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 -- RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE