OFERTIE · OpenFlow Experiment in Real-Time Internet Edutainment

This Future Internet Research Experiment addresses an important emerging class of distributed applications known as Real-Time Online Interactive Applications (ROIA). These include multi-player online computer games, advanced simulation-based e-Learning and training platforms, and other applications dependent upon synchronised bidirectional media distribution. These applications are computationally intensive and typically cloud-hosted, and place heavy demands on the network. The loads are also highly variable, depending on the popularity of an application and the behaviour of participants.it is possible to use SLA-based management of cloud hosting across multiple data centres to scale and load balance applications dynamically and securely, while reducing start-up costs. However, network bottlenecks are introduced which limit scalability and quality of experience.Today there is no effective means whereby an application can manage the network over which it runs, such that business conflicts can be resolved when the application is distributed across multiple data centres and/or accessed via multiple ISPs, providing a mutually acceptable balance between the needs of ISPs, application providers, network providers and users such that users' expectations of performance can be met economically and sustainably for all service providers.OFERTIE will extend SLA-based management and APIs, integrating with OpenFlow, the programmable networking technology under-pinning the OFELIA experimental facility. The enhanced SLA-based management system will be used to control the use of computational resources by application processes running at each OFELIA site, and use OpenFlow to control routing decisions at each network switch. We will work with the OFELIA Testbed to run experiments to establish how programmable networks can be used to support appropriate technical solutions and investigate which business models would be able to use these solutions in an economically sustainable fashion