Atlas probe - virtual appliance?
Hello, maybe should be interesting providing RIPE Atlas probe as an virtual appliance (VMWare, XEN, VirtualBox etc). Handling will be much easier and deployment cheaper (as no extra hardware will be required to run new probe). Virtual apliance should be still managed by RIPE NCC (like current hardware probes) in terms of upgrades and so on. I think this may be interesting to consider. With regards, Daniel
But virtual appliances are generally pretty bad at network monitoring. Nigel -----Original Message----- From: ripe-atlas-bounces@ripe.net [mailto:ripe-atlas-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Suchy Sent: 18 June 2013 19:07 To: ripe-atlas@ripe.net Subject: [atlas] Atlas probe - virtual appliance? Hello, maybe should be interesting providing RIPE Atlas probe as an virtual appliance (VMWare, XEN, VirtualBox etc). Handling will be much easier and deployment cheaper (as no extra hardware will be required to run new probe). Virtual apliance should be still managed by RIPE NCC (like current hardware probes) in terms of upgrades and so on. I think this may be interesting to consider. With regards, Daniel
Virtual firewalls work great with VMware and cost effective as well, 90% cost saving Colin Sent from my iPhone On 19 Jun 2013, at 10:47, Nigel Titley <nigel.titley@easynet.com> wrote:
But virtual appliances are generally pretty bad at network monitoring.
Nigel -----Original Message----- From: ripe-atlas-bounces@ripe.net [mailto:ripe-atlas-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Suchy Sent: 18 June 2013 19:07 To: ripe-atlas@ripe.net Subject: [atlas] Atlas probe - virtual appliance?
Hello, maybe should be interesting providing RIPE Atlas probe as an virtual appliance (VMWare, XEN, VirtualBox etc). Handling will be much easier and deployment cheaper (as no extra hardware will be required to run new probe).
Virtual apliance should be still managed by RIPE NCC (like current hardware probes) in terms of upgrades and so on.
I think this may be interesting to consider.
With regards, Daniel
-----Original Message----- From: Randy Bush [mailto:randy@psg.com] Sent: 19 June 2013 11:02 To: Colin Johnston Cc: Nigel Titley; ripe-atlas@ripe.net Subject: Re: [atlas] Atlas probe - virtual appliance?
Virtual firewalls work great with VMware and cost effective as well, 90% cost saving
But virtual appliances are generally pretty bad at network monitoring.
nigel meant time-dependent measurements
Yes... Randy is right.. apologies for the sloppy wording
On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
Virtual firewalls work great with VMware and cost effective as well, 90% cost saving
But virtual appliances are generally pretty bad at network monitoring.
nigel meant time-dependent measurements
Allow me to share some interesting links with Daniel Suchy (and the list archive) regarding the virtualization impact on CPU, disk I/O and time accuracy: o Short article published at labs.ripe.net [1] not long ago around the Atlas Anchors. o Talk by Randy himself [2][3] on probe/measurement calibration Regards, [1] https://labs.ripe.net/Members/romeo_zwart/ripe-atlas-anchor-to-ripe-ncc-serv... [2] https://ripe66.ripe.net/presentations/128-130513.tokyo-ping.pdf [3] https://ripe66.ripe.net/archives/video/12/
On 18.06.2013, at 20:07 , Daniel Suchy <danny@danysek.cz> wrote:
Hello, maybe should be interesting providing RIPE Atlas probe as an virtual appliance (VMWare, XEN, VirtualBox etc). Handling will be much easier and deployment cheaper (as no extra hardware will be required to run new probe).
Virtual apliance should be still managed by RIPE NCC (like current hardware probes) in terms of upgrades and so on.
I think this may be interesting to consider.
With regards, Daniel
From https://atlas.ripe.net/about/faq/ : Why did you choose a hardware solution instead of software? With a pure software solution, distribution costs are low and the number of potential hosts is very large. However, there are several significant downsides to a pure software approach: • Host machines may not run continuously over long periods, which affects our ability to gather round-the-clock measurements. • Measurements can be influenced by sharing systems and network resources with other applications on the host computer. • It is often not possible to install software like this in a corporate or computer centre environment. • It is easier to tamper with the results. This is also why we chose not to release a software version in tandem with the hardware solution. Because of these drawbacks, we opted to develop the RIPE Atlas probe as a stand-alone piece of hardware.
On 6/18/13 20:07 , Daniel Suchy wrote:
maybe should be interesting providing RIPE Atlas probe as an virtual appliance (VMWare, XEN, VirtualBox etc). Handling will be much easier and deployment cheaper (as no extra hardware will be required to run new probe).
Virtual apliance should be still managed by RIPE NCC (like current hardware probes) in terms of upgrades and so on.
One thing to keep in mind is that, apart from the obvious issues with getting reliable timings out of a virtual machine, this proposal may have significant development and operational costs. These costs may be high enough to offset the benefits of not having to buy new hardware. Setting up Atlas on a VM may easily be more expensive than a probe. Developing Atlas 'firmware' for common VMs may also cost enough that in the end there aren't any savings.
participants (7)
-
Colin Johnston -
Daniel Karrenberg -
Daniel Suchy -
Iñigo Ortiz de Urbina -
Nigel Titley -
Philip Homburg -
Randy Bush