Abstract
In this chapter we describe InstaGENI, built in response to the GENI Mesoscale initiative (Berman et al., Comput Netw 61:5–23, 2014). InstaGENI was designed both as a distributed cloud, to permit experimenters to run distributed systems and networking experiments, across the wide area, and as a meta-cloud, to permit systems researchers to build experimental clouds within the underlying InstaGENI cloud. InstaGENI consists of more than 36 sites spread across the GENI infrastructure, interconnected by a nationwide, deeply-programmable layer-2 network. Each site is capable of functioning as an autonomous, standalone cloud, with builtin HaaS, IaaS, and OpenFlow (The Openflow Switch Specification. http://OpenFlowSwitch.org; McKeown et al., ACM SIGCOMM CCR 38(2):69–74, 2008) native support. Sites are also and by default linked, to offer slices across the entire GENI Mesoscale infrastructure. InstaGENI targeted and has realized its key design goals of expandability, reliability, resistance to partition, ease of maintenance upgrade, high distribution, and affordability. InstaGENI offers a highly-scalable infrastructure with OpenFlow native both between and across sites. It has demonstrated a high degree of autonomy and remote management, and has demonstrated its meta-cloud properties by hosting an IaaS and PaaS service within it, GENI PlanetLab and the GENI Experiment Engine (Bavier et al., The GENI experiment engine. In: Proceedings of Tridentcom, 2015).
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Notes
- 1.
HP’s proprietary embedded server management technology, similar to Dell Remote Access Controller, Oracle/Sun iLOM, Cisco Integrated Management Controller and IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter.
- 2.
Diagram thanks to Joe Mambretti and Jim Chen at iCAIR, primary designers of the InstaGENI network.
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Acknowledgements
InstaGENI is a large, complex project, and there are many people who contributed to its success. This paper is an extension of, and based heavily, on a journal paper signed by the entire InstaGENI team [8], and we would first like to express our heartfelt thanks to them. Of especial note are Joe Mambretti, Fei Yeh, and Jim Chen, who worked closely with us on network design; Narayan Krishnan, who did the original hardware design to match ProtoGENI’s software specifications. It is hard to adequately describe the logistical challenges in working 35 non-standard orders through a manufacturer, ensuring their delivery to 35 separate sites, and maintaining a complex, multi-year, multi-million dollar budget. InstaGENI was an enormous project management challenge, and we were fortunate that Nicki Watts was kind enough to devote a great deal of time to this project; it literally would not have happened without her. When one of us (McGeer) moved on from HP, Jack Brassil took over as Principal Investigator on the project and completed it brilliantly. We had tremendous support from the GENI Project Office, notably Niky Riga, Heidi Dempsey, Vic Thomas, Henry Yeh, and especially Mark Berman. Leigh Stoller of the Flux research group has been extremely generous in offering operational support to InstaGENI users and experimenters. Larry Singer, then of HP Americas, offered his support for commercialization and Michaela Mezo helped enormously in that area. Shannon Champion of Matrix Integration was instrumental in making InstaGENI an HP product. Moreover, the 36+ PIs and system administrators at the InstaGENI sites have been responsive to our requests and to keep InstaGENI going. We thank all of them.
A special note is given to Chip Elliott. InstaGENI and ExoGENI were Chip’s inspiration when he was GENI Project Director. It was Chip who mapped out the deployment strategy for the GENI Racks, and he worked closely with us on the initial strategic decisions that gave the project its focus. He also sharpened for us the role of these racks in the coming Internet. This project is very much his creation.
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McGeer, R., Ricci, R. (2016). The InstaGENI Project. In: McGeer, R., Berman, M., Elliott, C., Ricci, R. (eds) The GENI Book. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33769-2_14
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