End-to-End PerformanceShare and Explore

Tim Chown

Introduction

»The aim of this ‘birds of a feather’ (BoF) session is to facilitate open discussion on a variety of end-to-end network performance topics› Follows up on the presentation session earlier today› Identify common issues, and discuss potential solutions,

or – perhaps – further work / priorities for Jisc

»NB. If you are tweeting from this BoF, please respect ‘Chatham House’ rules › i.e. relay comments, but not who made them

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Topics

»Topics that have been suggested include:› Use of local site network engineering› Appropriate tools for data transfer› Network performance monitoring› Knowledge sharing on system tuning› Interacting with users, PERTs, …› +....?

»General assumption that the network core is capable› Problems *tend* to be at the ‘ends’

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Local site network engineering

»There has been some suggestion recently that sites should seek to implement a ‘Science DMZ’ approach› A ‘controlled firewall bypass’

– In principle it can be beneficial, but many issues involved

»Use of a site’s ‘resilient’ link for bulk data»Internal use of VLANs/MPLS for traffic segregation»How extensive are such methods already?

› Useful to understand this› (see informal questionnaire…)

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Appropriate tools for data transfer

»We can learn a lot from the tools being used by HPC communities, e.g. GridPP’s File Transfer Service (FTS)› Can/should we create something ‘lightweight’ that can be

distributed to other communities?–Would require some committed effort…

»Perception exists that too often researchers try scp or similar ‘simpler’ tools, get poor results, and give up› Part of issue here is knowing where to turn for help› And expectation management

»What tools are people using?› Is there interest to do better here?

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Network performance monitoring

»When presented with reports of poor performance, it’s desirable to get some level of telemetry on the problem› Ideally as close to the application as possible

»Various possibilities, e.g.:› Full scale perfSONAR› ‘Small node’ perfSONAR (on LIVA X type system)› Roll-your-own iperf, etc› RIPE Atlas probes› …

»What are people using now?03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Knowledge sharing on system tuning

»If we can eliminate as far as possible performance issues within the network elements, then we can focus on end system tuning› Can you get the desired performance locally between two

systems?»A good amount of guidance out there today

› See http://fasterdata.es.net/ in particular› TCP parameter tuning, etc

»Various scales of problem› Depends on the nature of the end system

»Are we involved in helping our own users with such tuning?› If so, how well do we do?03/05/202

3Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Interacting with users, PERTs

»One of the challenges in delivering end-to-end performance is getting the user communities, local campus computing services, and the Janet NOC working together effectively› Are users reporting issues?› Is the local computing service aware of sources of help?

»Some NRENs have an explicit PERT function› eduPERT database:

http://services.geant.net/edupert/Pages/Home.aspx»At the moment, the Janet NOC is implicitly the Janet PERT

› But we are also building expertise through the Janet e2e initiative

»Are we doing as well as we can here?03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Any other topics?

»Anything else to discuss?»Jisc is planning a workshop on local site network

engineering, probably in London in June› Presentations and discussion on current practices, and

how we might do appropriate network engineering to support future data intensive research

› How does the ‘Science DMZ’ approach fit in this picture? »Possible ESnet OIN workshop in Cambridge this summer

› See http://oinworkshop.com/ for nature of content»Thank you for coming

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

jisc.ac.uk

03/05/2023

Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Tim Chown

Tim.chown@jisc.ac.uk