perfSONAR-PS Working Group
Aaron Brown/Jason Zurawski
January 21, 2008
TIP 2008 – Honolulu, HI

perfSONAR Overview
Most organizations perform monitoring and diagnostics of their own network
Networking is increasingly a cross-domain effort
Monitoring and diagnostics must also become a cross-domain effort

perfSONAR Motivation
A set of protocols and schemas for implementing a SOA for sharing and controlling network performance tools
Implementing Open Grid Forum (OGF) Network Measurement (NM-WG) recommendations
A community of users and developers
Multiple sets of interoperable software

Slide 4
perfSONAR-PS
Create a usability and deployment focused implementation of perfSONAR standard
Use same protocol/standards
Encourage new development
Proof of interoperability (strengthens the standard)‏
Targeted for University NOC deployments
Lightweight
Easy to deploy/manage
Primary users couldn't deploy Java services due to dependency complexities

perfSONAR-PS Services
Focus on development of major perfSONAR components
SNMP Based MA
LS
Link/Circuit Status
Topology‏
perfSONOBUOY
OSCARS
Visualization

CPAN Packages
perfSONAR-PS Tools available in CPAN
Packages available for the daemon, the various services and some client software
Services:
LS - perfSONAR_PS::Services::LS::LS
SNMP MA - perfSONAR_PS::Services::MA::SNMP
Status MA - perfSONAR_PS::Services::MA::Status
CircuitStatus MA - perfSONAR_PS::Services::MA::CircuitStatus
Topology MA - perfSONAR_PS::Services::MA::Topology

CPAN Packages
Installing the SNMP MA:
Install RRD tool
# cpan perfSONAR_PS::Services::MA::SNMP
CPAN downloads and installs required dependenciesÉ
# psConfigureDaemon
Asks questions to allow configuration of the new service
# /etc/init.d/perfsonar start
Starts the daemon

Daemon Architecture
Single daemon that can run any service
New services are written as modules
Modules register in which message types and event types they are interested
Daemon listens for new messages and passes full message or metadata/data pairs to the interested module

Daemon Architecture
Services ported
SNMP MA
LS
Pinger MA/MP
Status MA
Circuit Status MA
Topology MA

Link Status Measurement Archive
Provide access to up/down status information about layer2 links
Data stored in a SQL database
Database schema allows for storing time ranges during which a link had a certain status
Minimizes storage costs for rarely changing links
Communication/Configuration via XML
Target audience is network operators and users interested in obtaining the status of the links over which their data flows

Link Status Measurement Archive
Collector
Allows for the periodic collection of the status of one or more links
Can use SNMP, Scripts or simply Constants
Can store results directly into a database or into a remote Measurement Archive

Circuit Status Measurement Archive
An e2emon-compatible service
Integrates with the Link Status MA to provide the information stored in MAs
Can work with local MAs directly or with remote MAs
Can use the Topology MA to obtain necessary information about nodes
Can use a Lookup Service to lookup the MA containing information on each link
Target audience is administrators who want to publish circuit status information to e2emon clients

Link Status MA In Action - E2Emon
http://cnmdev.lrz-muenchen.de/e2e/lhc/mon/G2_E2E_index_ALL.html
Visualize link status over long paths

Topology Service
Provides a queryable repository for obtaining topology information about a domain
Can obtain the entire network
Xquery interface allows the construction of arbitrarily complex queries about the network
Topology is specified according to the schema in development for OGF

OSCARS MP
Provides a perfSONAR Interface to the OSCARS circuit information
Uses the OSCARS client to poll the status and caches the result
Interface is the same as the Topology service with the exception of no Xquery interface
Visualization using perfSONAR-UI

Topology/OSCARS In Action - perfSONAR-UI
perfSONAR-UI plugins
Link Status Plugin
Uses Topology Service, Link Status Service and LS to visualize link status in a domain
OSCARS Plugin
Use Topology Service and OSCARS Service to visualize the current set of circuits

SNMP Measurement Archive
Provide access to network performance data
Utilization
Errors
Discards
Numerous tools exist to collect passive measurements (via SNMP):
MRTG
Cacti
Cricket
Expose archives from RRD files

SNMP Measurement Archive
XML based configuration/protocol
Configuration file to expose the data
Message format to exchange the data
Targeted at researchers, NOC staff debugging intra/inter domain network problems
Many client applications available to graphically display the results:
GMaps
DCN Weathermap
perfOMeter‏
Traceroute visualization

SNMP MA In Action - GMaps
http://packrat.internet2.edu:8008
GMaps 'mashup' that displays locations of network elements as well as performance information
Developed by SLAC
Targeted at distributed NOC environments

SNMP MA In Action – DCN Weathermap
http://packrat.internet2.edu/~zurawski/TIP2008
Similar to Abilene/SC weathermaps, using all perfSONAR enabled data.
Not released currently, API coming if demand is sufficient.

SNMP MA In Action - perfOMeter
Javascript 'speedometer' using perfSONAR collected data.
Used at SC07, FMM in San Diego

SNMP MA In Action - perfOMeter
SNMP MA In Action - Traceroute Visualization
https://performance.es.net/cgi-bin/level0/perfsonar-trace.cgi
Esnet tool to convert data from perfSONAR services into a visualization based on a traceroute
Interacts with several 'known' services, working to make completely dynamic.

Lookup Service
'Oracle' of perfSONAR deployments
Accept service registrations
Handle complex data/service queries
Manage the lifetimes of data and services to keep framework relevant
Web Service interface to XML Database
Berkeley DB XML
Service Info/Data kept in native formats
Draw away the complex query tasks from otherwise 'busy' services

Lookup Service
Also XML based configuration/protocol
Native storage/query mechanisms [Xpath/XQuery]
Message format to exchange the data
Targeted at single domain deployment
Single instance to manage multiple services
Mutli-domain 'distributed' LS in development
Client applications aware of LS to find services
perfSONAR-UI
perfAdmin

LS in Action - perfAdmin
http://packrat.internet2.edu/cgi-bin/perfAdmin.cgi
Display the contents of a running LS
Drill down and display graphs of selected data sources
Perform administrative tasks on data (disabled currently lacking AA tools)‏

Future Directions
Create "Best Practices Guide" for deploying perfSONAR-PS targeted at campuses and regionals who are participating in LHC.
We welcome input and assistance over the next 1.5 months.

Conclusion
Questions?