An iRODS-based distributed and federated data repository for a Multi-CMF Network for Experimentation

A Network for Experimentation (NfExp) is, typically, a large (regional, national or international) and specialized testbed (GENI, PlanetLab, FIBRE, other) developed in order to support the experimentation of new protocols, services and applications mostly in the context of Future Internet (FI). In effect, a Network for Experimentation allows an experimenter to configure instantiate, run and collect measurements of distributed experiments on top of a testbed managed by a Control and Monitoring Framework (CMF). Recent Network for Experimentation deployments are Multi-CMF testbeds in which various existing CMFs are integrated in order to achieve a larger set of supported applications and services. This paper describes a distributed and federated storage solution for monitoring data in a Multi-CMF scenario (FIBRE testbed). The solution adopts a distributed iRODS-based monitoring data storage scheme, supporting data distribution and federation across islands (institutions) implementing the testbed. A distributed and transparent data storage facility among multiple native database systems was implemented supporting real-time and persistent monitoring data storage. It allows federated seamless monitoring data storage/retrieval for FIBRE data integration.