FITS

FITS project is a test network that manages and connects virtual networks  based in Xen and OpenFlow. The network elements consists of low-cost personal computers with the OMNI and VNEXT tools for network virtualization. The VNEXT is a management tool for network testing based in Xen that provides a simple and friendly interface. The OMNI tool allows control and management of OpenFlow networks through a web interface, which allows the network administrator to control it remotely. Besides controlling the networks, it is necessary to scale them through the interconnection of several geographically dispersed machines to test and validate new proposals and solutions for the Future Internet.

Goals:
The main goal of the test network is to create an environment of experimentation of measures and evaluation of performance on a large scale, geographically distributed by Brazilian and foreign universities. Thus, the test network provides functionalities for researchers from different universities to carry out experiments in a simple and safe way in the company of Internet traffic.

Features:

• Support physical network slicing·
• Provide live migration of virtual elements or flows·
• Ensure isolation of virtual network resources·
• Enable dynamic and remote network management·
• Offer a secure operation·
• Furnish intra e inter virtual network QoS
• Low cost commodity hardware
• Zero packet loss migration of virtual networks
• Strong isolation of virtual environments
• Separation of control and data planes
• OpenFlow and Xen-based virtualization technology
• Priority queue scheduling and real time control

Partners:
Testbed brings together renowned universities:

• Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil)
• Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)
• Universidade Estadual do Ceará (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal de São Carlos (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Brazil)
• Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Brazil)
• Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
• LNCC - Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica (Brazil)
• Technische Universität München (Germany)
• University of Lisboa (Portugal)
• University Pierre et Marie Curie (France)

Main activities: 
In the test network is possible to instantiate, migrate, and remove flows in OpenFlow networks, and virtual networks formed by Xen virtual routers. The network administration is performed by a web interface that allows access settings both of OpenFlow nodes as Xen nodes.
The interconnection of the various participating institutions is carried over the Internet through two VPNs, one for control and one for data.

Expected Outputs:
Results of an experimental virtual network are presented that uses virtualization techniques of input and output (I/O) devices assisted by hardware. The results show that, using the virtualization I/O devices, the rate of transport of the virtual machine is close to the native system, without virtualization.

Funding:

• ANR
• Capes
• CNPQ
• CTIC
• Faperj
• Finep
• Ministério das Comunicações
• Seven Framework Programme
• UOL