End-User Services

Several end-user services run continuously on PlanetLab, generating over 2TB of live network traffic and contacting over 1M unique IP addresses every day. Users at PlanetLab sites (and elsewhere) are encouraged to take advantage of these services.

Content Distribution Networks

Distributed Hash Table

Scalable Large-File Transfer

Robust DNS Resolution

Routing Overlays

Multicast

Email

Publish-Subscribe News Access

Mobile Access

Network Measurement & Observation

Many researchers use PlanetLab as an observation Platform from which they can measure and map the Internet, detect anomalies, and diagnose failures. Few of the tools developed to support this activity are available as continuously running PlanetLab services. The main exception is ScriptRoute, which allows users to execute measurement scripts from PlanetLab's man vantage points.

• ScriptRoute

Infrastructure Services

PlanetLab service developers commonly take advantage of ''helper'' services, commonly called infrastructure services, to deploy, monitor, and maintain their services and experiments. New PlanetLab users are strongly encouraged to leverage these services, rather than reinvent the wheel.

Brokerage Services

These services are used to acquire additional resources, for example, to run an experiment or demo during periods of heavy load.

• Bellagio

• Sirius

Environment Services

These services are used to distribute software packages, resolve dependencies, and remotely control a slice. Users should be aware that there are many similar tools available; see the Wiki for more examples. We call these two out because the combination seems to be getting the most traction in the community. It would be a great service to the PlanetLab community for someone to write a ''best practices'' document that helps new users figure out what combination of deployment and management tools to use for their slice.

• Stork

• AppManager

Monitoring & Discovery Services

These are related services that can either be used to monitor the behavior running nodes or slices, or to help users discover what resources are available on what nodes.

Recent Contributions

An experimental Wiki page has been created. The Wiki allows users to post information about new services, and so it may have more up-to-date information than this page. A similar page exists for contributed software and tools.