The Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) is a suite of research infrastructure rapidly taking shape in prototype form across the United States. GENI aims to transform experimental research in networking and distributed systems, as well as emerging research into very large socio-technical systems, by providing a suite of infrastructure for at-scale experiments in future internets. Nationwide experiments began in summer 2010, and GENI now supports a wide range of interesting research experiments across the nationwide meso-scale GENI prototype, built from GENI-enabled commercial equipment, that spans 14 US campuses and the two national research backbones (Internet2, National Lambda Rail [NLR]). Research teams presented 9 major demonstrations of live, nationwide experiments at the 9th GENI Engineering Conference in November 2010. About 20 research experiments are now starting to drive GENI?s evolving design.
This project will fund the third round of development and prototyping for GENI, effectively completing the transition from building GENI to using GENI for at-scale research. This effort includes 1) enhancing the meso-scale build-out to include six major regional research networks across sixteen states, connecting campuses to Internet2 an NLR; 2) increasing the campus WiMAX deployments via multi-cell sites, android handsets and vehicular experiments; 3) creating, deploying and operating ~54 GENI racks within campuses, regional networks and national backbones; 4) deploying and operating two robust, complementary instrumentation and measurement systems; and 5) expanding the GENI experimenter community by creating educational materials, running workshops and summer schools and starting ongoing operations and helpdesk support.
