Pioneer Architecture

Go back to the Pioneer Overview section.

The Pioneer system is comprised of: central servers that provide an entry point into the framework providing access to network performance tools, an Abilene Server that is the access point for running tests on select Abilene nodes, and Envoy servers that run on Cakeboxes distributed accross several regions. The entities with dotted boundary lines are a part of work in progress, and are not yet publicly available.

Access is provided to the Pioneer framework through a web page controlled by the central Pioneer server. Each of the Cakeboxes runs an Envoy server that registers that machine at boot time. These entries, and some other information, are stored in a central LDAP server. All registered entries contain a list of the programs permitted to run on that machine, and that machine's IP address. Based on this information, the web page creates source and destination menus for the tools available. The menus are automatically updated whenever a Cakebox is up or rebooted and running the Envoy server.

Once a user submits a request to run a particular tool between a source and destination, the central Pioneer server forwards the request to the appropriate Envoy (or Abilene) machine, which then spawns a process locally to fulfill the request. The results are returned to the central Pioneer server which displays it on the web page. All communication between servers are on SSL encrypted channels. Eventually access controls and stronger authentication mechanisms will be put in place using the Akenti system.