A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thi Thing Technology Transfer - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thi Thing

Technology Transfer Workshops Technology Transfer Workshops

Training the community in new networking technologies

Jerry Sobieski NORDUnet NORDUnet TERENA 3rd End to End Workshop P CZ Prague, CZ Nov 29,30 2010

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New Technology Transfer

• “New” is the operative word here
• As new technologies and capabilities emerge from

th R&D i li t t th the R&D pipeline, we cannot expect the community to automatically understand them

• The subject matter experts (SMEs) must
• The subject matter experts (SMEs) must

transfer the technology to the broader community… y

• Key questions:
• Who are the SMEs?
• Who are the “broader community”?
• What process should we use to transfer the

t h l t th b d it ? technology to the broader community?

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Technology Transfer

• First: Who is the target community?
• We need to have a specific audience in

p mind:

• Network engineering and operations personnel
• Administrative management
• Applications software developers

POU ( l ld )

• POUs (plane old users)
• The information needed by each of

th i diff t these groups is different.

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How do we transfer information?

• Documentation
• Always necessary, not always sufficient

y y, y

• This is often adequate for really bright

industrious personnel

• But it requires substantial effort for new

personnel to cull through the documentation to understand what they need to know, and then to find that information E d d t ti t th

• Even so, good documentation presents the

information in a fashion that starts with basic functional description and basic functional description and progressively exposes greater technical detail

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How do we transfer information?

• Tech Transfer must begin with advertising!
• It is often the case that the target community does

t k th t t h l i il bl ! not even know that new technology is available!

• Presentations, demos, papers

Introductory presentations at relevant conferences

• Introductory presentations at relevant conferences
• * User* conferences – i.e bio-informatics, HEP,

RA, etc. ,

• Introduce these new network capabilities to the

community and explain how they will benefit th ! them!

• Demos are useful – to a point.
• Experimental deployments present the new
• Experimental deployments present the new

technology as a viable service

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Nordic infrastructure for Research & Education How to transfer technical expertise?

• Classical teacher-student training:
• In the professional environment, long, in-depth

t ti l t f l t h i l courses are not practical as part of general technical training.

• Short, focused, intensive courses are an effective

Short, focused, intensive courses are an effective method for moving professionals quickly into the technology S i f h

• Seminars ~ a few hours
• Workshops ~ a day or two
• Short Courses ~ a few days a week max
• Short Courses ~ a few days, a week max
• Short – but more frequent – workshops allow

more people to attend more people to attend

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Workshops

• Workshops or seminars are often an efficient

means to move the students from zero or i i l k l d t b i bl minimal knowledge to a basic useable competence very quickly

Must appreciate the zero/minimal knowledge

• Must appreciate the zero/minimal knowledge

starting point

• The material must be limited in scope, very focused

p , y

• Retention requires experience – must include

exercises that utilize the material Th t ll th t d t t i th

• The process must allow the students to organize the

information in their head – i.e. gain a top-down perspective p p

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Workshop Objectives

• The workshop must have a clear and specific objective:

what are you trying to accomplish?

Ex: The attendees will be able to design deploy and utilize

• Ex: The attendees will be able to design, deploy, and utilize

GMPLS based provisioning services using the DRAGON/OSCARS software.

• A statement of this sort is useful in developing the content

as well as communicating the purpose to attendees

• The objective and the target audience should be

The objective and the target audience should be considered together:

• The engineering teams focus more on design and

d l t f th t k i deployment of the network services

• The software developer would need more applications notes

and tools (libraries, GUIs, debugging proceedures, etc.)

• Introductory workshops may provide a broader overview

with less depth/detail. (Good for management.)

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Who is the “Target Audience”?

• Most of the R&E networking technology transfer

concerns the engineering and operations l personnel

• The engineering personnel design our networks, so

they are the first point of engagement as we deploy they are the first point of engagement as we deploy new capabilities

• But…

But…

• Success of a new technology requires the

users (application developers) to adopt it ( pp p ) p

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Applications Outreach is a Black Art

• Paradox: How do you find users of the technology

before the technology is available to use?

• “Applications” comprise a very general open ended

set of users:

(Thi i i b d j t k h h t )

• (This is an issue beyond just workshops or short courses.)
• How do we recognize applications environments that could

* potentially* leverage these technologies?

• How do we present new service paradigms to these users in

a way that entices them to become “early adopters”?

• How do we attract potential user to attend a workshop?
• How do we attract potential user to attend a workshop?
• Given the scope of effort implementing new paradigms… how

quickly can we expect to see new applications actually using th t h l i ti ? H h ll t l the technologies we are presenting? How much collateral development is required to incorporate the bew paradigm?

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Applications Outreach is a Black Art

• “Engineering” targets are easy to find:
• These are our regular R&E networks community
• Campus networking is less active in the national and

international core R&E activities – so we know less of them them

• Even within the engineering community there are

important differences in perspective: p p p

• Campus: security, scaling access issues, end system

management

• Core: scaling of core service capacity globally
• Manager vs Architect vs Design: different questions

being asked regarding the new technology being asked regarding the new technology

• Engineering vs Operations

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Reaching the Audience

• Most organizations have “appropriate” email lists to

announce a workshop Don’t spam inappropriate lists

• Don t spam inappropriate lists
• Post announcements on Websites (rather than

emailings) g )

• Most sponsor organizations have some page called

“Upcoming Events” or Activities, Training, etc. Th d l d il d

• These are good places to post details and use a

URL pointer

• Verbal reference is often highly effective in related
• Verbal reference is often highly effective in related

meetings and conferences

• Maintain a public registration list so attendees can see

h ll ( d d) d who will (or did) attend.

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Engineering Workshops

• Focus: Service deployment
• Focus: Service deployment
• How does the technology map into network services

and capabilities? i.e How does it work? p

• What are the design rules and options? What are the

design tradeoffs?

U d t di h it k d t th

• Understanding how it works does not mean the

engineering team will need to write code…but the insight allows the technology to be tailored to the needs

• f each network
• What infrastructure is required to deploy the

technology? technology?

• Is specific hardware required? Servers, transport

equipment, specialized hardware or software?

• How do you verify operation? How to detect and

resolve problems?

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Applications Workshops

• Focus: Software and User interfaces
• Focus: Software and User interfaces
• How can the technology enable new application

service models? i.e Does it improve existing p g capabilities? or does it offer a new paradigm?

• A new paradigm needs more Big Picture indoctrination
• Ex: ubiquitous dynamic virtual circuits enable new approaches
• Ex: ubiquitous dynamic virtual circuits enable new approaches

to distributed IT applications – unconventional thinking is

• required. TCP tuning improves existing services.

User Interfaces how will the user take advantage of

• User Interfaces – how will the user take advantage of

the new technology?

• How does the user take advantage of the new capabilites?
• Sometimes the user doesn’t know – only the app developer

needs to understand the interface

• How do you verify operation? How to detect and

How do you verify operation? How to detect and resolve problems?

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Who should present?

• New Technology SMEs are generally the scientists or

New Technology SMEs are generally the scientists or developers that brought the technology to maturity

• But these folks are often not good instructors

d h ld d d l

• SMEs and your instructors should sit down and jointly

develop and test the curiculum

• The instructors should be experienced in those aspects

e st ucto s s ou d be e pe e ced t ose aspects

• f the technology that they will be teaching
• A network engineering w/s should have expertise in

designing and deploying the technology designing and deploying the technology

• An application W/S should have software engineer

expertise leading

• Make sure you have enough instructors!
• Rule of thumb: 1:~ 5 students

(standing and talking and being enthusiastic all day

• (standing and talking and being enthusiastic all day –

maybe for two days –is tough!)

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Who should present?

• SMEs may (should?) participate in workshops to

SMEs may (should?) participate in workshops to answer questions and to assist with finer details

• SME involvement also exposes the SME to the student’s

perspective which can feed back into the technology perspective which can feed back into the technology development process.

• The workshop leader (instructor) instills as much

confidence in the technology as the technology itself

• Keeping concepts clear and as simple as possible

Not over promising the benefits

• Not over promising the benefits
• Acknowledging limitations
• Getting questions answered quickly and clearly

g q q y y

• A green instructor just reading the slides is no better

than just reading the documentation…

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Workshop content

• Keep it Simple!
• Keep it Simple!
• “Hello World” theory.
• Present a simple but complete example of the

Present a simple but complete example of the technology, early in the workshop, in order to orient the student and provide a baseline understanding

• Incrementally construct more complex &

sophisticated scenarios. B ti l!

• Be practical!
• A workshop will not create experts - don’t try to.

Decide what basic concepts the students need to

• Decide what basic concepts the students need to

walk away with – and focus on those!

Basic Pod Data Plane

Ethernet S witch

ES 1 ES 2

End S ystem

Pod Network Elements

Network Aware Resource Broker- “ NARB” Virtual Label S witching Router- “ VLS R”

VLS R2 NARB VLS R1-PC VLS R1 VLS R3-PC VLS R3 VLS R1-S W ES 1 ES 2 VLS R3-S W

End S ystem

Management Addressing g g

Workshop Gateway Router

“ Red” pod: AS N=1 “ Blue” pod: AS N=2 “ Yellow” pod: AS N=3 “ Green” pod: AS N=4

192.168.1.1

Management VLAN 192.168.<asn>.n/16

Green pod: AS N 4

.10 NARB .6 VLSR1 VLSR3 VLSR2 .3 eth0 .4 .5 .8 .7 D2 D4 VLSR1 VLSR3

Management VLAN 192 168 <asn> n/16

eth0 .2 .3 .9 eth0 D3 D1 D5 ES1 ES2 eth1 eth1

Management VLAN 192.168.<asn>.n/16 GRE<x> = 10.<asn>.<x>.n / 30 GRE7= 10.1.7.0 / 30 TEaddr = 11.<asn>.<x>.n / 30

Dynamic Data plane port group = g3-g24 Dynamic VLAN range = 100… 200

Inter-Domain Logical Topology

ASN 2

GRE21 10.2.22.1 10.1.21.2 10.1.21.1 NARB

ASN 1

GRE11 10.1.21.1 10.4.24.2 6 6 NARB D11

ASN 3

GRE24 GRE22 GRE12 10 3 23 1 10 3 23 2 10.2.22.2 10.4.24.1 6 7 D12 D14

ASN 3

GRE23 GRE13 GRE14 10.3.23.1 10.3.23.2 6 5 NARB NARB D14 10.3.13.1 10.3.13.2

ASN 4

7 6 D13 11.3.13.1 11.3.13.2

Intra-domain ctrl plane Inter-domain ctrl plane Data plane

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Workshop content

• Use this fact: I ncorporate “hands on” exercises

Use this fact: I ncorporate hands on exercises

• People still learn from physical experience
• Forces the student to organize and access the concepts

t ll t dd t ti bl mentally to address a representative problem.

• Ex: In the GMPLS w/s, cabling the test network helped

students become familiar with specific important details of the infrastructure that would be required to complete the exercises.

• And the physical activity kept them awake

And the physical activity kept them awake

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Workshop content

• Use this fact: I ncorporate “hands on” exercises

Use this fact: I ncorporate hands on exercises

• People still learn from physical experience
• Forces the student to organize and access the concepts mentally

to address a representative problem to address a representative problem.

• Ex: In the GMPLS w/s, cabling the test network helped students

become familiar with specific important details of the infrastructure that would be required to complete the exercises infrastructure that would be required to complete the exercises.

• And the physical activity kept them awake

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Materials

• Printed materials
• Exercises should be clear, concise, and

ifi ! specific!

• Always include the answers !!
• (but someplace separate so they have to make a
• (but someplace separate so they have to make a

real effort to cheat)

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Workshop Logistics

I d t

• Insure an adequate venue
• How many students?
• How many instructors?
• How many instructors?
• [BIG] Name tags for all!
• How much space is required?

How much space is required?

• Laptops? Computers? Materials?
• Air conditioning! (for computers * and* people)
• Power strips
• Supporting technology

P j t d hit b d j t * *

• Projectors and white boards, projectors * on*

whiteboards, …

• Networks (wired and wireless)
• Student logins to local net and to lab machines
• HD videoconferencing (for students and presenters)

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Scheduling

• New technology transfer takes time (months and

years), expect a sustained effort: Always plan a series of workshops

• Always plan a series of workshops
• Timed to give the instructors rest and time to edit

the content

• The DCN workshops were two months apart
• The early workshops act to tune and tighten the

i l material

• How much can you truly accomplish? Simplify

and condense and condense

• What material is not getting across? Needs re-

thinking the approach, exercises, etc.

• Announce 2-4 months in advance

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Schedule

• Do not overload the students!
• Complex technical material is hard on the brain - don’t

force feed them too much! force feed them too much!

• Better to offer an “advanced” class at a later date
• Or include additional material/exercises for self study

y

• Plan for ~ five hours of structured material per day
• 830am to 10am – Lecture 1

B k

• Break
• 1045am to 12noon – Exercise 1
• 12noon to 1pm lunch - Discussion

12noon to 1pm lunch Discussion

• 1pm to 230pm – Lecture 2
• Break
• 245pm to 4pm – Exercise 2
• 4pm to 5pm Q&A/clean up and prep for day2

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Workshop Sponsorship

• Get a Host institution to sponsor individual

Get a Host institution to sponsor individual workshops… or the whole series

• The Host gets visibility

The host helps ith lo al logisti s

• The host helps with local logistics
• Cost recovery
• The sponsor can defray some of the costs

p y

• Provides the meeting room/lab space
• Provides technical support where testbed

systems are required systems are required

• May still require a registration fee
• Costs include:
• Instructor(s) time and travel expenses (including

preparation!)

• Materials
• Shipping (particularly of computer systems for

labs)

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DCN HandsOn Workshop Agenda

• Day 1
• Day 1

– 8am Overview of GMPLS – 9am Exercise # 1: Designing the Intra-Domain GMPLS Control Plane with VLSR and NARB – 12noon Lunch – 1pm Exercise # 2: Configuring OSCARS for Intra- domain Provisioning 3pm Debugging the Control Plane – 3pm Debugging the Control Plane – 4pm Adjourn – 7pm Dinner(?) Mai Tais (?)

• Day 2

– 9am Exercise # 3: Configuring OSCARS for Interdomain Provisioning – 12noon Lunch – 1pm Exercise # 4: XML Interface and the “Web Page” – 3:30Pm Wrap up d – 4pm Adjourn

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Summary

• Tell ‘em what you are going to tell ‘em
• Then you tell ‘em

Then you tell ‘em what you just told ‘em

• Then you tell em what you just told em
• Target your audience
• Target your audience
• Keep it simple
• Hands-on exercises
• Offer the training as often as practical
• Workshops can be extremely useful and engender a

supportive adopter community

Thanks!