Cloud-Based Management Platform for Distributed, Multi-Domain Networks

Due to enormous growth of Internet traffic, the scale and responsiveness required for delivering applications to end users can be cost-effectively achieved by the increased adoption of cloud-based, virtualized services built by widespread use of compute, storage, and network virtualization. Therefore, IT infrastructures of enterprises, Research and Education (R&E) networks (e.g., DOE ESnet), and commercial network operators are evolving from traditional, centralized, on-premise-only infrastructures to distributed and heterogeneous ones that incorporate resources from private and public clouds (where resources are distributed across multiple data centers). In these distributed networks where end-to-end network paths traverse multiple non-private domains, ensuring that the end-to-end infrastructure is delivering the required performance is very difficult. Realizing the above challenges, Ennetix is developing a solution, called XNet, that delivers end-to-end monitoring, analysis, and visualization of network performance for distributed, multi-domain networks. XNet presents a unique network performance management approach by leveraging a perfSONAR-based \performance measurement overlay" for collecting end-to-end performance measurements, augmenting them with traditional network data, and then employing advanced analytics and innovative visualization to deliver actionable outcomes to the network operator. XNet will be offered as a cloud-based (SaaS) solution for easier adoption by customers, faster roll out of features, and lower cost of service delivery. During the Phase I project, requirements analysis and design of the XNet platform architecture have been conducted. A working XNet prototype has been developed, and evaluation studies have been performed to determine XNet's effectiveness and scalability in proactively managing the performance of large network infrastructures. These feasibility and performance evaluation studies have been accomplished over the large enterprise network of UC Davis. Outcomes of the Phase I development efforts and evaluation studies have confirmed the viability of a commercial-grade XNet solution.In this Phase II SBIR project (as a continuation of Phase I effort), the goal will be to significantly expand XNet solution with additional features, analytics capabilities, scalable data stores, and new visualization techniques. A robust and commercial-grade XNet solution that can be used by network administrators to manage the performance of distributed network infrastructures will be developed. Finally, early beta trials will be accomplished to demonstrate the functionalities and performance of XNet on live networks and to pave the way to successful market entry and future deployment on premier R&E networks such as ESnet. The proposed solution will greatly benefit network administrators and managers at DOE and other government organizations through a new approach for network performance management. The wider benefits of this effort will extend well beyond the immediate DOE scientific community, and on to other enterprises and network operators. In particular, many commercial service providers and enterprises can leverage the proposed cloud-based service to proactively manage their distributed network infrastructures.