NASA LTP Copilot Contest

Introduction

Welcome to the NASA Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) project. DTN is an approach to computer network architecture that seeks to address the technical issues in heterogeneous networks that may lack continuous network connectivity.

Examples of such networks are those operating in mobile or extreme terrestrial environments, or planned networks in space. Disruption may occur because of the limits of wireless radio range, sparsity of mobile nodes, energy resources, attack, and noise.

This is a contest to create a game plan, and not to locate a copilot.

Project Background

The Office of Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) at NASA Headquarters leads the Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) investigation with the goal of advancing the maturity and heritage (space flight use) of the DTN communication protocols.

Delay tolerant networks make use of store-and-forward techniques within the network in order to compensate for intermittent link connectivity. In the DTN the fundamental concept is an architecture based on Internet-independent middleware where protocols at all layers are used that best suit the operation within each environment, with a new overlay network protocol (bundle protocol) inserted between the applications and the locally optimized communications stacks.

The internet, in contrast, is a connected network where internet protocols, most notably transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), are dependent upon (low) latencies of approximately milliseconds. This low latency, coupled with low bit error rates (BER), allows TCP to reliably transmit and receive acknowledgements for messages traversing the terrestrial Internet.

Copilot Contest Requirements

This is a contest to create a game plan, and not to locate a copilot. The game plan must address two primary components of the project:

Component 1 – Game Plan for deploying DTN implementations.

Component 2 – Game Plan for updating the open source (ION) DTN distribution to include the LTP authentication procedures.

Submission Deliverables

Game Plan for deploying DTN implementations

The game plan must address the following requirements:

• Need to outline the contests required to take two similar yet different implementations from SourceForge, and deploy them to an AWS EC2. 
  • DTN2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/dtn
  • ION-DTN - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ion-dtn
• Determine the environment in which the code should be deployed
• Deploy the code to VMs
• Create nodes on two different VMs and have them communicate
• Create deployment documentation based on the existing deployment docs, but focused on deploying the code to a TopCoder managed AWS EC2 instance.
• Test the code using the included test modules within the project distributions.
• Need to determine an easy method for spinning up instances of the DTN2 and ION implementations with minimal to no configuration (ex. AWS EC2 image).
• Create a 1-2 page strategy document that will accompany the game plan and explain how the project will be conducted, and what each of the contests are for, and why.

Game Plan for updating the open source (ION) DTN distribution to include the LTP authentication procedures

Please see LTP Authentication Challenge.docx for more information on the requirements. Here is a summary:

• Need to add the LTP Authentication Procedures as specified in section 2.1 of RFC5327 to the LTP implementation that is part of the ION Open Source (IOS) DTN implementation available from SourceForge.
• We do NOT need to add the LTP Authentication Procedures to the DTN2 implementation, only the LTP implementation.
• Create a 1-2 page strategy document that will accompany the game plan and explain how the project will be conducted, and what each of the contests are for, and why.

Selection Criteria and Other Conditions

• This is a contest to create a game plan, and not to locate a copilot.
• We may or may not select the winning submitter as the copilot for this contest. We are primarily interested in a game plan that will describe the activities/tasks as specified above.
• We may award the 1st place prize to one submitter, but choose another for copiloting; the best submission will win this contest, but the winner is not guaranteed to be selected as the copilot.
• Software and Algorithm Ratings, and Copilot experience of each submitter will be considered
• Winner(s) will be selected by the NASA DTN teams. 

Resources

1. LTP Authentication Challenge Overview - attached to the contest spec.
2. Code – to download the code, please visit the following Source Forge links and download the latest project archives:
   1. DTN2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/dtn
   2. ION-DTN - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ion-dtn
3. Glossary - http://apps.topcoder.com/wiki/display/projects/NASA+DTN#NASADTN-Glossary
4. AWS EC2 – Please send a request to rsial@topcoder.com
5. RFC5327 - http://www.rfc-base.org/rfc-5327.html