EasiTest:多Radio异构无线传感器网络测试平台

设计并实现了一种多Radio的异构无线传感器网络综合测试平台系统EasiTest,该平台采用了两种不同性能、功能的测试节点,可以支持大规模、异构传感器网络综合性能测试以及应用性研究.平台内采用了结构复杂、功能完备的多Radio的EZ271作为中高速测试节点,以及以 WiFi作为测试通道的EZ521作为中低速测试节点;系统提供传感/测试数据收集、数据管理、资源分配、服务器状态检查、节点状态检查与参数配置以及资源注册共享等功能模块,保障用户能够方便快捷地实现功能实验;通过友好的 Web访问页面,用户能够模拟真实的网络环境对多种类,如802.15.4,802.11协议等,以及多层次,如 MAC层、路由层、应用层等的网络协议研究成果进行灵活的综合实验验证,从而能够有效地提高无线传感器网络技术的研究效率.     

Big Data-Oriented PaaS Architecture with Disk-as-a-Resource Capability and Container-Based Virtualization

With the increasing adoption of Big Data technologies as basic tools for the ongoing Digital Transformation, there is a high demand for data-intensive applications. In order to efficiently execute such applications, it is vital that cloud providers change the way hardware infrastructure resources are managed to improve their performance. However, the increasing use of virtualization technologies to achieve an efficient usage of infrastructure resources continuously widens the gap between applications and the underlying hardware, thus decreasing resource efficiency for the end user. Moreover, this scenario is especially troublesome for Big Data applications, as storage resources are one of the most heavily virtualized, thus imposing a significant overhead for large-scale data processing. This paper proposes a novel PaaS architecture specifically oriented for Big Data where the scheduler offers disks as resources alongside the more common CPU and memory resources, looking forward to provide a better storage solution for the user. Furthermore, virtualization overheads are reduced to the bare minimum by replacing heavy hypervisor-based technologies with operating-system-level virtualization based on light software containers. This architecture has been deployed on a Big Data infrastructure at the CESGA supercomputing center, used as a testbed to compare its performance with OpenStack, a popular private cloud platform. Results have shown significant performance improvements, reducing the execution time of representative Big Data workloads by up to 4.5×.     

A testbed for evaluation of fault-tolerant routing inmultiprocessor interconnection networks

This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation testbed for interconnection networks and routing algorithms using real applications. The testbed is flexible enough to implement any network topology and fault-tolerant routing algorithm, and allows the system architect to study the cost versus performance trade-offs for a range of network parameters. We illustrate its use with one fault-tolerant algorithm and analyze the performance of four shared memory applications with different fault conditions. We also show how the testbed can be used to drive future research in fault-tolerant routing algorithms and architectures by proposing and evaluating novel architectural enhancements to the network router, called path selection heuristics (PSH). We propose three such schemes and the Least Recently Used (LRU) PSH is shown to give the best performance in the presence of faults     

WOW: Self-organizing Wide Area Overlay Networks of Virtual Workstations

This paper describes WOW, a distributed system that combines virtual machine, overlay networking and peer-to-peer techniques to create scalable wide-area networks of virtual workstations for high-throughput computing. The system is architected to: facilitate the addition of nodes to a pool of resources through the use of system virtual machines (VMs) and self-organizing virtual network links; to maintain IP connectivity even if VMs migrate across network domains; and to present to end-users and applications an environment that is functionally identical to a local-area network or cluster of workstations. We describe IPOP, a network virtualization technique that builds upon a novel, extensible user-level decentralized technique to discover, establish and maintain overlay links to tunnel IP packets over different transports (including UDP and TCP) and across firewalls. We evaluate latency and bandwidth overheads of IPOP and also time taken for a new node to become fully-routable over the virtual network. We also report on several experiments conducted on a testbed WOW deployment with 118 P2P router nodes over PlanetLab and 33 VMware-based VM nodes distributed across six firewalled domains. Experiments show that the testbed delivers good performance for two unmodified, representative benchmarks drawn from the life-sciences domain. We also demonstrate that the system is capable of seamlessly maintaining connectivity at the virtual IP layer for typical client/server applications (NFS, SSH, PBS) when VMs migrate across a WAN.     

An application-driven study of parallel system overheads andnetwork bandwidth requirements

Evaluating and analyzing the performance of a parallel application on an architecture to explain the disparity between projected and delivered performance is an important aspect of parallel systems research. However, conducting such a study is hard due to the vast design space of these systems. We study two important aspects related to the performance of parallel applications on shared memory parallel architectures. First, we quantify overheads observed during the execution of these applications on three different simulated architectures. We next use these results to synthesize the bandwidth requirements for the applications with respect to different network topologies. This study is performed using an execution-driven simulation tool called SPASM, which provides a way of isolating and quantifying the different parallel system overheads in a nonintrusive manner. The first exercise shows that in shared memory machines with private caches, as long as the applications are well-structured to exploit locality, the key determinant that impacts performance is network connection. The second exercise quantifies the network bandwidth needed to minimize the effect of network connection. Specifically, it is shown that for the applications considered, as long as the problem sizes are increased commensurate with the system size, current network technologies supporting 200-300 MBytes/sec link bandwidth are sufficient to keep the network overheads (such as latency and contention) within acceptable bounds     

A study of overheads and accuracy for efficient monitoring of wireless mesh networks

IEEE 802.11-based wireless mesh networks are being increasingly deployed in enterprize and municipal settings. A lot of work has been done on developing measurement-based schemes for resource provisioning and fault management in these networks. The above goals require an efficient monitoring infrastructure to be deployed, which can provide the maximum amount of information regarding the network status, while utilizing the least possible amount of network resources. However, network monitoring involves overheads, which can adversely impact performance from the perspective of the end user. The impact of monitoring overheads on data traffic has been overlooked in most of the previous works. It remains unclear as to how parameters such as number of monitoring agents, or frequency of reporting monitoring data, among others, impact the performance of a wireless network. In this work, we first evaluate the impact of monitoring overheads on data traffic, and show that even small amounts of overhead can cause a large degradation in the network performance. We then explore several different techniques for reducing monitoring overheads, while maintaining the objective (resource provisioning, fault management, and others) that needs to be achieved. Via extensive simulations and experiments, we validate the efficiency of our proposed approaches in reducing overheads, their impact on the quality of data collected from the network, and the impact they have on the performance of the applications using the collected data. Based on results, we conclude that it is feasible to make the current monitoring techniques more efficient by reducing the communication overheads involved while still achieving the desired application-layer objectives.     

Reliability-aware scheduling strategy for heterogeneous distributed computing systems

Heterogeneous computing systems are promising computing platforms, since single parallel architecture based systems may not be sufficient to exploit the available parallelism with the running applications. In some cases, heterogeneous distributed computing (HDC) systems can achieve higher performance with lower cost than single-machine supersystems. However, in HDC systems, processors and networks are not failure free and any kind of failure may be critical to the running applications. One way of dealing with such failures is to employ a reliable scheduling algorithm. Unfortunately, most existing scheduling algorithms for precedence constrained tasks in HDC systems do not adequately consider reliability requirements of inter-dependent tasks. In this paper, we design a reliability-driven scheduling architecture that can effectively measure system reliability, based on an optimal reliability communication path search algorithm, and then we introduce reliability priority rank (RRank) to estimate the task’s priority by considering reliability overheads. Furthermore, based on directed acyclic graph (DAG) we propose a reliability-aware scheduling algorithm for precedence constrained tasks, which can achieve high quality of reliability for applications. The comparison studies, based on both randomly generated graphs and the graphs of some real applications, show that our scheduling algorithm outperforms the existing scheduling algorithms in terms of makespan, scheduling length ratio, and reliability. At the same time, the improvement gained by our algorithm increases as the data communication among tasks increases.     

Packet-switched optical networks

We describe a testbed to study both the theoretical aspects and physical implementation issues associated with high-bit-rate, multihop, packet-switched OTDM networks. We have found that using optical time-division-multiplexed (OTDM) techniques can greatly increase the bandwidth of a single-wavelength channel. Ultrafast OTDM networks are excellent candidates for meeting the system requirements for massively parallel processor interconnects, which include low latency, high bandwidth, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. High-bit-rate transparent optical networks (or TONs) for multiprocessor interconnects will be best realized with an OTDM network architecture. To fully use the bandwidth of optical fiber, we spaced the picosecond pulses closely together (about 10 ps) and typically applied a return-to-zero modulation format. While the total capacity of TDM and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks may essentially be the same, TDM systems have better throughput delay performance. They also have faster, single-channel access times for high-data-rate end users such as HDTV video servers, terabyte-media data banks, and supercomputers     

A task graph execution manager for reconfigurable multi-tasking systems

Reconfigurable hardware can be used to build multi-tasking systems that dynamically adapt themselves to the requirements of the running applications. This is especially useful in embedded systems, since the available resources are very limited and the reconfigurable hardware can be reused for different applications. In these systems computations are frequently represented as task graphs that are executed taking into account their internal dependencies and the task schedule. The management of the task graph execution is critical for the system performance. In this regard, we have developed two different versions, a software module and a hardware architecture, of a generic task graph execution manager for reconfigurable multi-tasking systems. The second version reduces the run-time management overheads by almost two orders of magnitude. Hence it is especially suitable for systems with exigent timing constraints. Both versions include specific support to optimize the reconfiguration process.     

A study of adaptive forward error correction for wireless collaborative computing

This paper addresses the problem of reliably multicasting Web resources across wireless local area networks (WLANs) in support of collaborative computing applications. An adaptive forward error correction (FEC) protocol is described, which adjusts the level of redundancy in the data stream in response to packet loss conditions. The proposed protocol is intended for use on a proxy server that supports mobile users on a WLAN. The software architecture of the proxy service and the operation of the adaptive FEC protocol are described. The performance of the protocol is evaluated using both experimentation on a mobile computing testbed as well as simulation. The results of the performance study show that the protocol can quickly accommodate worsening channel characteristics in order to reduce delay and increase throughput for reliable multicast channels.     

Automatic Deployment of an RPAS Mission Manager to an ARINC-653 Compliant System

The development process of avionics system requiring a high level of safety is subjected to rigorous development and verification standards. In order to accelerate and facilitate this process, we present a testbed that uses a suite of methods and tools to comply with aerospace standards for certification. To illustrate the proposed methodology, we designed a Mission Management System for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) that was deployed on a particular run-time execution platform called XtratuM, an ARINC-653 compliant system developed in our research group. The paper discusses the system requirements, the software architecture, the key issues for porting designs to XtratuM, and how to automatize this process. Results show that the proposed testbed is a good platform for designing and qualifying avionics applications.     

An Evaluation of Architectural Platforms for Parallel Navier-Stokes Computations

We study the computational, communication, and scalability characteristics of a computational fluid dynamics application, which solves the time-accurate flow field of a jet using the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, on a variety of parallel architectural platforms. The platforms chosen for this study are a cluster of workstations (the LACE experimental testbed at NASA Lewis), a shared-memory multiprocessor (the CRAY Y-MP), and distributed-memory multiprocessors with different topologies (the IBM SP and the CRAY T3D). We investigate the impact of various networks connecting the cluster of workstations on the performance of the application and the overheads induced by popular message-passing libraries used for parallelization. The work also highlights the importance of matching the memory bandwidth to processor speed for good single processor performance. By studying the performance of an application on a variety of architectures, we are able to point out the strengths and weaknesses of each of the example computing platforms. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Distributed information service architecture for overlapping multiaccess networks

Multimedia delivery in mobile multiaccess network environments has emerged as a key area within the future Internet research domain. When network heterogeneity is coupled with the proliferation of multiaccess capabilities in mobile handheld devices, one can expect many new avenues for developing novel services and applications. New mechanisms for audio/video delivery over multiaccess networks will define the next generation of major distribution technologies, but will require significantly more information to operate according to their best potential. In this paper we present and evaluate a distributed information service, which can enhance media delivery over such multiaccess networks. We describe the proposed information service, which is built upon the new distributed control and management framework (DCMF) and the mobility management triggering functionality (TRG). We use a testbed which includes 3G/HSPA, WLAN and WiMAX network accesses to evaluate our proposed architecture and present results that demonstrate its value in enhancing video delivery and minimizing service disruption in an involved scenario.     

Open Signaling for ATM Networks: A Vexed Question of Performance

Based on a clear separation between switching hardware and control software, the concept of open signaling creates an open programmable networking environment in which network entities can be realized as high level software objects with well-defined interfaces. This underlying architecture facilitates the creation of multiple mechanisms of network control, supporting applications for connection management. The feasibility of a connection management framework however depends mainly on the performance of CORBA because of binding overheads associated with remote invocations. It has been proposed that an implementation with reasonable performance may require certain criteria to be integrated into the design, including caching of network states, aggregation of access to the switch server object, and parallel processing of a single call request. This paper considers the effectiveness of these design criteria and the associated performance issues of a connection management system for ATM networks.     

Columbia's VoD and Multimedia Research Testbed with Heterogeneous Network Support

This paper reports our progress in developing an advanced video-on-demand (VoD) testbed, which will be used to accommodate various multimedia research and applications such as Electronic News on Demand, Columbia's Video Course Network, and Digital Libraries. The testbed supports delivery of MPEG-2 audio/video stored as transport streams over various types of networks, e.g., ATM, Ethernet, and wireless. Both software and hardware video encoders/decoders are used in the testbed. A real-time video pump and a distributed application control protocol (MPEG-2's DSM-CC) have been incorporated. Hardware decoders and set-tops are being used to test wide-area video interoperability. Our VoD testbed also provides an advanced platform for implementing proof-of-concept prototypes of related research. Our current research focus covers video transmission with heterogeneous quality-of-service (QoS) provision, variable bitrate (VBR) traffic modeling, VBR server scheduling, video over Internet, and video transmission over IP-ATM hybrid networks. An important aim is to enhance interoperability. Accommodation of practical multimedia applications and interoperability testing with external VoD systems has also been undertaken.     

Enhancing the performance of futurewireless networks with software-defined networking

To provide ubiquitous Internet access under the explosive increase of applications and data traffic, the current network architecture has become highly heterogeneous and complex, making network management a challenging task. To this end, software-defined networking (SDN) has been proposed as a promising solution. In the SDN architecture, the control plane and the data plane are decoupled, and the network infrastructures are abstracted and managed by a centralized controller. With SDN, efficient and flexible network control can be achieved, which potentially enhances network performance. To harvest the benefits of SDN in wireless networks, the software-defined wireless network (SDWN) architecture has been recently considered. In this paper, we first analyze the applications of SDN to different types of wireless networks. We then discuss several important technical aspects of performance enhancement in SDN-based wireless networks. Finally, we present possible future research directions of SDWN.     

A testbed for performance evaluation of load‐balancing strategies for Web server systems

To improve response time of a Web site, one replicates the site on multiple servers. The effectiveness of a replicated server system will depend on how the incoming requests are distributed among replicas. A large number of load‐balancing strategies for Web server systems have been proposed. In this paper we describe a testbed that can be used to evaluate the performance of different load‐balancing strategies. The testbed uses a general architecture which allows different load‐balancing approaches to be supported easily. It emulates a typical World Wide Web scenario and allows variable load generation and performance measurement. We have performed some preliminary experiments to measure the performance of a few policies for load balancing using this testbed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring IBA Design Space for Improved Performance

InfiniBand architecture (IBA) is envisioned to be the default communication fabric for future system area networks (SANs) or clusters. However, IBA design is currently in its infancy since the released specification outlines only higher level functionalities, leaving it open for exploring various design alternatives. In this paper, we investigate four corelated techniques for providing high and predictable performance in IBA. These are: 1) using the shortest path first (SPF) algorithm for deterministic packet routing, 2) developing a multipath routing mechanism for minimizing congestion, 3) developing a selective packet dropping scheme to handle deadlock and congestion, and 4) providing multicasting support for customized applications. These designs are implemented in a pipelined, IBA-style switch architecture, and are evaluated using an integrated workload consisting of MPEG-2 video streams, best- effort traffic, and control traffic on a versatile IBA simulation testbed. Simulation results with 15-node and 30-node irregular networks indicate that the SPF routing, multipath routing, packet dropping, and multicasting schemes are quite effective in delivering high and assured performance in clusters     

FMP:一种适用于机群系统的快速消息传递机制

目前，网络通信软件的处理开销已成为影响机群系统性能的瓶颈，为了提高机群系统的网络性能，本文设计了一种用于机群系统的快速消息传递机制ＦＭＰ，并在Ｍｙｒｉｎｅｔ网络上加以实现。在Ｕｌｔｒａ２上的测试表明，ＦＭＰ单字节数据包单向通信延迟为１１．２μｓ，８Ｋ数据包网络带宽达到３３８Ｍｂ／ｓ，较好地发挥了Ｍｙｒｉｎｅｔ网络硬件的性能，达到了减少通信开销，提高网络带宽的目的。     

Performance-based path determination for interprocessorcommunication in distributed computing systems

The different types of messages used by a parallel application program executing in a distributed computing system can each have unique characteristics so that no single communication network can produce the lowest latency for all messages. For instance, short control messages may be sent with the lowest overhead on one type of network, such as Ethernet, while bulk data transfers may be better suited to a different type of network, such as Fibre Channel or HIPPI. This work investigates how to exploit multiple heterogeneous communication networks that interconnect the same set of processing nodes using a set of techniques we call performance-based path determination (PBPD). The performance-based path selection (PBPS) technique selects the best (lowest latency) network among several for each individual message to reduce the communication overhead of parallel programs. The performance-based path aggregation (PBPA) technique, on the other hand, aggregates multiple networks into a single virtual network to increase the available bandwidth. We test the PBPD techniques on a cluster of SGI multiprocessors interconnected with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and HiPPI networks using a custom communication library built on top of the TCP/IP protocol layers. We find that PBPS can reduce communication overhead in applications compared to using either network alone, while aggregating networks into a single virtual network can reduce communication latency for bandwidth-limited applications. The performance of the PBPD techniques depends on the mix of message sizes in the application program and the relative overheads of the networks, as demonstrated in our analytical models