This document summarizes a presentation on analyzing the scalability of a Media Aware Network Element (MANE). The MANE acts as an edge router to identify media traffic and enforce service level agreements. It was implemented using Click modular router on Linux with minimal overhead. Experiments showed forwarding performance was similar to standard Linux while supporting quality of service policies. Future work includes improving classification and multicast support to further optimize scalability.

1. SCALABILITY ANALYSIS OF A MEDIA AWARE
NETWORK ELEMENT
Marius Vochin, Eugen Borcoci,
Dragos Niculescu, Mihai Stanciu
Presentation
Marius.Vochin@elcom.pub.ro
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 1

2. Authors’ affiliation:
Marius Vochin, Eugen Borcoci, Dragos Niculescu, Mihai Stanciu -
University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania
Acknowledgment: This work has been supported by the European
Research Project FP7
“MediA Ecosystem Deployment Through Ubiquitous
Content-Aware Network Environments”
ALICANTE project No. 2010-2013.
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 2

3. CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. ALICANTE System Architecture
3. MANE High Level Architecture
4. Experiments
5. Conclusions and Future Work
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 3

4. 1. Introduction
• ALICANTE : New concepts
– Content Aware Networking (CAN)
– Network Aware Application (NAA)
• Novel virtual CAN layer
– a lightweight form of virtualization
– offering QoS to media streams
– (V)CAN - cross domain overlay
 provisioned to provide preferential treatment to media streams
– VCAN elements:
 legacy infrastructure (core IP/MPLS - Diffserv routers and
provisioned links)
 and a special border router
– MANE (Media Aware Network Element)
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 4

5. 1. Introduction
• This work is focused on
• Modular MANE implementation
– using off-the-shelf hardware and open source software
– Click modular router is used to implement
» flow classification
» MPLS encapsulation and decapsulation
» separation between virtual CANs
» enforcement of separation between networks
• Performance measurements in a physical testbed
– it is shown that the implementation does not impose
major overheads over existing routing infrastructure.
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 5

6. 2. ALICANTE System Architecture
• Business actors
– Providers:
• (High level) Services (SP), Content (CP), CAN (CANP), Network (NP)
– End users (EU)
• Management entities
– User Manager
– Service Manager:
– CAN Manager
• manages Virtual CANs (unicast, multicast, broadcast)
• current solution: each network domain (AS) has a CAN Manager
– Intra-domain Network resource Manager: IntraNRM@NP
• Execution entities
– Manages Media Aware Network Elements (MANE)
– Home Box ( installed close to EUs)
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 6

7. 2. ALICANTE System Architecture
High Level view of the Layered Architecture
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 7

8. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
 Media Aware Network Element
 ingress / egress point of an AS
 includes
 complete IP routing
 MPLS LER functionalities
 DiffServ functionalities
 MANE Content Awareness
 enforces SLAs on incoming / outgoing traffic
 identifies traffic based on:
Content Aware Transport Information (CATI) stamped at the HB
or Content Servers
Higher layer headers analysis (DPI - deep packet inspection)
performs adaptation of media flow if necessary
distributes the traffic to appropriate VCAN
most traffic is forwarded on MPLS paths
executes router output functions: buffer management, queuing,
scheduling, shaping
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

9. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
 Media Aware Network Element
 Data path: classification + enforcement
 packet has CATI? => MPLS FEC is available
 DPI => CATI
 Multicast ( Native IP intra-domain and overlay inter-domain)
 Other IP => plain IP, best effort
 Control path
 MANE is controlled
 Logically by CAN Manager
 Effectively by Network Resource Manager
 NRM => associations FEC - MPLS labels
 NRM => SLAs to be enforced on ingress/egress
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

10. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
Role and placement of the MANE
EU1 CanMng2
SS2 CanMng1 IntraNRM2 SP/CP
IntraNRM1
EU6
MANE
11
SS2
MANE
EU3 12 MANE
21
MANE
22 EU7
MANE
31
MANE
MANE 23
13
SP/CP
CanMng3
MANE
32
SP/CP
IntraNRM3
Core router, LSR Home Box End User
MANE
MANE Access network Service/Content
Provider
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

11. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
 Block structure of the MANE
CATI =>
CANMng MANE_IN, MANE_OUT, QoS
CATI => TC rules:
label, eth, next_IP IntraNRM Label => Mbps limit
MANE
UDP/9992
Adaptation
UDP/9991
Classifier / Intradomain
Router Multicast
USER space
KERNEL space
eth2
eth1
TC TC eth3
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

12. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
• MANE classifier Implementation using Click modular router
UDP encap UDP encap
multicast Localhost Localhost
adaptation
Port 9999 Port 9992
eth1
ARPresponder
UDP/9991
ARPquerier
eth1
Classifier IP router
eth2 MPLS eth2
encap ...etc
eth3 MPLS eth3
...etc
decap
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

13. 3. MANE High Level Architecture
Click Router elements
and their
interconnection
Implementation available:
http://www.elcom.pub.ro/~dniculescu/cercetare/alicante/
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

14. 4. Experiments
HB1
Forwarding capabilities were
HB3 determined for standard Linux
IP, user and kernel
implementation of MANE
HB2
IP Kernel User MANE, User
MANE MPLS MANE, IP
ping 32 byte pk 0.599/ 0.764/ 0.776/ 0.770/
RTT/stddev [ms] 0.032 0.058 0.043 0.059
ping 1460 byte pk 0.575/ 0.740/ 1.75/ 0.900/
RTT/stddev [ms] 0.029 0.063 0.78 0.064
UDP 906 899 899 900
Rate [Mbps]
TCP 870 856 845
Rate [Mbps]
Packet rate [pps] 482000 446000 260000 280000
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

15. 4. Experiments
• Scalability measurements
o Maximum Pps number decrease with more then 100 QoS
policies installed
o Forwarding bandwidth decrease with more then 1000 QoS
policies installed
• Performance improvements would be possible by using an
hierarchical filter structure that permits hashing
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

16. Conclusions and future work
 MANE = Media Aware Network Element
 Edge router, handles traffic between HBs
 Main roles
 Identifies traffic
 Enforces SLAs
 Implementation
 Linux + click modular router
 small overhead over default linux/mpls
 Future work
 Design and implementation phase
 Full Classifiers
 Multicast
 Flow adaptation
 Control plane interfaces and modules
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012

17. • Thank you!
EUSIPCO 2012 Conference, Bucharest August 27-31 2012 17