perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Barney Garrett <>]

Sorry for the delay in writing but I've been on holiday the last two weeks.

I'm just using a cron job with some rrdtool updates using snmpget to 
fill an RRD database.  It appears to work fine though I appear to be 
having issues with the PerfSonarUI because of the way I've set up my 
archives.  Basically I wanted more granularity than MRTG gives so I get 
data every 60 seconds.  It has on archive that holds 1147680 60 second 
samples this gives me approximately 2 years of data in 60 second 
averages.  But the writers of PerfSonarUI are assuming that the RRD file 
is of the structure layed out in the rrd docs for emulating MRTG.

Hope this is useful.

Barney

ulisses wrote:
> Hi all again
>
> I haven't seen a reply to my previous e-mail, so I rewrite the subject 
> I hope it reflects better our interests because we are interested in
> installing an RRD MA
>
> I would appreciate with expericience deploying RRD MA 
>
> On 2006-09-18 10:35:07, ulisses wrote:
> > 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?
>
> comments on the other topics would be helpful for me too, maybe that it could 
> be useful to put in the perfsonar websiete page an overview similar to the one
> I tried to do which append afterwards.
>
> Thanks
>
>         Ulisses
>
>
> > 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