RNP > R&D > Working Group > WGs 2004-2005

Measurements WG

The activities of the Measurement Working Group are a continuation of the ones developed by the QoS WG in the period of 2002/2003 and by the QoS2 WG in the period of 2003/2004. This continuation is motivated by the evaluations and the experience acquired with the implantation and testing of the tools used in the performance assessment of RNP`s backbone. Besides, this WG proposes the development of an infrastructure for RNP that permits making its measuring data available so that it can interoperate with other measuring infrastructures, such as the ones of Abilene, Géant and Clara networks.

coordinator: José Suruagy (Unifacs)

Reliable Multicast WG

The proposal of this Working Group is to assemble a reliable multicast structure at RNP, exploring the currently existing native multicast support, and then to evaluate experimentally a set of implementations of these protocols. An emphasis will be given to the protocols being standardized by IETF; however, the analysis will not be restricted to them. This proposal is based on Must initiative, carried out by the vice-coordinator of the WG formed at SuperJanet, United Kingdom’s high performance network. Must project investigates the use of reliable multicast protocols in computer grid applications. The experience gained in this project will be fundamental for the technical orientation of our WG. Furthermore, RNP's results will be compared with those of SuperJanet, which will help understand these results.

coordinator: Valter Roesler (Unisinos)

Pervasive grid WG

Pervasive computing is a recent research area, which aims at providing computing where, when, and how it is desired, through the virtualization of information, services and applications. The proposal of this Working Group is to implement a middleware to manage the applications and the pervasive grid environment and to make a programming interface (API) available for the construction of applications that run in this environment. Frameworks for model-applications will also be designed and made available.

coordinator: Cláudio Fernando Resin Geyer (UFRGS)

Middleware WG

The proposal of this WG is to create pilots of middleware technology at Unicamp and UFMG that can serve as references in terms of architecture in Brazilian universities, bringing several advantages, such as: the centralization of an institution’s authentication and authorization systems; the use of applications by several organizations; the simplification of systems administration; the cooperation among institutes, etc. The results of RNP’s Middleware WG can help universities and research centers to develop middleware.

coordinator: Osvaldo Carvalho (UFMG)

P2P WG

In its first stage, the P2P WG’s goal was to design a pilot-project consisting of three parts: infrastructure, applications and analysis of P2P application traffic. The module making up the infrastructure, named XPeer, provides a set of services useful for the construction of P2P applications, among which we can cite: resource location, user and application authentication and meta-data storage. In its second stage, the P2P WG plans to add a series of functionalities to the XPeer module, such as: a security system so as to make it stronger and more tolerant to attacks; a monitoring system to control the work of each XPeer knot running in RNP’s backbone; a management system to carry out a set of actions such as starting, restarting and stopping an XPeer based on the information supplied by the monitoring system; and a more efficient search mechanism, which can work faster and consume less memory. Furthermore, this WG aims at providing support for the development of applications using XPeer’s services. This support can happen through the new functionalities or the new components to help build applications. Another kind of support is through documentation and the participation in discussion lists. The WG will also evaluate the impact of using XPeer to aid in the development of applications for mobile environments and Voice over IP applications.

coordinator: Djamel Sadok (UFPE)

Public Keys II WG

This WG complements the work of the Public Keys I WG, which created conditions for the implantation of a public key infrastructure (PKI) in the academic realm, connected to RNP and known as ICP-EDU. Now, the focus is on the management of the use of private keys in the servers using certificates issued by ICP-EDU. It comprises two aspects: the safe storage and use of Certifying Authorities’ private keys and the use of private keys in servers that need to use ICP-EDU certificates intensively. The work of this WG consists of designing and developing a Safe Hardware Module (SHM) for the storage and use of private keys of Certifying Authorities and servers in universities. The WG will use hardware components widely available on the market and software totally developed by the group. This will permit producing SHMs at a cost low enough for them to take part in the ICP-EDU, together with all the software developed in the previous stage. As a final product, the group will present a ready-to-use and low-cost SHM prototype.

coordinator: Ricardo Felipe Custódio (UFSC)

Advanced VoIP WG

The Advanced VoIP WG plans to work together with RNP so as to solve beforehand problems that may occur due to the growing use of the phone@RNP service. Its intention is to make the technical staff of the previous WG active in the institutions taking part in the service and participative in the implantation of new procedures that will result from this new WG’s proposal. The Advanced VoIP WG will count on the cooperation and partnership of companies such as Cisco and Telchemy, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, it will seek interaction with Internet2 experiments involving H.323 and SIP.

coordinator: Paulo Aguiar (UFRJ)