perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Andreas Hanemann <>]

Hi Ulisses,

Please find some remarks inline.

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?
>
>   
I do not really understand why you are concerned with the RRD MA since
it is not directly related to the TopS development. You can certainly
learn something from the RRD MA implementation, but some questions are
not obvious to me.
> 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?
>
>   
The Nemo homepage is: http://software.uninett.no/nemo/
However, its requirements towards the TopS are basically the same as for
the CNM. They need information about the network topology (i.e. router,
interfaces, and links) for the domain in question. A particular focus is
on geographical coordinates.
The workplan foresees the access to the RRD MA (however, I do not
understand why this is interesting for you)
>   - visual perfsonar
>
>         I assume that also retrieves information from RRD MA, also from MP?
>         No web page of project? need more info
>
>   
More information can be found at:
http://wiki.perfsonar.net/jra1-wiki/index.php/VisualperfSONAR including
a link to try out the tool. The access to the MAs is not implemented yet.
> 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.
>
>   
The RRD MA installations store utilization information for different
networks. In order to show this kind of metric the CNM server accesses
the RRD MAs, but it is not vital in a sense that the CNM cannot run
without the RRD MAs.
> #####################################################################################
> # 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
>
>   

-- 
Andreas Hanemann, 

Boltzmannstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
Telefon:   +49 89 35831-8712
Fax:       +49 89 35831-9700