Perf SONAR - Objective

Objective

Many tools have been created to perform measurement in IP networks, but these have usually focused on certain metrics. PerfSONAR aims to bring information together in order to provide a complete picture of a network.

The variety of network monitoring is an issue in particular in multi-domain environments. For example; in the collaboration of research backbone networks. PerfSONAR targets to hide the differences among the domains to provide an end-to-end view (or at least an edge-to-edge view).

perfSONAR aims to support the following user groups.

• Members of Network Operation Centers (NOCs) and Performance Enhancement and Response Teams (PERTs)
• Participants in international projects such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, the Enabling Grids for E-scienE (EGEE) project, or the Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA) project
• Administrative network staff
• Network end users

For example, a researcher being connected to a local area network (LAN) in a campus would like to transfer data to another researcher located at a LAN in another country. The connection between these two usually makes use of both LANs, perhaps regional networks, national research backbone networks, and international research networks, so that a lot of administratively independent domains are involved. In case of a problem (e.g. low throughput on the connection) it is difficult for the researchers to investigate where the problem may be located in the network (assuming that it is no application issue). perfSONAR aims to collect information from the involved domains.