Overview
GP4L stands for GÉANT Global P4 Lab. As its name implies, it is a lab infrastructure that encompasses vanilla P4 switch hardware interconnected by path provided by GÉANT network.
Mission statement
GP4L has 2 objectives:
- It is primarily used to validate the software code inherently part of RARE open source routing stack
- it is a service that is under development with the aim to provide experimental dataplane programming facilities where researchers can elaborate and test representative and geographically distributed network experiment
And this:
- with the usage of RARE Operating System
- or simply use a clean slate environment. (i.e use exclusively GP4L infrastructure without RARE dataplane & control plane)
Info
GP4L name includes the word P4, for the simple reason that, for now, hardware deployed are programmable with P4 domain specific language.
However, we expect in the long run, to witness integration:
- of more type of equipment powered by different dataplane solution. (Broadcom NPL, Nvidia DPU, Mellanox SPECTRUM Asic, Xilinx FPGA etc. )
- and also integration of powerful network management cluster
Examples of (real life) usage of GP4L
- GP4L has been used to validate a Research Paper describing a innovative source routing paradigm: Polka
- After successful publication of Polka paper, it has been decided to implement this routing paradigm to RARE routing stack
- "Flow label/ IPv4 identification" usage for traffic steering. This needs has been expressed by CERN network engineers
- Novel network management workflow based on embedded Prometheus agent into RARE control plane
- Validate a cost effective multicast architecture powered by P4 switch
- Validation of an innovative network monitoring service, NMaaS (Network Management micro-services powered by Kubernetes container orchestrator)
More details about how to use the GP4L can be found at Laboratory Manual
GP4L European core footprint
The diagram below depicts GP4L core infrastructure in which all hardware belongs to GÉANT association.
GP4L international footprint
As the RARE project sparked off substantial interest, additional organisation offered to join the effort by implementing GP4L extension:
- by deploying P4 switches powered by INTEL TOFINO ASIC into their premises.
- by using RARE routing stack running on top of TOFINO switches
A real time up to date map is available here
GP4L POP list
| GÉANT | SURF | UvA | KIFU | PSNC | CERN | SWITCH | RENATER | TCD | RNP | UMU | UPV/EHU | STARLIGHT | CALTECH | TENTECH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMS | WEDGE100BF32X | WEDGE100BF32X | WEDGE100BF32X | ||||||||||||
| BMS | |||||||||||||||
| FRA | WEDGE100BF32X | ||||||||||||||
| HAM | BMS | ||||||||||||||
| PAR | WEDGE100BF32X | ||||||||||||||
| DUB | APS BF2556X-1T | ||||||||||||||
| BUD | WEDGE100BF32X | APS BF2556X-1T | |||||||||||||
| POZ | WEDGE100BF32X | SPIRENT | |||||||||||||
| GVA | WEDGE100BF32QS | WEDGE100BF32X | |||||||||||||
| UMU | WEDGE100BF32X | ||||||||||||||
| BIO | APS BF6064X-T | ||||||||||||||
| CHI | INVENTEC D7264Q | ||||||||||||||
| CAL | WEDGE100BF32QS | ||||||||||||||
| BNA | APS BF2556X-1T | ||||||||||||||
| RIO | WEDGE100BF32X |
RARE lab nomenclature (Status: draft work in progress)
This section depicts RARE lab nomenclature used in the GP4L running RARE routing stack.
The routing stack is composed of 3 components:
- Control Plane: RARE is used as control plane
- Dataplane: RARE TOFINO P4 dataplane
- Communication interface between the control plane and the dataplane
Equipment Naming convention
All equipment will have by default a naming convention rule:
- 3 letters designating equipment location
- 4 digits
- 1st digit: <reserved for future use>
- 2nd digit: dataplane type identifier
- 3rd digit: equipment model identifier
- 4th digit: number of equipment
Dataplane type identifier
Equipment model identifier
Model | WEDGE100BF32X | WEDGE100BF65X | BF2556X-1T | BF6064X-T | INVENTEC D7064Q | WEDGE100BF32QS | AS9516-32D | Netberg Aurora 710 8 | X312P-48Y-T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
id | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
Equipment instance identifier
- GÉANT partner (Europe)
POP | AMS0001 | FRA0001 | BUD0001 | POZ0001 | GVA0001 | PAR0101 | PRA0101 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
id | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 12 |
- RENATER partner (France)
POP | PAR0001 |
|---|---|
id | 6 |
- HEANET partner
POP | DUB0021 |
|---|---|
id | 18 |
- Trinity College of Dublin (Ireland)
POP | TCD0021 |
|---|---|
id | 9 |
- CERN
POP | E513-E-YECWH-1 (CERN) |
|---|---|
id | 13 |
- Starlight (USA/Chicago)
POP | CHI0041 |
|---|---|
id | 8 |
- Caltech
POP | BUR0051 | BUR0001 | BUR0002 | BUR0061 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
id | 14 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
- TENTECH University (USA/Tennesse)
POP | BNA0021 |
|---|---|
id | 23 |
- University of Maryland (USA/Maryland)
POP | BWI0001 |
|---|---|
id | 19 |
- AMLight (USA/Miami)
POP | MIA0001 |
|---|---|
id | 15 |
- RNP partner (Brazil)
POP | RIO0021 |
|---|---|
id | 11 |
- REDNESP partner (Brazil)
POP | SAO0021 |
|---|---|
id | 16 |
- UFES partner (Brazil)
POP | VIT0071 |
|---|---|
id | 17 |
- KISTI partner (Korea)
POP | CJJ0001 |
|---|---|
id | 24 |
- KAUST partner (Arabia Saudita)
POP | JED0101 |
|---|---|
id | 25 |
- APAN/KDDI (Japan)
POP | HND0001 | HND0101 |
|---|---|---|
id | 26 | 34 |
- University of Murcia (Spain)
POP | UMU0001 |
|---|---|
id | 31 |
- University of the Basque Country EHU/UPV (Spain)
POP | BIO0001 | BIO0071 |
|---|---|---|
id | 32 | 33 |
- University of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
POP | AMS0002 |
|---|---|
id | 35 |
- All partners
POP | AMS0001 | FRA0001 | BUD0001 | POZ0001 | MC36 | PAR0001 | GVA0001 | CHI0041 | TCD0021 | PAR0101 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
id | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| RIO0021 | PRA0101 | E513-E-YECWH-1 (CERN) | BUR0051 | MIA0001 | SAO0021 | VIT0071 | DUB0021 | BWI0001 | BUR0001 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
BUR0002 | BUR0061 | BNA0021 | CJJ0001 | JED0101 | HND0001 | GVA0061 | GVA0062 | GVA0081 | GVA0082 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| UMU0001 | BIO0001 | BIO0071 | HND0101 | AMS0002 | SAN0111 | GUM0111 | NYC0111 | CHI0111 | MIA0101 | CPH0021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 |
DTN list
| POP | HND1001 | HND1002 | PRA1001 | AMS1001 | HAM1001 | FRA1001 | Others (CERN, UvA) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| id | 192 | 193 | 194 | 195 | 196 | 197 | But no information |
Network assumption
In order to simplify integration and make testing easier, RARE is considered as a worldwide global network domain with the following characteristics:
- Backbone is dual-stack (IPv4 / IPv6)
- Intra-routing domain has IGP set to OSPF (IPv4) and OSPFv3 (IPv6)
router-id will be 10.x.x.x. <x> is allocated based on equipment instance identifier (Cf. table above)
- Both OSPF/OSPFv3 have Segment Routing extension enabled
Node SID is allocated based on Equipment instance identifier (Cf. table above)
- Each equipment have iBGP enabled
- and will be RR client
- of BUD WEDGE100BF32X as RR
- with the following AFI/SAFI: [IPv4 IPv6] / [unicast multicast vpnuni ovpnuni vpls evpn]
- MPLS is enabled on all core facing interfaces across the entire domain
- BIER is enabled on all core facing interfaces across the entire domain
- A L3VPN any to any vrf INB_MGNT is configured in order to provide In band management from any equipment