Hands-on Workshop on Science DMZ and P4-DPDK
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 - Thursday, April 17, 2025
Online
Register here
Organizers
- University of South Carolina (USC)
- The Engagement and Performance Operations Center (EPOC)
- Minority Serving - Cyberinfrastructure Consortium (MS-CC)
Overview
This Mini Workshop will first discuss the challenges faced by campus networks when supporting science and engineering applications, associated to research and education activities. Then, it will cover recent advances on network technologies that can solve or mitigate those challenges, and positively impact the performance of data transfers on campus networks. Topics include ScienceDMZs, solutions with and without Science DMZs, best practices on TCP congestion control, how to monitor networks with perfSONAR, fine-grained telemetry with programmable data plane switches, and others. Attendees will be provided access to hands-on training materials running on a virtual platform.
Audience
The workshop is targeted to IT professionals such as system administrators, network engineers, and practitioners in general. The content is also suitable for IT leadership who may want to further understand best practices supporting research and education activities on campus. Additionally, systematic hands-on lab libraries will be made available to educators interested in incorporating the materials on their programs.
Outcomes
By the end of this tutorial, attendees will:
- Identify challenges faced by campus networks when supporting research and education.
- Describe network architectures, such as Science DMZ, that follow best practices.
- Understand BGP attributes and path selection.
- Apply attributes such as local preference and MED to route traffic.
- Tune TCP parameters to achieve high-performance data transfers.
- Be familiar with new technologies such as P4 and DPDK to develop applications running at line-rate on servers and switches.
Pre-requisites
The laboratory environment consists of routers, switches, and hosts deployed in IPv4 networks. Attendees are expected to know basic networking (IPv4, local area networks, OSI model). Training activities will be conducted using NetLab. Attendees will be provided with a username and a password.
Agenda
Day 1: Tuesday, April 15
| Time (ET) | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 1:00-1:05 | Welcome and Introduction | Jason Zurawski (EPOC), Jorge Crichigno (USC), Jennifer Kim (Internet2) |
| 1:05-1:20 | BGP Fundamentals | George Robb (EPOC) |
| 1:20-2:20 | Hands-on Session 1: Essentials of BGP, EBGP, IBGP | Jose Gomez (Fort Lewis College) |
| 2:20-2:30 | BREAK | |
| 2:30-3:00 | Local Preference, MED | George Robb (EPOC) |
| 3:00-4:00 | Hands-on Session 2: Cold-Potato Routing | Ali AlSabeh (USC) |
| 4:00-4:10 | Break | |
| 4:10-4:30 | Science DMZ Fundamentals | Doug Southworth (EPOC) |
| 4:30-4:35 | Demo: CUBIC vs BBR under packet losses and large RTTs [Demo] | Elie Kfoury (USC) |
| 4:35-4:45 | Available lab libraries for Science DMZ topics | Elie Kfoury (USC) |
| 4:45-5:00 | Summary Day 1 |
Day 2: Thursday, April 17
| Time (ET) | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 1:00-1:05 | Welcome and Introduction | Elie Kfoury (USC), Paul Ruth (UNC) |
| 1:05-1:45 | Fundamentals of P4 and DPDK | Elie Kfoury (USC) |
| 1:45-1:50 | Demo 1: Classification of encrypted traffic at line rate | Amith GSPN (USC) |
| 1:50-2:00 | BREAK | |
| 2:00-3:00 | Lab 1: Introduction to P4 and DPDK | Sergio Elizalde (USC) |
| 3:00-3:05 | Additional lab experiments on P4 DPDK | Elie Kfoury (USC) |
| 3:05-3:15 | BREAK | |
| 3:15-4:15 | Lab 2: Calculating Packets Interarrival Times using Hashes and Registers | Samia Choueiri (USC) |
| 4:15-4:45 | SmartNICs - Fundamentals and Updates | Elie Kfoury (USC) |
| 4:45-5:00 | Summary Day 2 |
Access to Lab Platform
To access the lab platform, please use the following URL: https://netlab.cec.sc.edu/
Resources
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| BBRv3 tests: Link | This presentation contains the latest evaluation of BBRv3 in ESnet |
| Cybertraining Material: Link | List of virtual labs on P4, SDN, network tools and protocols, ... |
| P4 Campus: Link | P4 applications for campus networks |
| FABRIC: Link | A programmable research infrastructure |
| Behavioral Model version 2 (BMv2): Link | Reference P4 software switch used as a tool for developing, testing and debugging P4 data planes |
| Software-Defined Networks: A Systems Approach: Link | A book that explores the key principles of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) |
| Mininet: Link | Virtual testbed enabling the development and testing of network tools and protocols |
| Containernet: Link | Mininet fork that allows to use Docker containers as hosts in emulated networks |
| Mininet Installation: Link | A guide that describes the steps to install Mininet on Linux |
| Wireshark: Link | Packet analyzer used for network troubleshooting, analysis, protocol development, and education |
| PNA specification: Link | The webpage hosting the specification of the PNA architecture |
| P4 Zulip channel : Link | Zulip channel for P4 related questions/updates |
| p4c-dpdk backend : Link | The source code of the p4c-dpdk backend |