Network SLA

Sat Mar 7 21:21:00 UTC 2009

On Sat, Mar 07, 2009 at 12:26:45PM +0100, Chris Meidinger wrote:
> Saqib,
> 
> On 07.03.2009, at 12:12, Saqib Ilyas wrote:
> 
> >I must thank everyone who has answered my queries. Just a couple more
> >short questions.
> >For instance, if one is using MRTG, and wants to check if we can meet
> >a 1 Mbps end-to-end throughput between a couple of customer sites, I
> >believe you would need to use some traffic generator tools, because
> >MRTG merely imports counters from routers and plots them. Is that
> >correct?
> 
> Yes, if you want to do a test bandwidth, iperf should probably be your  
> first stop.

Or for more sophisticated matricies of spot-checks, BWCTL
(http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog43/presentations/Boote_tools_N43.pdf)

> >We've heard of the BRIX active measurement tool in replies to my
> >earlier email. Also, I've found Cisco IP SLA that also sends traffic
> >into the service provider network and measures performance. How many
> >people really use IP SLA feature?
> 
> I know a lot of people that use IPSLA. Remember, that you set it up  
> between two routers or higher-end switches and it constantly tests  
> that connection. However, IPSLA is the wrong tool for a one-off test  
> of whether you can push a Mbps from site A to site B, because you need  
> to saturate the link to do that test. IPSLA is great for monitoring  
> things like jitter.

While Birx is awesome and a cisco-heavy site certainly should use 
rtr/ipsla in their mix, don't underestimate the value of a lightweight
system built on smokeping (http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/). Choose
the right set of tools for your budget and environment.

Cheers!

Joe

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