– Performing maintenance/upgrade• Design protocols so that they can be upgraded with minimal churn• Design equipments so that they can be upgraded in service• Design mechanisms and checks to reduce chances that

maintenance/upgrade goes wrong– But if it does go wrong, how to back out quickly and smoothly?

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 6

Configuration Management

• Configuration: operators’ interface to network

• Vision: expressive, flexible, robust config mechanisms

• Challenges– Configuration languages

• Allow operators to express their intent directly and flexibly

• Move to network-wide config from per-device config

– Configuring and tuning the parameters and knobs• Need to move from trial-and-error to science

• Can we design systems and protocols that adapt behavior based on performance goals and observed performance?

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 7

“Measure, Model, Control” for Management of Next Generation Internet

• Measure: continuously check the health of the network– Data plane and control plane

• Model: accurate “what-if” analysis– Ability to gauge the impact of possible internal/external changes

• Control: steer network towards desired operating point in an automated and efficient manner

Topology, Configuration, Workflow

Offered Traffic,Routing, Fault

Changes tothe network

Network

Network-wide“what if” model

measure control

NY Systems/Networking Summit, 2006Slide 8

More Information …• Operations and Management of IP Networks: What Researchers Should

Know http://www.research.att.com/~ashaikh/talks/tutorial-sigcomm05.ppt

• Happy Network Administrators => Happy Packets => Happy Users http://www.research.att.com/~ashaikh/papers/wired06-pos-stat.pdf http://www.research.att.com/~ashaikh/talks/wired06-pos-stat.ppt