Novel Network Services for Supporting Big Data Science Research

To interconnect research facilities across wide geographic areas, network operators deploy science networks, also referred to as Research and Education (R&E) networks. These networks allow experimenters to establish dedicated network connections between research facilities for transferring large amounts of data. Recently, R&E networks have started using Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Software-Defined Exchanges (SDX) for deploying these connections. AtlanticWave/SDX is a response to the growing demand to support end-to-end network services spanning multiple SDN domains. However, requesting these services is a challenging task for domain-expert scientists, because the interfaces of the R&E networks have been developed by network operators for network operators. In this paper, we propose interfaces that allow domain-expert scientists to reserve resources of the scientific network using abstractions that focus on their data transfer needs for scientific workflow management. Recent trends in the networking field pursue better interfaces for requesting network services (e.g., intent-based networking). Although intents are sufficient for the needs of network operations, they are not abstract enough in most cases to be used by domain-expert scientists. This is an issue we are addressing in the AtlanticWave/SDX design: network operators and domain-expert scientists will have their own interfaces focusing on their specific needs.为实现跨大范围地理区域的科研设施互联互通，网络运营商部署了科研网络，亦称研究与教育（Research and Education, R&E）网络。此类网络允许科研人员在各科研设施间建立专用网络连接，用于传输海量数据。近年来，研究与教育网络开始采用软件定义网络（Software-Defined Networking, SDN）与软件定义交换（Software-Defined Exchanges, SDX）来部署这类连接。AtlanticWave/SDX正是为响应日益增长的、支持跨多个SDN域的端到端网络服务的需求而提出的方案。然而，对于领域专家科学家而言，申请此类网络服务颇具挑战，因为当前科研网络的接口均由网络运营商针对自身运营需求开发。本文提出一类接口，允许领域专家科学家基于聚焦于科学工作流管理的数据传输需求的抽象概念，预留科研网络资源。当前网络领域的发展趋势正致力于打造更适配网络服务申请需求的接口（例如基于意图的网络）。尽管基于意图的网络已能满足网络运营的需求，但在多数场景下，其抽象程度仍不足以让领域专家科学家直接使用。这正是我们在AtlanticWave/SDX设计中所要解决的核心问题：网络运营商与领域专家科学家将分别拥有针对各自特定需求打造的专属接口。