Measure overall network availability
Hi, is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability? Currently we use packet loss rate as indication of network availability, but to my understanding this just means the possiblity of e2e communication degrade but not the network availability. regards Joe __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Log on to Messenger with your mobile phone! http://sg.messenger.yahoo.com
Hello Joe, Thursday, January 6, 2005, 11:23:48 PM, you wrote: JS> is there any recommended method to measure overall JS> network availability? I prefer the inverse help-desk calls method (a low number of help-desk calls means greater availability -- or that your new VOIP system is being impacted by the problems) ;). allan -- Allan Liska allan@allan.org http://www.allan.org
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 12:23:48 +0800 (CST), Joe Shen <joe_hznm@yahoo.com.sg> wrote:
is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability?
Customer complaints that they cant reach you Network availablity from where? Maybe a script that polls visiblity of your AS from various looking glasses, and also sends you ping / traceroute times from these looking glasses, on a periodic basis. Not too periodic unless you've talked to the LG operator and arranged that they know about the test bot you've written to automatically query their looking glass on a regular basis.
Currently we use packet loss rate as indication of network availability, but to my understanding this just means the possiblity of e2e communication degrade but not the network availability.
Maybe maintain a few 1U colo boxes (cheap!) in data centers on selected networks around the world, from where you want to measure reachablity .. run nothing except nagios or some other monitoring app for measuring availablity of services like http, smtp, etc that you want to know are available or not, All these nagios reports can be configured to land in a central monitoring console in your NOC. -- Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists@gmail.com)
On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 12:09 +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
Maybe maintain a few 1U colo boxes (cheap!) in data centers on selected networks around the world, from where you want to measure reachablity .. run nothing except nagios or some other monitoring app for measuring availablity of services like http, smtp, etc that you want to know are available or not,
I've often wondered, as I work intimately with NMS software, just how much cross network traffic is "are you there?" related. Would it have a positive impact on overall net performance if everyone just turned off all internetwork status polling? <ducking> -Jim P.
Jim Popovitch wrote:
I've often wondered, as I work intimately with NMS software, just how much cross network traffic is "are you there?" related. Would it have a positive impact on overall net performance if everyone just turned off all internetwork status polling?
<ducking>
Since p2p traffic is >50% globally and >80% on many networks, everything else can be considered marginal. Pete
On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:41:46 -0500, Jim Popovitch <jimpop@yahoo.com> wrote:
I've often wondered, as I work intimately with NMS software, just how much cross network traffic is "are you there?" related. Would it have a positive impact on overall net performance if everyone just turned off all internetwork status polling?
not too much, when done right .. and when compared to all the noise out there - martian packets, p2p downloads, worm generated traffic ... -- Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists@gmail.com)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 in-line: Jim Popovitch wrote: | On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 12:09 +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: | | |>Maybe maintain a few 1U colo boxes (cheap!) in data centers on |>selected networks around the world, from where you want to measure |>reachablity .. run nothing except nagios or some other monitoring app |>for measuring availablity of services like http, smtp, etc that you |>want to know are available or not, | | | I've often wondered, as I work intimately with NMS software, just how | much cross network traffic is "are you there?" related. Would it have a | positive impact on overall net performance if everyone just turned off | all internetwork status polling? - ----------------- depends on the polling period. regards, /vicky | | <ducking> | | -Jim P. | | | | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB3pt6pbZvCIJx1bcRAhZFAKDony2dCnDUUcH9T7wntDfDNMA2kQCdGSmU gO++o+vIxzUAEaEUmFT5T3M= =KBqR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Jim Popovitch <jimpop@yahoo.com> writes:
I've often wondered, as I work intimately with NMS software, just how much cross network traffic is "are you there?" related. Would it have a positive impact on overall net performance if everyone just turned off all internetwork status polling?
<ducking>
Depends on the number in the most significant nybble of the first byte of the IP header. ---Rob
On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:23:48PM +0800, Joe Shen wrote:
Hi,
is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability?
The problem is, that most people have no definition when they consider their network available. And without that definition it seems impossible to monitor it. In the end it all comes down to defining service Levels which are acceptable. That might be as simple as defining how long round trip times are allowed to be (is a link packets need 16seconds to pass still available?) or as complicated as "is my network reachable from at least 99.8% of the ASes on the internet". Some things are easy to monitor, some are difficult, some are virtually impossible. Is your network still available if packets reach your webserver really fast from everywhere in the world, but the Firewall drops outgoing packets with source port 80? Technically the network is there, but practically it is unusable for many things. So availability might also be a value that is useless in real life. Nils
On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 10:43:40AM -0500, Nils Ketelsen <nils.ketelsen@kuehne-nagel.com> wrote a message of 28 lines which said:
is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability?
The problem is, that most people have no definition when they consider their network available.
RFC 2498 ? At least, it is a start.
Joe Shen wrote:
Hi,
is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability?
Currently we use packet loss rate as indication of network availability, but to my understanding this just means the possiblity of e2e communication degrade but not the network availability.
Cisco's SAA and RTTMON mibs could provide you with some details pertaining to Delay, Jitter, and Packet Loss on Cisco devices. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk869/tk769/technologies_white_paper09186a00... -Gordon
regards
Joe
----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Shen" <joe_hznm@yahoo.com.sg>
Hi,
is there any recommended method to measure overall network availability?
For those who might want to use it for whatever...(buck a week): http://www.dslreports.com/schedule
participants (11)
-
Allan Liska -
Gordon -
Jim Popovitch -
Joe Shen -
Michael Painter -
Nils Ketelsen -
Petri Helenius -
Robert E.Seastrom -
Stephane Bortzmeyer -
Suresh Ramasubramanian -
Vicky Rode