perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Loukik Kudarimoti <>]

Hi Warren,

Warren Matthews wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I hate to whine but Eric and Jeff say I should call it feedback and 
> send it to the list.
>
> We've had a terrible time with perfSONAR. I want to give up. Actually 
> we haven't even made it to trying to install perfSONAR. We haven't 
> even got the prerequisites installed yet.
>
> The real problem is we have no java expertise. I'm trying to get 
> another student but that'll be at least a few more weeks. The other 
> problem is we have to run RHEL. It is mandated by our director; 
> Unfortunately our site license does not include the application server 
> channel, so we don't get tomcat. Frankly, we're also not really 
> interested in understanding the packages and being experts on various 
> server software tools. We're network support staff, we want to measure 
> and trouble-shoot the network. Trying to get perfSONAR set up has been 
> a real pain.
>
> Perhaps you will say we should wait for better documentation. But we 
> would like to be an early adopter because we need to offer monitoring 
> services for our global campus. I would like to use perfSONAR so in 
> future we can use data from other networks. Furthermore I claim most 
> network admins are not going to try as hard as we did. If it doesn't 
> just work they won't use it.
Many thanks for your feedback. As Szymon, Eric and Jeff have mentioned 
before, it is extremely important that we receive feedback so that we 
can improve the quality of what we produce.

To understand your situation and to try to help you in solving it, I 
have some questions and comments below.

* Understanding Java
As Szymon mentioned, perfSONAR 1.0 does not expect the user to be aware 
of Java. In fact, perfSONAR installation scripts are written in perl and 
that is what the installer/admin will be using. Of course, Java (JDK) 
installation is required but all software applications require the 
installation of some compiler/interpreter. So, there is not much 
difference with perfSONAR.

Are you having problems installing Java?
Since you are using RHEL, Java installation (if not already 
pre-installed) should be fairly trivial I thought. Please correct me if 
I am wrong. Nevertheless, I thought installing Java has been made fairly 
simple by Sun and most system administrators/users shouldn't have a 
problem with it.

* Application server
Is installing Tomcat the problem or is it true of all Application Servers?

An application server capable of handing Java applications is a 
necessity in order to use perfSONAR as perfSONAR provides a Web Service 
Interface. Apache Tomcat is one of the most famous Application Servers 
and hence we have decided to use it for now and our default installation 
guide assumes that you would use Tomcat.  If you cannot install tomcat 
but can install some other Application Server (such as Jetty),  it 
should be still be possible to user perfSONAR. If so, please let us know 
and we can help you as some of us have experience with such servers as well.

But if RHEL is stopping you from installing any application server, 
can't you install it as a user (and not root)?

* Documentation
While the installation documentation being provided has greatly 
improved, I can understand that sometimes somethings can still be 
difficult. If you found such sections in our installation documentation, 
please let us know and we will try to improve it.

If you are talking about other documentation (such as developer), I 
agree. But this shouldn't stop you from installing perfSONAR right?

* perfSONAR is hard to use
As Szymon mentioned, it would be very helpful to us if you specify which 
part/s were/are hard to use. Is it the installation of pre-requisites or 
is it the configuration?

We really like early adopters and we want to make sure nothing 
discourages them from installing perfSONAR. :)

Regards,
Loukik.

> Warren Matthews, International Research Network Initiatives,
> Georgia Institute of Technology.
>
> Adventure is a sign of incompetence. If you have an adventure, you're
> doing something wrong. If you really plan things out then you don't have
> adventures - The great polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefanson.