Enhancement of GridFTP Performance Through GMPLS Integration and Hardware Offloading

Many scientists rely on transport protocols such as GridFTP to transfer very large files, ranging from 10s of Megabytes to Terabytes. These users increasingly use high-bandwidth, high-latency optical networks. The user experience would be improved by the integration of GMPLS scheduling into GridFTP and by improved networking for GridFTP. Therefore, a GridFTP transport protocol to support these high bandwidth, high latency links is required. In this project, application/function-aware offloading will be used to improve (1) the performance of a UDP-based transport protocol designed for high-bandwidth, high-latency optical links, and (2) host resource usage and network throughput for encrypted GridFTP connections. A GridFTPXIO module will integrate GMPLS into GridFTP to allow runtime allocation of links on the emerging optical networks. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee The GridFTP enhancements should improve the data transfer mechanism used by large government agencies to transfer very large files over optical links, such as the DOE/HEP Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid. The enhancements should reduce the data transfer time between and during experiments and simulations, improving the compute utilization of clusters and reducing the time between experiments.