perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Szymon Trocha <>]

Hi Mingmin,

Let me answer your questions.

mingmin sun pisze:
> Hi everybody,
> My name is Mingmin Sun from Tsinghua University in Beijing. I'm working 
> on a project, and I am quite interesting in what perfSONAR do. According 
> to the website and wiki, I know perfSONAR has three context: 
> organizations, protocol, some services and tools. Some guys develope 
> measurement tools,  and some guys wrap up the tools into perfSONAR 
> services using perfSONAR protocol. Am I right?

Yes. Participants are developing different components of the whole 
system. Although they are developed in different organizations we work 
together to keep compatibility and use the same protocol.

> Why two different release? Totally because the implementing 
> language(java,perl)? The two release have different kind of resoures 
> (geant resources vs internet2 resources)?

The basic differentiation is that part of the work is supported by an 
European project GN2 where mainly Java services are developed. Other 
services (mainly Perl-based) are developed by our partners in Internet2 
or RNP. There are also differences in target users, support and 
maintenance. But even then different implementation should talk to each 
other. We all use common Lookup Service infrastructure.

> For one service, there are many servers. Does one server can only 
> provide the information about its own domain, or it can get information 
> from other domains? if so , how can I select a server?

It depends on configuration of the owning domain. You may query services 
simply providing their URLs (or using default list) or set up your own 
Lookup Service where services register to. You may also use the current 
LS infrastructure for searching data (you will notice a check box "Use 
Lookup Service" in Interfaces tab).

> Take Looking Glass Service for example, how can I know the number of 
> measurement points and who are they ?

There is a publicly available test LG service (in fact SSH/Telnet MP 
service) made available by SWITCH partner. You can select it from 
"Telnet/SSH MP" list, then select "Device", then click "Add" to see 
devices' list. Then you can choose "Command" (e.g. IP_BGP_SUMMARY) and 
finally clik "Query" on the left side of the tab. You will see result in 
"Response" window.
If you installed your own one you can use it in that tab.

> How to use the services? I've tried the perfSONARUI, but I can't get any 
> information. Should I become a member of perfSonar, then I can see 
> other's data?

Did you familiarize with perfSONARUI (see 
http://wiki.perfsonar.net/jra1-wiki/index.php/PerfsonarUI)? You don't 
have to be a member of the consortium to see data, provided it is made 
publicly available by institutions. For example for Interfaces data psUI 
uses a default configuration file (available under Service Addresses 
link) with services listed or a Lookup Service infrastructure. You can 
also create a local copy of the config file and add your own services 
(if you deployed ones). For user guide see the link above.

Regards,
--
Szymon Trocha

Poznan Supercomputing & Netw. Center ::: NETWORK OPERATION CENTER
Tel. +48 618582022 ::: http://noc.man.poznan.pl