BizzBus Notes

Taking a break this week from network research / development to work on BizzBus. Not much on the wiki for the moment, but it will be fleshed out over the course of this week. The idea of BizzBus is to provide a secure private network for commerce applications.

The first application of the network will be providing small businesses access to best of breed ERP services. No more quickbooks, manual entry, inventory problems etc. Well that is if the merchant uses the system. :)

We will be providing these services via a powerful platform called OpenTaps. This is an incredibly powerful platform which provides a massive amount of features for businesses of any size.

OK. So OpenTaps provides handling of business processes (and can easily scale to tens of thousands of small businesses). Revenue from monthly service fees can handle the hosting costs
and probably even generate a small profit.

However that alone isn't a defendable business position. It can easily be done by an existing hosting company with existing sales/marketing channels.

So we are adding a unique service to the mix, which we believe will give us a defensible position.

Merchants will enter product/pricing data into OpenTaps, the data will be tagged with semantic metadata and displayed to consumers seeking the products and services the merchant offers. Here is a good high level description of how our system will work:

The user can set property constraints that the searched service instances must fulfill. The properties and their possible values depend on the selected class. Therefore, if the selected class is ''Restaurants'', only properties related to ''Restaurants'' and its superclasses are shown. The selection of the value for a property is either based on traversing through an ontology hierarchy, by selecting the correct value from a list, or by writing the value in a text field. The result of a search is a list of links to the matching services which can be browsed with the instance browser.

Quote from a Yellow Pages on the Semantic Web Project.

(By the way that method is fantastic. Our implementation goes beyond that by adding a unique proximity and environmental filtering method, as well as incorporating user purchase histories etc. So feel free to build a semantic web based yellow pages and some widgets, that is only part of our secret sauce. :)

Now lets discuss some of the technologies involved with making the data usable on the semantic web.

Here is how I envision the work flow, and what I have found so far:

1) Merchant enters product/pricing and category (ie specials etc) data into OpenTaps.

Easy enough. OpenTaps provides all the needed functionality for this out of the box.

2) Data is sent over an open source enterprise service bus and translated into RDF.

We have settled on the Mule Enterprise Service Bus. Translating the XML data into RDF can be easily accomplished via something like the xml2rdf tool. It's a simple ETL problem. This project also provides a tool to convert xml to rdf.

3) to an open source triple store.

We have selected Jena SDB with a PostgreSQL back end for our triple store.


4) User requests advertising product or service data using our unique environmental and proximity based filtering algorithm,

5) A query of the RDF store occurs.

6) Data is displayed to the end users mobile device (via style sheets applied to the RDF query feed).

Project Plan for July 20th to July 27th

Here is the plan going forward as of July 19th 2008:

Tasks completed so far:
1) Setup bizzbus wiki/mailing list on LA development server. Subscribe team members. This has been completed.

2) Install glassfish on LA developnment server Went with tomcat instead. Glassfish package in repository had issues. Didn't feel like troubleshooting or downloading from sun and making work on Ubuntu.

3) Install Bizgres on LA development server. I installed postgresql8.3. It appears to have incorporated the bizzbus features.


Tasks going forward:

For the week of July 20th to July 26th:

To be done by the software engineering team:

1) Install OpenTAPS on LA development server.

2) Install Mule ESB on LA development server. (Feel free to recommend alternative open source ESB solutions in comments or e-mail to me.)

3) Install daisycms on LA development server.

4) Install openx on LA development server.

5) Setup hosting software stack on LA server.

To be done by the infrastructure team:

Network core tasks:

1) Install Zeroshell as a KVM guest on Charles laptop and burn a few copies to CD.

2) Install an instance of Zeroshell as an OpenVZ guest on the El Monte main development server. This will be used for the dev mesh 1 and dev mesh 2 wrk54g routers.

3) Install an instance of Zeroshell as an OpenVZ guest on the El Monte main development server. This will be used for the prod wisp 1 and prod wisp 2 wrt54gl routers.

4) Setup OpenWRT development environment on Charles laptop and on El Monte development server.

We hope to have the network core piece done by Friday with a demo on Saturday at the TRW swap meet.

Wireless Customer / End User Equipment Lab

Here is a dump of the equipment/price list which will make up the lab I'll be building.

This lab will be used to handle all possible scenarios which could be encountered with
customer / end user equipment and back haul.


CPE/End User Lab Equipment:

Item Qty Price Total

CUWiN Wireless Kit  (http://metrix.net/cuwin-kit-p-84.html) 2 $500 $1000
Ubiquiti Power Station 5 http://ubnt.com/products/ps5.php 2 $200 $400
Ubiquiti Nano Station 5 http://ubnt.com/products/ns5.php 2 $200 $400
Ubiquiti Power Station 2 http://ubnt.com/products/ps2.php 2 $100 $200
Ubiquiti Nano Station 2 http://ubnt.com/products/ns2.php 2 $100 $200
Linksys WRT54GL http://tinyurl.com/8b9ap 6 $70 $420

  Total $2620



Network Edge Equipment Lab
Software Defined Radio

Item Qty Price Total

USRP http://www.ettus.com/custom.html
 1 $700 $700
2.3-2.9 GHz Transceiver, 20+mW output 1 $275 $275
2.4-2.5 GHz and 4.9 to 5.85 GHz Dual-band Transceiver, 100+mW output on 2.4 GHz, 50+mW output on 5GHz 1 $400 $400
Band 2400-2480 MHz and 4.9-5.9 GHz Vertical Antenna, 3dBi Gain, Ideal for RFX2400 and XCVR2450 1 $35 $35

  Total $1410


Grand Total $4030

SoCalWiFI Project - Network Design - High Level Overview

It's time for another blog post related to the SoCal WiFI project (page is a bit sparse at the moment. I'm adding information as I go along and research various topics.)

I recently did a SoCal WiFI project update post and promised blog entries on the various topics covered in it. I recently did some blog posts on 3650Mhz and 802.11y (point number 5).

I now want to spend some time sharing my thoughts on designing the SoCal WiFI network and implementing a test lab for that design (point number 2).

I'm going to follow the same format as I did with my 3650mhz posts where I give an introduction / high level overview and then do seperate posts on various topics.


So here goes...

I see the network being broken down into a some major pieces:

(in order of development and increasing complexity)

1) Network Core.

Things like RADIUS/OpenLDAP/OpenVPN etc live in the core.
We will be using Zeroshell to provide things like 802.1x, QoS, Captive portal, Kerberos, x.509 certificate authority etc. This will save us massive amounts of time and effort (easily hundreds of project hours).

We will be turning ZeroShell into an OpenVZ guest. This gives us things like high availability, snapshots etc for free.

I'll be blogging on this process over the next week or so.



2) Customer/End user equipment.

This will consist of a custom OpenWRT image preconfigured to talk to our Zeroshell server. We will deploy this image on:

1) Existing customer equipment. This is perfect for the more technical folks (early adopters) who want to join the network and help us test it out.

2) Ubiquity power/nano stations (deployed as mesh aggregation points, business/office deployments and other large coverage areas.)

I hope to have the above items done by the end of July, and gather feedback/information at Defcon in August.


3) Network edge.

This is where things get interesting. I'll do a seperate set of posts on this once I have done more initial research and fact gathering.

Network Lab

general_lab_overview-07092008
Originally uploaded by charlesnw

I took this picture of my home network lab. It's relatively early on. I'll be adding more to it on a monthly basis (ie whenever there is a swap meet).

I'll be posting a more detailed blog post with what the eventual lab will look like and how I will be using it, later on.

Earth Station Related Brain Dump

Some people and organizations I have come across researching persons and companies involved with satellite and network operations.

McKibben Consulting

Mark McKibben

From his resume I discovered:

1) Society of Satellite Professionals International - SSPI (Southern California Chapter)

2) Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (Hollywood Chapter)

3) Society of Broadcast Engineers (Los Angeles and Inland Empire chapter)

4) National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (couldn't find any chapter information).

5) Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (Southern California Chapter)

Networking with members of the above organizations seems like a good investment in support of gaining access to the spectrum in an efficient manner.

3650mhz Southern California Stations (Chatsworth and one of the Sylmar Stations)

According to the grandfathered FSS earth stations list the Chatsworth Ground Station (34°14'20.70"N 118°34'11.50"W) is owned by McKibben Communications.

Doing some research into the company shows that is was renamed to FiberSat Global Services. Searching for FiberSat Global Services shows that it was renamed and sold to Access Integrated Technologies. Convenient for researchers like myself they are a public company. Contact info for the company.

One of the Sylmar stations (34°18'55.00"N 118°29'12.00"W) is operated by FiberSat Global Services LLC. Same company different name. :)

More info to come later. Just want to get some inital research out.

3650mhz Southern California Malibu Stations

This is a continuation of an earlier blog post I did on my adventures gaining access to 3650Mhz spectrum.


I have split the ground stations in Southern California (referenced in this document) into 3 sections.

Stations in Malibu (covered in this blog post).
Stations in Chatsworth/Somis (covered in a still to come blog post)
Stations in Sylmar CA. (covered in a still to come blog post.)

One of the first terms I come across in the document is Fixed Satellite Service. This gives me a search term. :)

Searching for fixed satellite service at&t (at&t is listed as the licensee of the malibu stations ) leads me to a company called Loral Space & Communications LTD which purchased AT&T Skynet. They are a public company. Oooo. I like public companies. I really really really like public companies. The records they are required to maintain are most useful. :)

Searching the FCC licensing website for loral leads me to lots of expired licenses and two active licenses (unfortunately I can't bookmark the search itself just individual results)

WPOJ997
WPOJ998

However I'm not sure they belong to the same Loral Space & Communications company. They also aren't licenses for 3650 mhz frequency.

Ok. So who is operating the AT&T satellites mentioned in the grandfathered earth stations list? Relevant info:

State City Latitude Longitude NAD* Call Sign Filenumber Licensee
CA Malibu 34°4'52.60"N 118°53'52.90"W 83 E980066 SESMOD2000112902218 AT&T Corp.

CA Malibu 34°4'50.30"N 118°53'46.40"W n/s KA273 SESRWL2000072401194 AT&T Corp.

CA Malibu 34°4'49.70"N 118°53'43.90"W 27 KA91 SESMOD1998081701067 AT&T Corp.

CA Malibu 34°4'51.00"N 118°53'44.00"W 27 KB32 SESMOD1998081701066 AT&T Corp.

Apologies for the formatting.

So searching on the exact call signs (E980066, KA273, KA91, KB32) returns nothing. OK Time to get a bit more creative. I did a search for 1700 South Bardman Avenue which is the street address of the FSS site. There are 3 base stations here. Or at least 3 I could see.

According to this filing one satellite is operating in the 3650 range.

SITE ID: 1
LOCATION: 1700 SOUTH BARDMAN AVENUE, LOS ANGELES, MALIBU, CA
34 ° 4 ' 49.70 " N LAT. 118 ° 53 ' 43.90 " W LONG.

I was at that location yesterday, or more accurately I was at mullholland highway and bardman avenue. There is a gate there which prevents access to the facility. I presume the facility is unmanned but who knows.

So the satellite at the facility which operates in this range is owned by New Skies. Well I imagine they would be easier to negoiate with then AT&T. :)

More info to come later.

802.11y (3650 mhz) in Southern California

This blog post is sure to be interesting to a a number of people, wireless ISPs and communication engineering junkies in particular. :) (I include myself in both those camps).

This is the first in a series of blog posts on my quest to gain access to a range of spectrum set aside for Wireless ISPs, specifically 3650Mhz. I plan for it to be the definitive reference on negotiating for access to the exclusionary zones, in Southern California. To my knowledge no one has successfully done this.

The goal of this post is to give background information on the frequency range, and the procedure to gain access to it.

I'll be doing some future posts with information on specific stations.

The FCC has a relatively straightforward procedure for getting a license and operating in the band:

1) Obtain a nationwide, non-exclusive license using ULS.

Easily done via a self service web page on the FCC site. Anyone can obtain a nationwide non exclusive license with a credit card. The fee is $210.00 according to the FCC fee schedule.

2) Before registering a station, examine ULS for nearby stations.

Again this is easily done via a self service web site. However that database isn't the whole story. The FCC grandfathered in several existing earth stations.

Here is a map which may be of interest:


I have created a yahoo maps mash up of the stations in Southern California.

So begins my quest to gain access to the circular 150km exclusion zones which are in place around the incumbent earth stations. Please see appendix D (starting on page 54) of this fcc document for much more information on exclusion zones. That document is the source of the above map.

3) Obtain FCC-certified equipment (fixed, base and mobile equipment operating in the band must incorporate a "contention-based protocol").

I recommend Ubiquiti Networks equipment based on good feedback I have seen on the WISPA wireless list. Your mileage may vary of course. I have yet to deploy any equipment for reasons which are obvious from my above post. :)

4) Register each fixed and base station using ULS.
Easily done via the FCC website.

More posts on this topic to come later. Wanted to get this out for now as a start.

SoCal WiFI project Update

I have been quite busy lately and haven't blogged as much as I would like. I have a few posts in draft form at the moment that I need to finish and get out. :)

So what have I been up to?

1) I found a new job at evite.com as a Linux/Storage/Network engineer. Loving it. This will pay the bills and allow my free time to be devoted to the SoCal WiFI project once again.

2) I delegated the research and development of the for profit software services (BizzBus and NeighborPortal) to Ralf Dallas and Mike. I provided them with a package / diagram which captures all of my inital research/development efforts, thoughts, notes etc. This enables me to focus full time on the design, development and deployment of the SoCal WiFI network.

3) I discovered Zeroshell. This will easily save 100 to 200 hours of project time. I'll be creating an openvz version of it and upload it to the sourceforge project. Zeroshell provides us with an openvpn/radius/openldap all in one solution. This is exactly what an enterprise grade wireless network needs at its core. It will enable us to light up our first mesh node on the July 4th weekend as originally planned.

4) I discovered the OpenSDSL project. This will help us gain insight and control over systems used to back haul wireless nodes/aggregation points. We will be providing them with access to our lab, and connect them with our fabrication facilities and embedded systems people to help move the project forward.

5) I discovered 802.11y which looks to be quite useful. When I found out about it, I was ecstatic. It will work quite well for a medium range wireless back haul. As I started researching it more for deployment in the Southern California region in support of the SoCal WiFI project, I discovered that a number of grand fathered ground stations exist in my area. So this is a bit of a bummer.

6) Registered POC and ORG records with ARIN.


Expect more blog posts on the above items as we go through the month of July, lite up our first node and continue to expand the network.

Transit Adventure

So today is my second day of work at IAC and my first day taking public transit.

Leg 1 is Metrolink to union station. Bought a ten trip for that.
Leg 2 is Union Station to hollywood/highland via metro rail (red line).
Leg 3 was supposed to be a shuttle from hollywood/highland metro station to iac.

Well Leg 3 didn't work. :)

I walked from highland to sunset (a couple blocks) and got on the 2. Well evidently there is more then one 2 line bus. The one I got on stopped at Sunset/FairFAX.

Ok.

The 302 showed up about 45 seconds later.

Took that to Vincente which is about 600 feet from the door of IAC.

So leg3 will now be 302 to Vincente.