FEATURED RESEARCH:
GENI's ORCA Control Framework
ORCA (Open Resource Control Architecture) is software originating at Duke University, currently being developed jointly by RENCI and Duke as a Control Framework candidate for the future NSF GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovation). The ORCA Control Framework, also known as GENI Cluster D, is using NLR's dynamic, multi-point VLAN provisioning tool, Sherpa, over NLR FrameNet (Layer 2) circuits to create a distributed resource orchestration system.
As a result, network resources managed by Duke, RENCI, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and soon Ohio State University in Columbus are now linked by NLR with each other and with the Starlight international exchange facility at Northwestern University in Chicago, effectively functioning as a single resource for the GENI community.
ORCA is one of the control framework prototypes for GENI, a virtual laboratory supported by the National Science Foundation where the nation's best networking researchers conduct experiments to understand and transform global networks and how they are used for research, business, entertainment and social interaction.
At the recent GENI Engineering Conference hosted by Duke University and RENCI, RENCI Director of Network Research and Infrastructure Ilia Baldine, Duke University Professor of Computer Science Jeff Chase and other Cluster D team members demonstrated how researchers in one location can easily and quickly set up on demand a dedicated, experimental "slice" of a total, distributed network resource to meet the needs of a particular project and then put those resources back into the experimental network system so that they become available to other researchers once the experiment is completed. An on-demand Layer 2 network transported weather data from environmental sensors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to a virtual computer and analysis tools connected to the Breakable Experimental Network (BEN) node at Duke.
Additional resources:
GENI's Cluster D research centers interconnected by National LambdaRail:
http://www.nlr.net/release.php?id=57
RENCI and Duke demonstrate network futures at GE7 Conference:
http://www.renci.org/news/features/gec7-conference
GENI, general info: http://www.geni.net/