Subject: [dtn-interest] ION 3.3.0

From: "Burleigh, Scott C (312B)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 17:08:13 +0000

Hi.  A quick announcement: ION version 3.3.0 has just now been posted to SourceForge, at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ion-dtn/.  This version is a fairly major upgrade.  The principal focus is on a transition from the Bundle Security Protocol (RFC 6257) to the experimental new Streamlined Bundle Security Protocol (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-birrane-dtn-sbsp/).  NASA will be deploying ION operationally on the International Space Station in a few months, and reliable support for data authentication, integrity, and confidentiality will eventually become critical for ISS DTN traffic; it looks like SBSP will be a more robust way to provide that support.

Also, in tandem with the move to SBSP, the 3.3.0 release includes an implementation of bundle-in-bundle encapsulation (as described in https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-burleigh-bibe/) to provide a security destination mechanism that integrates more easily than RFC 6257 with DTN routing protocols.

In addition to the security improvements, ION 3.3.0 includes:

*         Enhancements to LTP retransmission that improve performance under conditions of heavy data loss.

*         New buffer space management mechanisms that can handle heavier traffic flows.

*         Various bug fixes.

The next release on our road map will be another semi-major version, 3.4.0, which will focus on trying to extend Contact Graph Routing to work with discovered and probabilistic contacts, so that it can be more easily used in terrestrial DTN-based communications.  We're hoping to release ION 3.4.0 in early June.

Scott

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From: "Burleigh, Scott C (312B)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2015 17:41:32 +0000

Thanks, om_p.  There will be a couple of DTN gateways on ISS, one supporting ISS operations and the other supporting payloads.  Neither will ever be the sole way to move data to and from ISS, but over time we think the use of the DTN gateways will increase because DTN will be simpler and more reliable than the alternatives.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Omprakash Gnawali [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2015 9:17 AM
To: Burleigh, Scott C (312B)
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [dtn-interest] ION 3.3.0

Scott, this is a major news for DTN. Congratulations!

> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-birrane-dtn-sbsp/).  NASA will 
> be deploying ION operationally on the International Space Station in a 
> few months, and reliable support for data authentication, integrity, 
> and

Will DTN be the sole protocol used to transfer some production data (science, telemetry, etc.) in the deployment?

- om_p

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From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 09:52:38 +0000

Scott,

What are the alternatives that make bundling with ION seem simple and attractive?

thanks

L.

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From: Omprakash Gnawali <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 11:24:39 -0600

This is definitely a step forward even though DTN is the not sole way
to move data yet. After some experience and iterations, it may become
the sole way for certain ops or types of data. Again, thanks for the
update.

- om_p

---

From: "Burleigh, Scott C (312B)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 19:17:37 +0000

I should let someone who's more knowledgeable about ISS than I am answer this question; I didn't do the engineering for the ISS deployment.  I do know that loss and acquisition of R/F at ISS occurs fairly often, making it difficult (for example) to exchange email messages that have large attachments.  DTN is expected to address that sort of problem.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2015 1:53 AM
To: Burleigh, Scott C (312B)
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [dtn-interest] ION 3.3.0

Scott,

thanks

L.

On 5 Mar 2015, at 04:41, Burleigh, Scott C (312B) wrote:

>> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-birrane-dtn-sbsp/).  NASA 
>> will be deploying ION operationally on the International Space 
>> Station in a few months, and reliable support for data 
>> authentication, integrity, and
>

---

From: "Willman, Brett M. (JSC-OD111)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 19:33:34 +0000

Not sure if this is an ION specific question or a generic why use DTN question.  The latter is not a very easy question to answer as we have several different ways to get data up/down from ISS.  DTN is being implemented for LAN users.  And those alternatives typically include UDP/TCP COTS based protocols.  For the most part they work (IP Phone, Remote Desktop, etc.), but TCP doesn't work well for large data transfers (window size gets prohibitively small [e.g. large emails]).  On the Ops side, we have custom protocols and software to address file transfers, called SWRDFSH.  We are working to transition that custom code with DTN.

We chose ION due to the wide user base and the ability to use multiple OS platforms.  MSFC is using DTN2 for their ground nodes.

Perhaps, there is someone else from ISS who'd like to expound on what I said, maybe from the Payload community.

Brett Willman
DTN System Manager, ISS

-----Original Message-----
From: dtn-interest [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Burleigh, Scott C (312B)
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 1:18 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [dtn-interest] ION 3.3.0

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2015 1:53 AM
To: Burleigh, Scott C (312B)
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [dtn-interest] ION 3.3.0

Scott,

thanks

L.

> Will DTN be the sole protocol used to transfer some production data (science, telemetry, etc.) in the deployment?

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---

From: Kevin K Gifford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2015 13:26:26 -0700

Hi Lloyd - 

Attached, please find a conference paper (2010 AIAA SpaceOps) and a
presentation to the NASA Payloads community regarding the benefits of DTN
(FYI, your previous work is cited).  I've deleted a few unnecessary slides
from the presentation - DTN benefits are summarized in the 10-page
presentation and ISS DTN test results are summarized in the attached paper.

As a pioneering user, developer, and Payload experiment Principle
Investigator (PI), I can attest that the DTN protocol, with its underlying
design principles, significantly improves (scarce) downlink/uplink
bandwidth utilization for intermittently-connected ISS LEO operations.
Perhaps more importantly, DTN automates data transmission and recovery for
ISS operational and payloads users which reduces required staffing (i.e.,
it simplifies operations).

Hope this helps.

Kevin
P.S.: One alternative prior to DTN was to simply transmit payload data in
the blind (no acknowledgements); see attached paper

On 3/5/15 12:33 PM, "Willman, Brett M. (JSC-OD111)"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>Not sure if this is an ION specific question or a generic why use DTN
>question.  The latter is not a very easy question to answer as we have
>several different ways to get data up/down from ISS.  DTN is being
>implemented for LAN users.  And those alternatives typically include
>UDP/TCP COTS based protocols.  For the most part they work (IP Phone,
>Remote Desktop, etc.), but TCP doesn't work well for large data transfers
>(window size gets prohibitively small [e.g. large emails]).  On the Ops
>side, we have custom protocols and software to address file transfers,
>called SWRDFSH.  We are working to transition that custom code with DTN.
>
>We chose ION due to the wide user base and the ability to use multiple OS
>platforms.  MSFC is using DTN2 for their ground nodes.
>
>I should let someone who's more knowledgeable about ISS than I am answer
>this question; I didn't do the engineering for the ISS deployment.  I do
>know that loss and acquisition of R/F at ISS occurs fairly often, making
>it difficult (for example) to exchange email messages that have large
>attachments.  DTN is expected to address that sort of problem.
>
>Scott
>
>> Thanks, om_p.  There will be a couple of DTN gateways on ISS, one
>>supporting ISS operations and the other supporting payloads.  Neither
>>will ever be the sole way to move data to and from ISS, but over time we
>>think the use of the DTN gateways will increase because DTN will be
>>simpler and more reliable than the alternatives.
>> 
>> Scott
>> 
>> Will DTN be the sole protocol used to transfer some production data
>>(science, telemetry, etc.) in the deployment?
>> 
>> - om_p
>> 
>