Transcript Lecture 23

CS 453
Computer Networks
Lecture 23
Network Management and
Performance
Performance Issues
Clearly, users of networks expect them to
perform well…
…and usually notice when they do not…
… and expect the network management to
fix the problems.
Performance Issues
Down routes – network routes fail or
shutdown for a variety of reasons, network
management software must be able to
detect route or link failures, …
…and provide a means to resolve or work
around the problem….
For example, rerouting traffic, until
preferred routes are restored
Performance Issues
Congestion – Networks (particularly WANs)
have multiple routes to provide end-to-end
connectivity
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There are usually one or more preferred routes…
But these preferred routes often aggregate traffic from
multiple sources…
Which can overload links and create congestion
(compounding problem)
Network management systems should be able to—
Recognize congestion
…and shed traffic to other routes, if possible
Performance Issues
Low end processing hardware/software
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High performance networks connected to
old/slow hardware (routers, PCs) can cause
performance problems
Messages arrive faster than the hardware can
process them…
Messages are lost, and retransmitted,…
And this problem can compound if the
overload is not transient
Performance Issues
Synchronous overloads –
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Suppose a bad message is broadcast to a
network of 10,000 machines….
…and each of these machines replies with an
error message…
Result can be massive overload of the
network
Broadcast Storm
UDP protocol changes to inhibit error reports
for broadcast messages
Performance Issues
Synchronous Overloads
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Imagine the simultaneous restart of all
machines/routers in a network…
… like a regional power failure
Every machine on the network will start and
may issue a DHCP Discovery request,
simultaneously…
Routers will update their routes and
configurations,
Network hosted software will reload
And the network will come to it’s knees
Performance Issues
Synchronous Overloads
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This is not far fetched
Happens all of the time on a modest scale
Recently, happened on a global scale…
Due to a MS Windows automatic update
Update required a restart
Something like 6 million computers worldwide
restarted at the same time
Performance Issues
Tuning
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Insufficient buffer space in routers,
source/destination computers
Scheduling algorithm giving too little priority to
processing incoming data, drops messages,
causes retransmits
Timer settings
Too short – messages in-flight reported as lost
Too long – waste time waiting for lost messages
Performance Issues
Inefficient use of resources
For example, high performance network
with low feed
Performance Issues
Jitter
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We want a short mean arrival time
Also want small standard deviation for arrival
time
Large standard deviation in arrival time is
called Jitter
Jitter big problem with new services like
VoIP
Streaming audio
Streaming video
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Can mitigate some
Network Management
More things to see
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http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/snmp.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_performance_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snmp
http://www.cotse.com/tools/netman.htm
TCP/IP
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http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/gg243376.html?Open