GENI: Global
Environment for Network Innovations
The Global
Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) is a unique
virtual laboratory for at-scale networking experimentation where the
brightest minds unite to envision and create new possibilities of
future internets. Click here for
more information.
Open,
Programmable WiMAX Base Station Project
This GENI project (which is a collaboration between WINLAB and
NEC Labs, Princeton) aims to leverage a state-of-the-art IEEE 802.16e
WiMAX base station product from NEC to prototype an open, programmable
and virtualizable cellular base station node for GENI. This open GENI
base station node (“GBSN”) device is intended to support flexible
experimentation in wide-area mobile network service scenarios similar
to today’s cellular systems. Click here to
visit the project page.
Contribution of NEC Labs,
America to the Project
The main
contribution of NEC Labs is to provide the NEC ASN-gateway software
that would control the NEC Basestations. The ASN-gateway code has been
modified to encorporate several APIs (in the form of GENI R6 messages)
that would be used by a GENI Controller (developed and maintained by
Winlab, Rutgers University) to provide a virtualized WiMAX testbed. The
modified ASN-gateway code was provided to the GENI project as a binary
to protect the proprietary part developed by NEC, Japan as it is part
of their commercial product. NEC Labs is currently supporting Winlab to
enhance the API in the ASN-gateway code to provide more features.
Currently the modified ASN-gateway provides useful control information
to the GENI Controller like Mobile client registration, deregistration,
service flow creation and deletion. It also gives the flexibility to
the GENI controller to deregister a mobile client at any given time.
This feature could be particularly useful in doing handover, load
balancing, heterogeneous networks etc. related expeirments.