T1.4 Interface Design and Library Implementation

Lead: ETH

Given the mPlane platform focuses on interoperability with existing measurement probes and data sources, the detailed design of these interfaces (based on existing standards and with a view toward contributing project results back to the relevant standards organizations, inWP7) is crucial to the success of the project. Interface design may also require the implementation of libraries to ease the implementation of adapters for existing probes and repositories to these interfaces; this work, common to the entire architecture, will be undertaken in this task.

While we require more elaboration of use cases and the specific responsibilities of each component in the interface before we can completely define them, the following aspects can be anticipated about the interfaces:

• At the probe layer, a standard control and data interface will be necessary to interface with legacy monitoring systems or data sources. Adapters can then be built for each monitoring system and data source’s native interface.
• Data exchanges between probes, from probe to repository, and from probes and repositories to the UI will be based on existing standards to the extent possible. Standards allowing the flexibility and efficiency of data export required by the mPlane platform will be preferred. Any mPlane extensions to these standards will be contributed back to the relevant standards organization as part of WP7.
• Control exchanges between the controller and other components will be standardized, such that any component implementing these control interfaces can act as an mPlane probe or repository. The control protocol should be based on existing standards to the extent possible.