perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[ulisses <>]

Hi Vendrin, Andreas

Thanks for your comments, I'm sorry I could not reply before

I have made a brief summary I made based on your replies (I append it at the 
end).

Some questions about the RRD MA:

  - It seems that everybody is using rrd files created by cacti or cricket
  - somebody is using something else other than this? somebody using mrtg/rrd?
  - What are the requirements of the RRD MA (other than software), 
  - what hardware is suggested?
  - how much time is needed to setup it?

About all perfsonar tools:

  - nemo
     
        I haven't seen information in english about it
        does it uses the RRD MA?
        what's the setup required?

  - visual perfsonar

        I assume that also retrieves information from RRD MA, also from MP?
        No web page of project? need more info


any comment will be greatly appreciated

regards

        Ulisses

#####################################################################################
# RRD MA
#####################################################################################

The RRD MA stores the information that is going to be used afterwards by 
visualization tools
that will be described afterwards: CNM, NEMO?, Visual Perfsonar and 
PerfsonarUI

In order to setup the RRD Type MA (needed by CNM server) easily (by using 
existing 
scripts) it is needed to have an alredy running cricket or cacti snmp based 
network
management tool.

In other words:

RRD MA doesn't communicate with routers and therefore its XML config file 
could 
hardly be derived from routers' configuration. Usually there is some 
other (SNMP based) application (mrtg, cricket, cacti, etc...) 
which gathers data from the routers and stores it in RRD files. There are 
already some
contrib scripts, able to generate automatically RRD MA's XML config by
querying either cricket's or cacti's data stores.


#####################################################################################
# CNM
#####################################################################################

      + shows network topology using hierarchical maps
      + information displayed includes (if provided by MA -- Measurement 
Archive)

        - downs and warnings on interfaces
        - link capacity
        - link utilization
        - link utilization rate
        - ippm_default_loss
        - ippm_default_max_ipdv
        - ippm_default_duplicate_packets

      + displays historic information, again if provided by the MA

      + cnm installation requires

        - java webstart for the client (GUI front end)

        - it requires an RRD type MA (Meassurement Archive) service 
          in the backend too that has the metrics stored.

        - there is a single server which is between the
          client (gui) and the RRD type MA, that is:

          CNM client --------- CNM server ------------ RRD type MA
          (Java GUI)          (centralized)
                              (at DFN only)

     + Setup:
                           
           - topological information (stored at DFN's CNM server) is obtained 
by converting 
             is-is output of router commands to the cnm data format 
(postgres), that is: the
             NREN must to provide this information to DFN.

      + To test it, obtain a password at 
http://wiki.geant2.net/bin/view/JRA1/Jra1WorkingArea
        and go to 
http://sonar1.munich.cnm.dfn.de/cnm-app/def/jnlp/topoapplet.jnlp

        More information can be found at 
http://wiki.perfsonar.net/jra1-wiki/index.php/CNM

#####################################################################################
# Nemo 
#####################################################################################

     + TODO: No information in english
             what's the setup?
             does it uses the RRD MA?

     + Visualization of networks as geographical maps (automatic from 
coordinates)
     + shows current and past network metrics
       - port www, smtp, emule, bittorrent usage
       - peak line load
       - average and peak line load
       - line capacity
       - peak and average cpu load
       - average packet loss
       - median and max ping time

#####################################################################################
# Visual Perfsonar
#####################################################################################

     + TODO: No web page of project? need more info
     + TODO: I assume that also retrieves information from RRD MA, also from 
MP?

     + Shows geographical traceroute of a path
     + Tracking of performance along a path (by concatenation of metrics)


#####################################################################################
# Perfsonar UI
#####################################################################################

Stand alone and open source graphical user interface to query a range of 
perfSONAR services, 
currently RRD MA (14) and MP/Hades (1)

Setup: 
       download of an exec or zip archive and execute the java application
       download of two configuration files with the list of RRD MA and MPs 
updated