WASHINGTON, D.C., April 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- During the advanced technology demonstrations segment at the Internet2 Global Summit meeting in Washington, D.C., Internet2, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), Indiana University, and GÉANT announced the release of a new version of the open-source tool perfSONAR, which stands for Performance Service Oriented Network Monitoring Architecture. The updates in version 4.0 include:
- new scheduling software called pScheduler that supports community-developed test tools
- results archiving and analysis
- new interactive time-series graphs for improved human analysis
- support for email alerting in Monitoring and Debugging Dashboard (MaDDash)
perfSONAR is a jointly developed and widely deployed test and measurement infrastructure that is used by science networks and facilities around the world to measure and ensure network performance. As research and education institutions are increasingly reliant on networking, open-source tools like perfSONAR allow network engineers to test and measure network performance, with the ability to archive data in order to pinpoint and solve service problems that may span multiple networks and international boundaries.
“The new scheduler feature is a major step toward making perfSONAR more flexible for an increasingly complex set of research networks,” said Rob Vietzke, Internet2 vice president for network services. “It allows the community to extend the current deployed infrastructure, and perfSONAR to easily adopt tools and analyses created by our community. Congratulations to the Development team on a really important new set of capabilities!”
First released in 2006, perfSONAR provides federated coverage of network paths and helps establish end-to-end usage expectations in a global research and education network ecosystem, comprising hundreds of international, national, regional, and local-scale networks. perfSONAR is currently installed at more than 2,000 sites around the world.
"As research is becoming increasingly data-intensive, the ability to pinpoint and eliminate network bottlenecks is critical in order to make the most effective use of networks," said Inder Monga, ESnet director. "This new release leverages an open-source, time-series graphing package developed by ESnet that allows for easy exploration of measurement data."
At the same time that networks have become more critical and interconnected, performance issues can be more difficult to diagnose. A community-based tool like perfSONAR is extremely valuable as information gleaned by users is generally shared with others.
“We’re excited about the 4.0 release of perfSONAR and the introduction of key new features that will increase the utility of perfSONAR nodes deployed around the globe,” said David E. Jent, Indiana University associate vice president of networks. "The new graphs provide a streamlined interaction for analysts. The new scheduler will help virtual organizations support the tests they need. Support for email alerts in testpoint meshes broadens the community that can take advantage of perfSONAR for quality assurance.”
As the number of perfSONAR deployments grow, the software becomes even more effective by offering better coverage across multiple network paths. With enough monitoring points, users can collaborate to triangulate problems and narrow down the possible bottlenecks.
“Today, when bandwidth for most networks is no longer an issue, performance concerns stand between the user's satisfaction and services provided. Fortunately, we have perfSONAR to bridge the gap, as it helps to better understand the end-user’s experience and brings insight into their view of the network,” said Steve Cotter, GÉANT CEO. "perfSONAR is simple to use and is the result of a strong, active, and enthusiastic cooperation of teams from all over the globe."
The perfSONAR collaboration over the past 11 years has also included participation by Fermilab, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Georgia Tech, University of Delaware, ATLAS Great Lakes Tier 2 team at the University of Michigan, and Brazil's National Education and Research Network.
Technical information about perfSONAR is available at http://www.perfsonar.net/ and specific perfSONAR 4.0 documentation is available at http://docs.perfsonar.net/
About perfSONAR
The global Research & Education (R&E) network ecosystem is comprised of hundreds of international, national, regional and local-scale networks. While these networks all interconnect, each network is owned and operated by separate organizations (called “domains”) with different policies, customers, funding models, hardware, bandwidth, and configurations. This complex, heterogeneous set of networks must operate seamlessly from “end to end” to support science and research collaborations that are distributed globally.
perfSONAR is an open source network measurement toolkit designed to provide federated coverage of paths and help to establish end-to-end usage expectations. There are over 2000 of perfSONAR instances deployed worldwide, many of which are available for open testing of key measures of network performance. This global infrastructure helps to identify and isolate problems as they happen, making the role of supporting network users easier for engineering teams, and increasing productivity when utilizing network resources.
perfSONAR provides a uniform interface that allows for the scheduling of measurements, storage of data in uniform formats, and scalable methods to retrieve data and generate visualizations. This extensible system can be modified to support new metrics, and there are endless possibilities for data presentation. To learn more, visit www.perfsonar.net
About Internet2®
Internet2® is a non-profit, member-driven advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 serves 317 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 43 regional and state education networks and through them supports more than 94,000 community anchor institutions, over 900 InCommon participants, and 78 leading corporations working with our community, and 61 national research and education network partners that represent more than 100 countries.
Internet2 delivers a diverse portfolio of technology solutions that leverages, integrates, and amplifies the strengths of its members and helps support their educational, research and community service missions. Internet2’s core infrastructure components include the nation’s largest and fastest research and education network that was built to deliver advanced, customized services that are accessed and secured by the community-developed trust and identity framework.
Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Denver, Colo.; Emeryville, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; and West Hartford, Conn. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.
About ESnet
The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is a high-performance, unclassified network built to support scientific research. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science (SC) and managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ESnet provides services to more than 40 DOE research sites, including the entire National Laboratory system, its supercomputing facilities, and its major scientific instruments. ESnet also connects to 140 research and commercial networks, permitting DOE-funded scientists to productively collaborate with partners around the world. For more information, visit https://www.es.net/
About Indiana University
The Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC ) at Indiana University is the premier operations and engineering organization supporting advanced international, national, regional and local high-performance research and education networks including Internet2, NOAA, and Indiana’s own I-Light.
GlobalNOC plays a major role in transforming the face of digital science, research and education in Indiana, the US, and the world by providing unparalleled network operations and engineering needed for reliable and cost-effective access to specialized facilities for research and education. For more about GlobalNOC, visit http://globalnoc.iu.edu/.
About GÉANT
GÉANT is Europe’s leading collaboration on network and related e-infrastructure and services for the benefit of research and education, contributing to Europe’s economic growth and competitiveness. The organisation develops, delivers and promotes advanced network and associated e-infrastructure services, and supports innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst its members, partners and the wider research and education networking community. The European perfSONAR team is part of the GÉANT (GN4-2) Project which, as part of the GÉANT 2020 Framework Partnership Agreement receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 731122 (GN4-2). To learn more, visit www.geant.org or follow us on Twitter @GEANTnews
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