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We propose to work with the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) / Institute of Information Technology1 in Pakistan to collaborate closely with the perfSONAR collaboration to extend the perfSONAR framework2 and deploy it in Pakistan. perfSONAR offers an open source, open community solution to the problem of gathering network performance statistics over a multitide of different administrative domains and technological differencesbarriers. It is currently being rolled out across both the United States of America (through Internet2 and ES-net) and Europe (Geant2, Surfnet, RedClara, Pioneer etc).

The perfSONAR framework allows

 transparency in the gathering and storage of network related data. It also provides the means by which network diagnostic tools\[3\] can be included in the collection of network metrics. It therefore provides a mechanism whereby both the backbone properties and the end-to-end capabilities of the network can be interrogated and the results archived for later analysis.

As such, perfSONAR extends the measuring and sharing of information across a wider range of autonomous domains. Through the use of authentication, authorization and auditing, sensitive information about the network can also be protected. perfSONAR therefore enables network engineers, system administrators and users to dramatically reduce the extraordinary amount of time they utilize today coordinating debugging efforts across multiple domains and in building up flexible, coherent monitoring infrastructures.

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The NUST Institute of Information Technology has been playing its part for more than three years by maturing a collaborative research initiative with SLAC, USA. With expected growth in bandwidths, PERN will also be able to benefit from more advanced tools being developed by SLAC and its collaborators in the US and Europe. The interdisciplinary composition of this proposal encompasses the following: computer networking, software engineering, statistical analysis, high energy physics/science and geopolitics.

The benefits to the US Technological benefits of this proposal are:

• New visualization, topology, navigation, forecasting, event detection, alerting,   and diagnosis tools for perfSONAR which will make perfSONAR increasingly attractive and useful and networkers and users for both networker engineers and network users. dramatically more efficient in understanding and debugging network problems;
  • Network Visualization: Today perfSONAR is more of a middleware architecture, it needs useful visualization tools to enable users to understand the network and rich information available from perfSONAR.
  • Topology: With the growing push towards dynamically allocated circuits, it will become increasing more important to monitor and determine network topologies at multiple network layers. Though users and networkers today have traceroute, one also needs more complex network topology tools to discover layer 1 and 2 paths, and to interrogate devices along the path.
  • Forecasting is critical Performance Forecasting: As network applications demand more from the network, it will become important for applications such as  as grid data replication site selection and to enable event detection;, to determine when the best time to conduct transfers and or backups without affecting normal operations.

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    Event Detection: Network administrators cannot review thousands of graphs each morning (e.g. multiple sites, interfaces, metrics, paths etc.) looking for anomalies/events. They need automated detection and alerting of significant, persistent changes. Today the network adminsitrators mainly detect whether a link is up or not. As network performance increases and one approaches high reliability this will need to change to not just on/off but to more subtle performance changes. As we have shown elsewhere \[5\] changes in routes (layer 3), though important, often occur without impact on the performance of a path, and many serious performance changes occur without route changes.

  • Network Diagnostics: Having found an a network event, experience shows that are many steps that the diagnoser needs to go through. Many of  these can be automated and tentative conclusions drawn thus simplifying the task of the network diagnosersmust be conducted by seasoned professionals and network engineers to determine a list of potential problems. Many of these can, and should be automated to gather immediate results such that tentative conclusions can be used to simplifying the task further network diagnostics.

• Important testing, debugging and documentation for the perfSONAR collaboration (funded partially by the US); .
  • Todays perfSONAR is still proof of conecpt in many areas, and the code, documentation etc. needs to be tested, hardened and made into proudction form.
• Closer collaboration of users such as SLAC High Energy Physicists, LHC (funded partially by the US) collaborators with network administrators at end sites and in the Internet Service providers; .
  • The bringing together of end sites with regional and backbone network providers is critical to getting a pervasive view of the network.
  • Bringing in the end-users helps ensure that the networks and monitoring tools are really serving their purpose.
• Increased coverage of worldwide networks for international debugging of network problems.

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