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PerfsonarUI

PerfsonarUI's objectives and audience

PerfsonarUI is designed and implemented as an open source, easy to use and yet powerful stand alone graphical user interface client capable of querying a range of perfSONAR services deployed around the world (currently 18 interface utilization Measurement Archives and one IP Performance Metrics Measurement Archive). The primary target user groups for perfsonarUI include NOC and PERT staff, as well as projects with demanding network performance requirements. End-users with some basic technical background also are supposed to master the tool quite easily.


Main PerfsonarUI features overview

Downloads

The training is also available from http://www.geant2.net/server/show/nav.2094. (From the main GÉANT2 website: Services >> Training >> Self-Paced Online Training >> perfSONAR User Interface Self-Paced Training Course. All releases are available here.


System requirements and installation

PerfsonarUI requires Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4 or newer on the target system and it is platform-independent. It runs under any host operating system, which supports Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition.

PerfsonarUI is distributed with a fully automated offline installer (PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ-setup.exe), compatible with recent versions of the Microsoft Windows (NT, 2000, XP, 2003) operating system, as well as a ZIP archive. Both distributions include the source code of the application. Windows users should prefer the automatic installer, while the ZIP archive is suitable for any other platform.

In order to install the application on Windows platforms just run the installer and follow its instructions. It contains all the required packages, including the Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4 setup. Users of other platforms should unzip the PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ.zip archive and launch the application (see perfsonarUI documentation for more details).

If the installer does not detect Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4 or newer on the target system, it will attempt to install it before proceeding with application's setup. In this case, the user running the installer SHOULD HAVE ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES on the target system (otherwise the Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition setup would be aborted and perfsonarUI would not be installed).

If the installer detects Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4 or newer already installed on the target system, it will proceed directly with application's setup. In this case, ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES ARE RECOMMENDED BUT NOT NECESSARILY REQUIRED.

When the installer is launched by a user with administrative privileges, it will create perfsonarUI start menu shortcuts for all the users registered in the target system. Otherwise, start menu shortcuts will be created only for the unprivileged user, who launched the installation.

After a successful installation, perfsonarUI could be launched from the Start Menu ("Start -> All Programs -> PerfSONAR -> PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ -> PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ").

Each version of perfsonarUI could be uninstalled either by using the "Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs" or by clicking the "Uninstall" link located in "Start -> All Programs -> PerfSONAR -> PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ -> Uninstall-PerfsonarUI-vX.YZ". Any application files which may happen to be locked during the uninstall procedure would be deleted after the next reboot of the system. Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition would not be uninstalled by perfsonarUI's uninstaller. If needed, it could be uninstalled via its own entry in "Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs".


Using PerfsonarUI

The perfsonarUI documentation is under development; meanwhile, we below is a brief outline (scenario) of common perfsonarUI usage:

Step 1. Launch the application

Launch the application either by double-clicking the "perfSonarApp.jar" file, located in the "bin" application subfolder, or by executing the following command: 

java -jar perfSonarApp.jar

You might want to enable debugging output, by invoking the following command line option: 

java -Dperfsonar.debugging=true -jar perfSonarApp.jar

Be aware that switching on debugging output will create a (possibly huge) perfsonar.log file.

Step 2. Select a RRD MA service/endpoint

Select the RRD MA service(s)/endpoint(s) which will be queried by clicking on the "Endpoints" button. The dialog lists the RRD MA service(s)/endpoint(s), defined in the MA.conf file (located in the "bin" application subfolder). Either one or several RRD MA services/endpoints could be selected. You could also get live data for the availability and response time status of the publicly available services at the following address:

The MA.conf file contains the following data for each listed service (1 row per service, CSV):

An up-to-date version of MA.conf is available here:

Step 3. Run a query

Select the time interval for summary through the radio buttons and then either:

Please note that some of the services respond rather slowly to queries. If a large number of RRD MA services/endpoints are selected and subsequently the "Retrieve all" functionality is used, the query could take up to several minutes to complete, regardless of the bandwidth of the users’ network connection. However, a running query could be stopped by simply pressing the same button, which has been used to start the query (the label of this button is changed to "Stop" during query execution). After query interruption, the application keeps/displays the data acquired so far.

While the application is doing some work or waiting for query completion the radar gif is animated. During such periods some of the buttons/links are not accessible.

Step 4. Summary visualization

Observe the load summary for all interfaces in the table, as well as in the bar chart. The bar chart summary represents an average over the previously selected time interval.

Step 5. Select an interface

Select an interface (either from the table or through the bar summary graph) for detailed load visualization. You could also sort the table/bar chart by clicking on the table column titles. The selected interface is highlighted both in the table and in the bar chart.

Step 6. Time interval selection

Select through the slider a time interval for the detailed interface load visualization. By default statistics for the last week are shown.

Step 7. Browse the summary bar chart

Each bar chart "page" consists of up to 30 interfaces. If the dataset contains more than 30 interfaces, the "first", "previous", "next" and "last" links provide means to navigate between pages.

Step 8. View details for different interfaces/time intervals

Repeat steps (05)-(07) for different interfaces/time intervals.

Step 9. Run an update query

Press the "Refresh" button in order to retrieve new data from the same RRD MA service(s)/endpoint(s).

Step 10. Clear the workspace

Press the "Clear" button in order to clean-up the table/charts before launching a different query.

Step 11. Select different RRD MA service(s)/endpoint(s)

Repeat steps (02)-(10) with a different set of RRD MA service(s)/endpoint(s).

Step 12. Select the Hades MA service tab

Run queries for various source/destination pairs, dates, packet sizes, group sizes, intervals, and precedence. The list of available source/destination pairs is configured in the Hades.conf file, located in the "bin" application subfolder. The location/parameters of the Hades MA service are defined in MA.conf, also located in the "bin" application subfolder.

Downloads

An up-to-date version of Hades.conf is available here:

An up-to-date version of MA.conf is available here:

It lists the Hades MA service, deployed by DFN-Erlangen.

By default perfsonarUI retrieves Hades measurements with mid="0" for the current day. Users can select various source/destination pairs, dates, packet sizes, group sizes, intervals, and precedences. If there is no data for the specific combination of parameters, an error message with hints for available similar data for the same source/destination pair and date would be displayed.

PerfsonarUI supports the "NMWG(v2) 2" and the older "perfsonar" XML schema. PerfsonarUI also supports the Hades MA, deployed by DFN-Erlangen. At the time of this writing the following 18 RRD MA services are publicly available and compatible with perfsonarUI:

An up-to-date list of available MA RRD services is compiled at:

Live data for their availability and response time is available at the following address:


Screenshots

Bug reports and feedback

You should send any comments, inquiries, bug reports, feature requests and other suggestions to Nina Jeliazkova <nina@acad.bg>

Feature requests

  1. Provide link to VisualperfSONAR for geographical traceroute;
  2. Enable traceroute ouptut loading from a file;
  3. Provide visualization for Hades traceroute measurements;
  4. Implement the capability to chose between the avg, max and min for the bar chart, provided that the RRD MAs return this data;