perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Nina Jeliazkova <>]

On 14 December 2010 10:34, Yannis Mitsos <> wrote:

Dear All,

Speaking about hardware requirements, I was wondering if one has considered "porting" perfsonar-ps to a compact embedded platform. Instead of having big servers scattered around the network, a small and cheap device might be connected directly to an ethernet port of a CPE switch providing a good view of the network performance.

Can't help replying ... a wonderful idea, although I wonder if the current XML protocol will fit well in an embedded platform. 

Best regards,
Nina Jeliazkova
 

Regards,

Yannis

On Dec 8, 2010, at 21:49 , Alan Whinery wrote:

Since I hadn't actually done much with them yet, I was keeping to myself, but I just recently bought and deployed 4 of these as PerfSONAR throughput machines:

 PowerEdge R210 Chassis w/up to 2 Cabled HDs and Quad-Pack LED Diagnostics, Unit Price $1,074.96
 Operating System No Operating System
 Memory 4GB Memory (4x1GB), 1333MHz, Single Ranked UDIMM
 Processor Intel® Xeon® X3440, 2.53 GHz, 8M Cache, Turbo, HT
 Network Adapter Intel PRO 1000PT 1GbE Single Port NIC, PCIe-1
  Also separate built-in NIC for IPMI
 Hard Drive 500GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Cabled Hard Drive
 3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite

 I don't buy optical drives for machines that are never going to see a CD or DVD after initial install. I would like to see flash devices (i.e. SATA or IDE SATA CF adapters) edge out optical. I have to buy a plane ticket to get to most of my devices.

Although they are intended as 10GbE nodes, I haven't bought 10 GbE for these yet, as most locations aren't tooled for it.  Performance test seems to be a niche dominated by Myricom and Chelsio, at the moment. Our two existing NICs are Myri.

========================

Also considered HP Proliant, which turned out to be more expensive for very similar machine.
========================

I also have 10 of these coming for use as PerfSONAR delay-oriented machines (and possible CAIDA Ark fillers):

Super Micro 1RU Chassis SYS-5015A-EHF -
    Intel® Atom™ D510 processor (DMI)
    2x Intel 82574L Gigabit LAN
    1 PCI-e x4 slot
    real RS-232 serial port (critical for CDMA timing)
    IPMI
   Crucial 2GB Kit SO-DIMM DDR2 667MHz unbuffered
    ST31000520AS 1 TB Low Power HDD
    200 watt power supply.
I required the PCI-e slot as a fall-back in case I don't like the DMI-connected Intel LAN
Total $530 each, incl all taxes and fees -- through open public bid.

Although they haven't actually arrived yet. I'm nose deep in hard drives and RAM, which has limited entertainment, with no computers attached. Maybe in time for Christmas!

===================================
My current operational 10 GbE bwctl/NDT/NPAD box, which I have seen push between 7 & 8 Gbit/sec to Los Angeles:
Intel MB with dual Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.20GHz 1 M cache
1 GB RAM
30 GB HDD
Myri-10G Dual-Protocol NIC (10G-PCIE-8A)
Which I didn't buy, but a colleague's desktop that he left behind when he moved to another university.
==============================

 -Alan

On 12/8/2010 6:26 AM, Buraglio, Nicholas D wrote:

No problem.  Here is the brief synopsis of what I ordered:

PowerEdge R210 Chassis
Intel Xeon X3430, 2.4 GHz, 8M Cache
4GB Memory 
500Gig Disk
DVD-ROM
3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite

Total cost was a bit under $1100 per box and it should meet or exceed the requirements.  I'm also going to test this config with an Intel 10G card that I already have just to see how well it performs.   
For what it's worth, I purposely priced these out for cost savings over redundancy so that I could get more of them and instrument our networks in more locations.   The small footprint was nice as well since rack space is always a premium commodity.  

nb

---
Nick Buraglio   
Network Engineer
University of Illinois CITES / ICCN
GPG key 0x2E5B44F4
Phone: 217.689.4254


On Dec 7, 2010, at 8:12 PM, Thomas Tam wrote:

Nicks,

Thanks for the information! It would be much appreciated if you could share your hardware config.  

Regards,
-Thomas

On 10-12-07 5:16 PM, "Buraglio, Nicholas D"  wrote:

We're in the middle of doing this both on our campus and on our statewide optical network, so I'm by no means an expert, and only experienced in that I have a handful of test boxes out there.  I'm more in the same type of situation as you, "new deployment" status. 
I've started with a handful of 1G boxes to add to the few cobbled together test boxes we already have and plan to add a handful of 10G boxes specifically for throughput testing.  I used the ESnet KB as well as the page Jason posted for a starting point for my 1G hardware build:  http://fasterdata.es.net/ps_hardware.html
I've priced out a handful of slightly customized (more RAM, better processor) Dell PowerEdge R210, which are pretty inexpensive, have a small footprint and exceed the minimum requirements for a 1G perfSonar box.  Generally speaking, I've always stuck with Intel or Myricom 10G cards for my other applications (Intel has the best support for what I've used them for in the past, which is mostly pf_ring packet capture stuff). 
I'd be more than happy to share my hardware config if you're interested.

nb


---
Nick Buraglio  
Network Engineer
University of Illinois CITES / ICCN
GPG key 0x2E5B44F4
Phone: 217.689.4254


On Dec 7, 2010, at 2:15 PM, Thomas Tam wrote:

Hi

I am planning to deploy couple of perfonser servers in our network. At first, we are looking into deploying a 1GE connection to the network, but will migrate to a 10GE connection in a few months. I would love to hear recommendations of what server platforms and 10GE interface cards to be used from experienced perfsonar users.

Your information is greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
-Thomas
CANARIE NOC