Engineering topics

Johnson, Marjory J.

Publications and source records attributed to Johnson, Marjory J..

17 records

NASA NTRS2000

Bridging the Gap from Networking Technologies to Applications: Workshop Report

The objective of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Federal program is threefold, encompassing development of networking technologies, high-performance network testbeds, and revolutionary applications. There have been notable advances in emerging network technologies and several nationwide testbeds have been established, but the integration of emerging technologies into applications is lagging. To help bridge this gap between developers of NGI networking technologies and developers of NGI applications, the NASA Research and Education Network (NREN) project hosted a two-day workshop at NASA Ames Research Center in August 1999. This paper presents a summary of the results of this workshop and also describes some of the challenges NREN is facing while incorporating new technologies into HPCC and other NASA applications. The workshop focused on three technologies - Quality of Service (QoS), advanced multicast, and security-and five major NGI application areas - telemedicine, digital earth, digital video, distributed data-intensive applications, and computational infrastructure applications. Network technology experts, application developers, and NGI testbed representatives came together at the workshop to promote cross-fertilization between the groups. Presentations on the first day, including an overview of the three technologies, application case studies and testbed status reports, laid the foundation for discussions on the second day. The objective of these latter discussions, held within smaller breakout groups, was to establish a coherent picture of the current status of the various pieces of each of the three technologies, to create a roadmap outlining future technology development, and to offer technological guidance to application developers. In this paper we first present a brief overview of the NGI applications that were represented at the workshop, focusing on the identification of technological advances that have successfully been incorporated in each application and technological challenges that remain. Next we present the technology roadmaps that were created at the workshop, summarizing the status of various mechanisms that are currently under development and forecasting when various advances are likely to occur within the next one-to-three-year time span. Then we identify issues that were raised at the workshop that might hinder technology development or that might impede integration into NGI applications. We also report some specific guidelines that were offered at the workshop to enable application developers to integrate and effectively use emerging NGI technology building blocks. Finally, we describe NREN activities to incorporate emerging technologies into NASA applications. These activities include support for other NASA High-Performance Computing and Communications Program areas such as IPG (Information Power Grid), support for NASA science enterprises such as Earth science and Mars program prototyping activities, support for satellite/terrestrial networking applications such as the TransAtlantic and TransPacific demonstrations and the Interplanetary Internet, support for NASA telemedicine applications such as the Virtual Collaborative Clinic, and participation in NGI advanced technology testbed initiatives such as the QBone and the NTON/Supernet. For each activity we highlight the primary technological challenge that is associated with it.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Achieving High Throughput for Data Transfer over ATM Networks

File-transfer rates for ftp are often reported to be relatively slow, compared to the raw bandwidth available in emerging gigabit networks. While a major bottleneck is disk I/O, protocol issues impact performance as well. Ftp was developed and optimized for use over the TCP/IP protocol stack of the Internet. However, TCP has been shown to run inefficiently over ATM. In an effort to maximize network throughput, data-transfer protocols can be developed to run over UDP or directly over IP, rather than over TCP. If error-free transmission is required, techniques for achieving reliable transmission can be included as part of the transfer protocol. However, selected image-processing applications can tolerate a low level of errors in images that are transmitted over a network. In this paper we report on experimental work to develop a high-throughput protocol for unreliable data transfer over ATM networks. We attempt to maximize throughput by keeping the communications pipe full, but still keep packet loss under five percent. We use the Bay Area Gigabit Network Testbed as our experimental platform.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Experiences with the Bay Area Gigabit Network Testbed

The Bay Area Gigabit Network Testbed (BAGNet) is a high-performance ATM (155 Mbps) testbed located within the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. BAGNet is a metropolitan-area network, spanning an area of approximately 50 square miles. There are fifteen sites participating in the testbed, with up to four hosts per site. Although BAGNet is an applications-oriented testbed, much of our effort has been directed towards getting the testbed running and understanding the factors that impact performance of an ATM network. We present some of our experiences in this paper.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Using high-performance networks to enable computational aerosciences applications

One component of the U.S. Federal High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCCP) is the establishment of a gigabit network to provide a communications infrastructure for researchers across the nation. This gigabit network will provide new services and capabilities, in addition to increased bandwidth, to enable future applications. An understanding of these applications is necessary to guide the development of the gigabit network and other high-performance networks of the future. In this paper we focus on computational aerosciences applications run remotely using the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) facility located at NASA Ames Research Center. We characterize these applications in terms of network-related parameters and relate user experiences that reveal limitations imposed by the current wide-area networking infrastructure. Then we investigate how the development of a nationwide gigabit network would enable users of the NAS facility to work in new, more productive ways.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Coping with data from Space Station Freedom

The volume of data from future NASA space missions will be phenomenal. Here, we examine the expected data flow from the Space Station Freedom and describe techniques that are being developed to transport and process that data. Networking in space, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), recommendations of the Consultative Committee for Space Data systems (CCSDS), NASA institutional ground support, communications system architecture, and principal data types and formats are discussed.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

National software exchange - An electronic marketplace for software

A potential application is outlined for high-speed and high-performance networks of the future. A discussion is presented of possible contents of the NSE (National Software Exchange) services to be offered by the NSE, mechanisms for controlling software quality, and types of collaboration that might involve the NSE. Services that must be provided by the NREN (National Research and Education Network) to provide adequate support for the NSE are identified.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Modeling of the Space Station Freedom data management system

The Data Management System (DMS) is the information and communications system onboard Space Station Freedom (SSF). Extensive modeling of the DMS is being conducted throughout NASA to aid in the design and development of this vital system. Activities discussed at NASA Ames Research Center to model the DMS network infrastructure are discussed with focus on the modeling of the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) token-ring protocol and experimental testbedding of networking aspects of the DMS.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Modeling of the Space Station Freedom data management system

The data management system (DMS) is the information and communications system onboard Space Station Freedom. Extensive modeling of the DMS is being conducted throughout NASA to aid in the design and development of this vital system. Activities to model the DMS network infrastructure are described, focusing on modeling of the fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) token-ring protocol and experimental testbedding of networking aspects of the DMS.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Performance analysis of CCSDS path service

A communications service, called Path Service, is currently being developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) to provide a mechanism for the efficient transmission of telemetry data from space to ground for complex space missions of the future. This is an important service, due to the large volumes of telemetry data that will be generated during these missions. A preliminary analysis of performance of Path Service is presented with respect to protocol-processing requirements and channel utilization.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1988

NASA's unique networking environment

Networking is an infrastructure technology; it is a tool for NASA to support its space and aeronautics missions. Some of NASA's networking problems are shared by the commercial and/or military communities, and can be solved by working with these communities. However, some of NASA's networking problems are unique and will not be addressed by these other communities. Individual characteristics of NASA's space-mission networking enviroment are examined, the combination of all these characteristics that distinguish NASA's networking systems from either commercial or military systems is explained, and some research areas that are important for NASA to pursue are outlined.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Performance issues in management of the Space Station Information System

The onboard segment of the Space Station Information System (SSIS), called the Data Management System (DMS), will consist of a Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) token-ring network. The performance of the DMS in scenarios involving two kinds of network management is analyzed. In the first scenario, how the transmission of routine management messages impacts performance of the DMS is examined. In the second scenario, techniques for ensuring low latency of real-time control messages in an emergency are examined.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Performance analysis of FDDI

The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is an imerging ANSI and ISO standard for a 100 megabit per second fiber optic token ring. The performance of the FDDI media access control protocol is analyzed using a simulation developed at NASA Ames. Both analyses using standard measures of performance (including average delay for asynchronous traffic, channel utilization, and transmission queue length) and analyses of characteristics of ring behavior which can be attributed to constraints imposed by the timed token protocol on token holding time (including bounded token rotation time, support for synchronous traffic, and fairness of channel access for nodes transmitting asynchronous traffic) are included.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Analysis of FDDI synchronous traffic delays

The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) high-speed token-ring protocol provides support for two classes of service: synchronous, to support applications which require deterministic access to the channel, and asynchronous, to support applications which do not have such stringent response-time requirements. The purpose of this paper is to determine how to set ring parameters to support synchronous traffic most efficiently. Both theoretical results and results obtained from a simulation study are presented.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Proof that timing requirements of the FDDI token ring protocol are satisfied

The fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) is an ANSI draft proposed standard for a 100 Mbit/s fiber-optic token ring. The FDDI timed token access protocol provides dynamic adjustment of the load offered to the ring, with the goal of maintaining a specified token rotation time and of providing a guaranteed upper bound on time between successive arrivals of the token at a station. FDDI also provides automatic recovery when errors occur. The bound on time between successive token arrivals is guaranteed only if the token rotates quickly enough to satisfy timer requirements in each station when all ring resources are functioning properly. Otherwise, recovery would be initiated unnecessarily. The purpose of this paper is to prove that FDDI timing requirements are satisfied, i.e., the token rotates quickly enough to prevent initiation of recovery unless there is failure of a physical resource or unless the network management entity within a station initiates the recovery process.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Network protocols for real-time applications

The Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) and the SAE AE-9B High Speed Ring Bus (HSRB) are emerging standards for high-performance token ring local area networks. FDDI was designed to be a general-purpose high-performance network. HSRB was designed specifically for military real-time applications. A workshop was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center in January, 1987 to compare and contrast these protocols with respect to their ability to support real-time applications. This report summarizes workshop presentations and includes an independent comparison of the two protocols. A conclusion reached at the workshop was that current protocols for the upper layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model are inadequate for real-time applications.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Cycle time properties of the FDDI Token Ring Protocol

The FDDI Token Ring Protocol controls communication over fiber optic rings with transmission rates in the range of 100 megabits per second. It is intended to give guaranteed response to time-critical messages by using a 'timed token' protocol, in which noncritical messages may be transmitted only if recent movement of the token among stations has been sufficiently fast relative to a 'target' token rotation line (TTRT). In this paper, two important properties of the protocol are proved. The first is that the average token cycle time is bounded above by the TTRT, and the second is that the maximum token cycle time is at most twice the TTRT. Each property is treated first under the assumption that all overheads are negligible, and second with certain sources of overhead taken into account explicitly. It is found that the proposed standard protocol can be improved for situations of practical interest by a slight modification.

Sevcik, Kenneth C.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Network reliability

Network control (or network management) functions are essential for efficient and reliable operation of a network. Some control functions are currently included as part of the Open System Interconnection model. For local area networks, it is widely recognized that there is a need for additional control functions, including fault isolation functions, monitoring functions, and configuration functions. These functions can be implemented in either a central or distributed manner. The Fiber Distributed Data Interface Medium Access Control and Station Management protocols provide an example of distributed implementation. Relative information is presented here in outline form.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗