colocation in Kansas City

[Tom Ammon]

Does anybody here do business with Tierpoint in Kansas City? Do you
recommend them?

Tom

-- 
-
Tom Ammon
M: (801) 784-2628
thomasam...@gmail.com
-

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Mike Hammett]

Mikrotik RC has a new speed-test tool. I believe it's an improved BTEst. 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Philip Loenneker"  
To: "NANOG"  
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 5:07:04 PM 
Subject: RE: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform 



Connor, 

If you use the Traffic Generator tool instead of the Bandwidth Test tool built 
into MikroTik, you can definitely flood a 1Gbps link. However it requires the 
device to receive the packets that it has sent out, so it’s only viable for 
links with the same up/down speed. 

We have been investigating some TR-069 platforms, and several of those offer 
speed test functionality built in. This means our helpdesk guys can just click 
a few buttons to trigger it, it only talks to the CPE (nothing on customer 
LAN), and people don’t need to know how to configure the test other than “click 
here”. TR-069 also has a lot of other advantages which you can easily discover 
with a quick search. 

Regards, 
Philip Loenneker | Network Engineer | TasmaNet 

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of Colton Conor 
Sent: Friday, 18 January 2019 12:17 AM 
To: James Bensley  
Cc: NANOG  
Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform 



All, thanks for the recommendations both on and off list. 




It has been brought to my attention that a Mikrotik has a bandwidth speed test 
tool built into their operating system. Someone recommended a 
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 for MSRP of $69. The release notes of the 
newest version say: 



!) speedtest - added "/tool speed-test" for ping latency, jitter, loss and TCP 
and UDP download, upload speed measurements (CLI only); 
*) btest - added multithreading support for both UDP and TCP tests; 



Do you think this device can push a full 1Gbps connection? It does have a quad 
core qualcom processor. 



Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to build a 
solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that. 



Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this. I though CAF providers 
have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding? 



On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:59 AM James Bensley < jwbens...@gmail.com > wrote: 


On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor < colton.co...@gmail.com > wrote: 
> 
> As an internet service provider with many small business and residential 
> customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers 
> complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc. 
> 
> We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells us 
> up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course see the 
> link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that speed. 
> 
> We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections 
> besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net , or worse sending a tech 
> out with a laptop to do the same thing. 
> 
> What opensource and commercial options are out there? 

Hi Colton, 

In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the 
customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that 
customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate 
the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes 
back. 

Cheers, 
James. 

RE: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Philip Loenneker]

Connor,

If you use the Traffic Generator tool instead of the Bandwidth Test tool built 
into MikroTik, you can definitely flood a 1Gbps link. However it requires the 
device to receive the packets that it has sent out, so it’s only viable for 
links with the same up/down speed.

We have been investigating some TR-069 platforms, and several of those offer 
speed test functionality built in. This means our helpdesk guys can just click 
a few buttons to trigger it, it only talks to the CPE (nothing on customer 
LAN), and people don’t need to know how to configure the test other than “click 
here”. TR-069 also has a lot of other advantages which you can easily discover 
with a quick search.

Regards,
Philip Loenneker | Network Engineer | TasmaNet

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of Colton Conor
Sent: Friday, 18 January 2019 12:17 AM
To: James Bensley 
Cc: NANOG 
Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

All, thanks for the recommendations both on and off list.

It has been brought to my attention that a Mikrotik has a bandwidth speed test 
tool built into their operating system. Someone recommended a 
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 for MSRP of $69. The release notes of the 
newest version say:

!) speedtest - added "/tool speed-test" for ping latency, jitter, loss and TCP 
and UDP download, upload speed measurements (CLI only);
*) btest - added multithreading support for both UDP and TCP tests;

Do you think this device can push a full 1Gbps connection? It does have a quad 
core qualcom processor.

Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to build a 
solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that.

Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this.  I though CAF providers 
have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding?

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:59 AM James Bensley 
mailto:jwbens...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor 
mailto:colton.co...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> As an internet service provider with many small business and residential 
> customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers 
> complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.
>
> We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells us 
> up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course see the 
> link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that speed.
>
> We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections 
> besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or 
> worse sending a tech out with a laptop to do the same thing.
>
> What opensource and commercial options are out there?

Hi Colton,

In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the
customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that
customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate
the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes
back.

Cheers,
James.

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jan 17, 2019, at 12:40 PM, John Levine  wrote:
> 
> In article <39bfcd05-62cb-46c7-83e6-0cc25d393...@delong.com> you write:
>> If v6 were such a problem as described, I think it wouldn’t be so readily 
>> embraced by facebook, google, Comcast, Netflix, etc. 
> 
> Their priorities are probably not your priorities.  For example, I
> expect they want to be able to distinguish among the devices behind a
> v4 NAT so they can segment and market more precisely.

That’s already relatively easy to do through other mechanisms (cookies anyone).

Having had in depth conversations with the people running those networks, I can 
assure you that a number of their priorities are in line with mine: a stable, 
functional internet that can accommodate existing users and scale for a 
workable future.

That simply isn’t possible in IPv4. It hasn’t been for years. IPv4 continues to 
degrade. Eventually it will reach a point where the problems are so obvious 
that they can no longer be ignored by the laggards that still haven’t 
implemented IPv6.

One of several things will eventually resolve that issue:

1.  The remaining content providers failing to support IPv6 become 
sufficiently insignificant that ISPs turning off
IPv4 will consider the revenue lost by losing customers that 
care to be significantly less than the cost to continue
supporting IPv4 for those customers.

2.  Enough eyeball ISPs will begin charging a premium for IPv4 
services to cover the growing cost of maintaining this
backwards compatibility that it drives a user revolt against 
the sites described in the previous paragraph, thus
accelerating situation 1 above.

3.  A sufficient critical mass of eyeballs are connected to IPv6 
only networks that don’t offer IPv4 backwards compatibility
that the content providers that fail to support them recognize 
significant revenue drop.

I suspect that the most likely scenario will be 2 accelerating 1, but it could 
play out in any of the above ways.

Bottom line is that anyone still supporting IPv4 only is basically running on a 
toxic-polluter business model depending on everyone else to cover the growing 
costs of the mess they are making of the current internet.

Owen

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[Carlos M. Martinez]

It is an interesting question to ponder. It is true that IPv6 tends to 
be somewhat more problematic than IPv4, but these days the incidents 
where IPv6 becomes unavailable or has issues are rare.


BTW I have had recently an issue where I had IPv4 reachability problems 
while IPv6 worked perfectly.


regards,

-Carlos

On 17 Jan 2019, at 16:45, John Von Essen wrote:

I was having a debate with someone on this. Take a critical web site, 
say one where you want 100% global uptime, no potential issues with 
end users having connectivity or routing issues getting to your IP. 
Would it be advantageous to purposely not support a  record in DNS 
and disable IPv6, only exist on IPv4?


My argument against this was "Broken IPv6 Connectivity" doesn't really 
occur anymore, also, almost all browsers and OS IP stacks implement 
Happy Eyeballs algorithm where both v4 and v6 are attempted, so if v6 
dies it will try v4. I would also argue that lack of IPv6 technically 
makes the site unreachable from native IPv6 clients, and in the event 
of an IPv4 outage, connectivity might still remain on IPv6 if the site 
had an IPv6 address (I've experienced scenarios with a bad IPv4 BGP 
session, but the IPv6 session remained up and transiting traffic...)


Thoughts?


-John

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[John Levine]

In article <39bfcd05-62cb-46c7-83e6-0cc25d393...@delong.com> you write:
>If v6 were such a problem as described, I think it wouldn’t be so readily 
>embraced by facebook, google, Comcast, Netflix, etc. 

Their priorities are probably not your priorities.  For example, I
expect they want to be able to distinguish among the devices behind a
v4 NAT so they can segment and market more precisely.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[Ca By]

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 11:46 AM John Von Essen  wrote:

> I was having a debate with someone on this. Take a critical web site,
> say one where you want 100% global uptime, no potential issues with end
> users having connectivity or routing issues getting to your IP. Would it
> be advantageous to purposely not support a  record in DNS and
> disable IPv6, only exist on IPv4?
>

No


> My argument against this was "Broken IPv6 Connectivity" doesn't really
> occur anymore, also, almost all browsers and OS IP stacks implement
> Happy Eyeballs algorithm where both v4 and v6 are attempted, so if v6
> dies it will try v4. I would also argue that lack of IPv6 technically
> makes the site unreachable from native IPv6 clients, and in the event of
> an IPv4 outage, connectivity might still remain on IPv6 if the site had
> an IPv6 address (I've experienced scenarios with a bad IPv4 BGP session,
> but the IPv6 session remained up and transiting traffic...)
>
> Thoughts?
>

Correct, the broken ipv6 thing is super rare and those rare event are
solved with Happy eyeballs.

There are well over 100 million ipv6-only Android and iOS devices in north
america alone.  Failing to deploy ipv6 on the website means they get to
share capacity on a CGN, ip repution issues, and indirection to reach the
CGN.

FB, Google, Netflix, Akamai and other push ipv6 because it is good for
business, the business of running money making content.





>
> -John
>
>
>
>

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[Owen DeLong]

I think you’ve got it basically right. Over time, the number of v6 only clients 
will continue to grow. (It’s infinitessimally small right now) It should, 
however, also be noted that there are a larger and growing number of v6 capable 
clients with increasingly degraded v4 capabilities (v6 only handsets with nat64 
or 464xlat, cgn, etc.) which are also negatively impacted by the decision not 
to support v6 in the scenario described. 

If v6 were such a problem as described, I think it wouldn’t be so readily 
embraced by facebook, google, Comcast, Netflix, etc. 

Owen


> On Jan 17, 2019, at 11:45, John Von Essen  wrote:
> 
> I was having a debate with someone on this. Take a critical web site, say one 
> where you want 100% global uptime, no potential issues with end users having 
> connectivity or routing issues getting to your IP. Would it be advantageous 
> to purposely not support a  record in DNS and disable IPv6, only exist on 
> IPv4?
> 
> My argument against this was "Broken IPv6 Connectivity" doesn't really occur 
> anymore, also, almost all browsers and OS IP stacks implement Happy Eyeballs 
> algorithm where both v4 and v6 are attempted, so if v6 dies it will try v4. I 
> would also argue that lack of IPv6 technically makes the site unreachable 
> from native IPv6 clients, and in the event of an IPv4 outage, connectivity 
> might still remain on IPv6 if the site had an IPv6 address (I've experienced 
> scenarios with a bad IPv4 BGP session, but the IPv6 session remained up and 
> transiting traffic...)
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 
> -John
> 
> 

Re: No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[Blake Hudson]

Broken IPv6 connectivity happens all the time, sometimes for weeks, 
before some folks seem to notice. I could understand why one could take 
the stance that IPv4 only is less problematic (and therefore more 
available) than dual stack. Overall, it might depend on your application 
and the happy eyeballs tech built (or not built) into it.


John Von Essen wrote on 1/17/2019 1:45 PM:
I was having a debate with someone on this. Take a critical web site, 
say one where you want 100% global uptime, no potential issues with 
end users having connectivity or routing issues getting to your IP. 
Would it be advantageous to purposely not support a  record in DNS 
and disable IPv6, only exist on IPv4?


My argument against this was "Broken IPv6 Connectivity" doesn't really 
occur anymore, also, almost all browsers and OS IP stacks implement 
Happy Eyeballs algorithm where both v4 and v6 are attempted, so if v6 
dies it will try v4. I would also argue that lack of IPv6 technically 
makes the site unreachable from native IPv6 clients, and in the event 
of an IPv4 outage, connectivity might still remain on IPv6 if the site 
had an IPv6 address (I've experienced scenarios with a bad IPv4 BGP 
session, but the IPv6 session remained up and transiting traffic...)


Thoughts?


-John

No IPv6 by design to increase reliability...

[John Von Essen]

I was having a debate with someone on this. Take a critical web site, 
say one where you want 100% global uptime, no potential issues with end 
users having connectivity or routing issues getting to your IP. Would it 
be advantageous to purposely not support a  record in DNS and 
disable IPv6, only exist on IPv4?


My argument against this was "Broken IPv6 Connectivity" doesn't really 
occur anymore, also, almost all browsers and OS IP stacks implement 
Happy Eyeballs algorithm where both v4 and v6 are attempted, so if v6 
dies it will try v4. I would also argue that lack of IPv6 technically 
makes the site unreachable from native IPv6 clients, and in the event of 
an IPv4 outage, connectivity might still remain on IPv6 if the site had 
an IPv6 address (I've experienced scenarios with a bad IPv4 BGP session, 
but the IPv6 session remained up and transiting traffic...)


Thoughts?


-John

RE: Announcing Peering-LAN prefixes to customers

[adamv0025]

> Job Snijders
> Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2018 5:55 PM
> We don't see a need for NTT to attempt to make such peering lan networks
> reachable for third parties. Such reachability may negatively impact
> operations, especially when more-specifics of Peering LAN prefixes are
> distributed through the default-free zone.
> 
> As a consequence, for IXPs this policy suggests that it is a necessity to host
> their own infrastructure (IXP website, mail server, etc) outside the peering
> lan prefix.
> 
Reading this thread makes me wonder if the reasoning mentioned thus far should 
in fact be extrapolated to any Providers' infrastructure prefixes (essentially 
the plumbing prefixes).
Wondering what is the community's stance on this.

adam

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Blake Hudson]

Zach Puls wrote on 1/16/2019 1:53 PM:


Maybe try setting up an Ookla on-site speedtest server? I believe the 
product is called Speedtest Custom. Setup is pretty simple, and is 
relatively inexpensive.


That gives you the ease-of-use of speedtest.net, with the accuracy 
similar to having a local iperf server.


*Zach Puls*

/Network Engineer /

/MEF-CECP/

Title: KsFiberNet - Description: Macintosh 
HD:Users:chunt:Documents:Logos_Brand 
Guide_KFN:WEB_logos:KFN_logo-WEB.png **


Direct: +1 (316) 221-2094

Email: zp...@ksfiber.net 

*Technical Support:  855-KFN-HELP (536-4357) *

/This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended only for the 
person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain 
confidential, proprietary and/or privileged material. Any review, 
retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information, 
directly or indirectly, by persons or entities other than the intended 
recipient is prohibited and may subject you to legal liability. If you 
received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the 
material from all computers in which it resides. This email, including 
any attachments, is not intended to constitute the formation of a 
contract binding KsFiberNet. KsFiberNet will be contractually bound 
only upon execution, by an authorized representative, of a definitive 
agreement containing agreed upon terms and conditions./





Last time I checked, the Ookla Speedtest Custom software license 
required for a local server installation (e.g. not using the public 
speedtest servers) started at ~$2k/year. That does not include the 
speedtest server hardware which may run you another $2k or more if you 
want to meet the minimum recommended specs for a gigabit speedtest. 
Perhaps an initial investment of $4k and a reoccurring $2k/year is 
inexpensive for some, but I can imagine some folks will struggle to find 
the value at that price point.


--Blake

Re: Stupid Question maybe?

[Christian Meutes]

Hi Aseem,

On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 6:42 PM Aseem Choudhary  wrote:

> Hi Christian,
>
> Discontinuous mask for IPv6 was supported in IOS-XR in release 5.2.2.
>
> You can refer below link for details:
>
> https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/asr9000/software/ip-addresses/command/reference/b-ip-addresses-cr-asr9000/b-ipaddr-cr-asr9k_chapter_01.html#wp4831598620
>
> I'am running 5.2.2. and it does definitely not work, only continues bits
do work (typhoon-based LCs / 9001).

cheers

-- 
Christian

e-mail/xmpp: christ...@errxtx.net
PGP Fingerprint: B458 E4D6 7173 A8C4 9C75315B 709C 295B FA53 2318

Coloblox Atlanta down?

[Raleigh Apple]

Is anyone else experiencing issues connecting to equipment hosted at
Coloblox in Atlanta?

-- 
Raleigh Apple
JP Technologies
office: 770/831-1036x105

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack
of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of
gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” --Robert Heinlein

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[rapier]

Hello all,

A colleague of mine pointed out this conversation to me. I'm not sure 
this is going to be the best solution to your problem but it may be 
helpful in some instances or for other people.


At PSC we also have to deal with customers complaining of speed issues. 
Generally speaking this is all on the customer end but diagnosing these 
issues remotely, especially when people have limited access or skills, 
is huge time sink. It's compounded by the fact that many times we're 
trying to work over a number of different operating systems 
configurations and so forth.


In order to cut down on that we created a service called TestRig2.0. In 
short, it dynamically generates an bootable ISO that automatically runs 
the host system through a number of network performance tests, packages 
the results, and send them back the network engineers via scp. The tests 
are run against the perfSonar infrastructure*. The reason why we use a 
bootable ISO is because we want to make sure that the tests are being 
conducted under a known good OS environment.


Additionally, we can also limit the number of tests the users can run - 
either by restricting them to specific time frame (say 7 days) or a 
total number of runs. After that the ISO will no longer conduct the tests.


If anyone is interested please take a look at https://testrig.psc.edu/ 
for more information. If you are interested in using the service let me 
know. Setting up an account is pretty easy but I'd like to work with 
people in the initial process.


Thanks,

Chris Rapier

* Not all commodity users will have access to all of the perfSonar nodes 
so this is a part where some extra work might be required on the part of 
the engineer.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[R. Scott Evans]

In the US this type of testing may be an actual requirement for some 
ISP's if they get funding from the government.


https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-18-710A1.pdf

We provide basic CPE routers to our DSL & FTTH customers and are trying to get 
a custom firmware from the device manufacturer (Comtrend) to do these measurements. 
 We're not there yet (the manufacturer has been working with us on it but it's not 
very accurate yet) but the goal is to have a TR-143 client on the routers 
themselves that then talks to our test server (although per the FCC rule, we'll 
eventually have to place the test server at an FCC approved IX).

Alternatively, at a trade show I saw a product called a BETTI Box by VantagePoint 
that is a very small whitebox (maybe a 1" cube w/ eth port) to do this.  I only 
saw the device on a table so have no idea how effective or how much the device is.

On 1/16/19 11:52 AM, Colton Conor wrote:
As an internet service provider with many small business and 
residential customers, our most common tech support calls are speed 
related. Customers complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.


We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly 
tells us up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can 
of course see the link speed, but customer call in saying the are not 
getting that speed.


We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet 
connections besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net 
, or worse sending a tech out with a laptop to 
do the same thing.


What opensource and commercial options are out there?

RE: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Zach Puls]

Maybe try setting up an Ookla on-site speedtest server? I believe the product 
is called Speedtest Custom. Setup is pretty simple, and is relatively 
inexpensive.

That gives you the ease-of-use of speedtest.net, with the accuracy similar to 
having a local iperf server.

Zach Puls
Network Engineer
MEF-CECP
[Title: KsFiberNet - Description: Macintosh 
HD:Users:chunt:Documents:Logos_Brand 
Guide_KFN:WEB_logos:KFN_logo-WEB.png]
Direct: +1 (316) 221-2094
Email:  zp...@ksfiber.net
Technical Support:  855-KFN-HELP (536-4357)
This e-mail, including any attachments, is intended only for the person or 
entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, proprietary 
and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other 
use of this information, directly or indirectly, by persons or entities other 
than the intended recipient is prohibited and may subject you to legal 
liability. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete 
the material from all computers in which it resides. This email, including any 
attachments, is not intended to constitute the formation of a contract binding 
KsFiberNet. KsFiberNet will be contractually bound only upon execution, by an 
authorized representative, of a definitive agreement containing agreed upon 
terms and conditions.

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of Casey Russell
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 13:46
To: Chris Kimball 
Cc: NANOG 
Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

I don't think a raspberry pi will reliably fill a full Gig and keep it full 
(maybe that's not required in this scenario), but I've installed a Linux based 
OS with the PerfSONAR tools (including iperf) on a couple of different mini PCs 
in the "few hundred dollars" price range.

The last one was the Liva X from ECS.  It was more than capable of filling 1G 
circuits with traffic and keeping them full without loss or wonky results due 
to things like CPU overrun or other processes causing bus contention.  I'm 
pretty sure the Liva X is retired now, but their current gen should suffice as 
should a number of comparable competitors.

Sincerely,
Casey Russell
Network Engineer
[KanREN]
[phone]785-856-9809
2029 Becker Drive, Suite 282
Lawrence, Kansas 66047
[linkedin][twitter][twitter]need
 support?



On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 1:27 PM Chris Kimball 
mailto:ckimb...@misalliance.com>> wrote:
Would a raspberry pi work for this?

Could 3D print a nice case with your logo for it.

From: NANOG mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org>> On Behalf 
Of Colton Conor
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 2:16 PM
To: David Guo mailto:da...@xtom.com>>
Cc: NANOG mailto:nanog@nanog.org>>
Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

Last time I setup Iperf3 it was semi difficult, and would be impossible trying 
to coach a soccer mom on how to setup over the phone.

I am leaning towards a CPE that has speed test built in, or a low cost, sub 
$100 device we could ship to the customer to install. Anyone know of something 
like that?

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 10:55 AM David Guo 
mailto:da...@xtom.com>> wrote:
We ask our customers use iperf3 to test speed.

Get Outlook for iOS


From: NANOG mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org>> on behalf 
of Colton Conor mailto:colton.co...@gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 00:54
To: NANOG
Subject: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

As an internet service provider with many small business and residential 
customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers 
complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.

We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells us 
up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course see the 
link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that speed.

We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections 
besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or 
worse sending a tech out with a laptop to do the same thing.

What opensource and commercial options are out there?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
- - -

The information contained in this electronic message may be confidential, and 
the message is for the use of intended recipients only. If you are not the 
intended recipient, do not disseminate, copy, or disclose this communication or 
its contents. If you have received this communication in error, please 
immediately notify me by replying to the email or call MIS Alliance at 
617-500-1700 and permanently delete this communication.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Chris Boyd]

> On Jan 17, 2019, at 7:17 AM, Colton Conor  wrote:
> 
> Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to build a 
> solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that. 
> 
> Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this.  I though CAF 
> providers have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding? 

Bias note—I know the founders.  The product is voice focused, but it does 
include the capability to run a speed test, and has all the cloud based 
reporting features that you’d expect today.

https://www.replycloud.io

—Chris

RE: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Aaron Gould]

https://github.com/adolfintel/speedtest - one drawback we’ve seen is upload 
test has issues on some iphones (maybe other mobile devices) in safari, but I 
think chrome might work, unsure

 

https://account.speedtestcustom.com/login - ookla customer speedtest – we have 
this running *internally* in our network on VM and also bare-metal, this is 
where our customers test locally

 

Iperf  - us engineers used it

wifiperf – us engineers used it

 

-Aaron

 

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Livingood, Jason]

We ran into an issue with RPi and Banana Pi hitting multi-hundred meg and 1 - 2 
gig speeds reliably, and ended up using ODROID - https://www.hardkernel.com/. 

Also, Ookla (speedtest.net) have a software client that can be embedded in CPE 
gateway devices as does SamKnows. 

JL

On 1/16/19, 3:49 PM, "NANOG on behalf of valdis.kletni...@vt.edu" 
 wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:26:41 +, Chris Kimball said:
> Would a raspberry pi work for this?
>
> Could 3D print a nice case with your logo for it.

The Pi has a bandwidth limit at 300mbits/sec due to a USB port being used.

I wonder if something like the RIPE Atlas probes could be flashed with 
suitable
code.  They're smaller than a Pi, and easy to set up - connect a USB power 
cord
and an RJ45 on some cat-5 and away you go.  Mine showed up with the two 
cords
needed and everything.


https://www-static.ripe.net/static/rnd-ui/atlas/static/docs/probe-images/v1.jpg

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Aled Morris via NANOG]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 20:49,  wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:26:41 +, Chris Kimball said:
> > Would a raspberry pi work for this?
> >
> > Could 3D print a nice case with your logo for it.
>
> The Pi has a bandwidth limit at 300mbits/sec due to a USB port being used.
>

I've been using Hardkernel Odroid  C2 for this reason.  It looks a bit like
a Pi but its Gigabit Ethernet can achieve near line rate, 930+ Mbps on
iperf, see below for two Odroids connected across a gigabit ethernet switch.

Aled


# iperf3 -c 172.16.0.139
Connecting to host 172.16.0.139, port 5201
[  4] local 172.16.0.142 port 49203 connected to 172.16.0.139 port 5201
[ ID] Interval   Transfer Bandwidth   Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec   110 MBytes   921 Mbits/sec   45788 KBytes

[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   937 Mbits/sec0878 KBytes

[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec   112 MBytes   939 Mbits/sec   45672 KBytes

[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec0717 KBytes

[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec0748 KBytes

[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec   112 MBytes   939 Mbits/sec0765 KBytes

[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec   112 MBytes   939 Mbits/sec0773 KBytes

[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec   112 MBytes   939 Mbits/sec0775 KBytes

[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec0778 KBytes

[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec0779 KBytes

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval   Transfer Bandwidth   Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   937 Mbits/sec   90 sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   933 Mbits/sec
 receiver

iperf Done.

RE: ASNs decimation in ZW this morning

[Keith Medcalf]

However, like the Internet Off switch installed in the Pentagon after 911 
(which shutdown the DNS Severs), you may find that you have to reboot the 
Internet so you can upload your Save the World video to Twitter ...

---
The fact that there's a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven says a 
lot about anticipated traffic volume.


>-Original Message-
>From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Mark Tinka
>Sent: Thursday, 17 January, 2019 02:47
>To: Colin Johnston
>Cc: nanog@nanog.org
>Subject: Re: ASNs decimation in ZW this morning
>
>
>
>On 17/Jan/19 11:29, Colin Johnston wrote:
>
>> Would a service be viewed as the same as (layer2 connectivity to a
>out of country layer3/layer4 endpoint).
>> ie ip source out of country but connectivity layer in country ?
>> satcomms in effect but terrestrial based pvc with leaf router out
>of country.
>
>Logically, Layer 2 services would not apply. But this is because
>gubbermints are clueless about the differences between the various
>layers.
>
>Mark.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Alain Hebert]

    Yeah,

    There is not enough capacity, interrupt wise, to achieve it.

    OpenSpeedTest works for us.

-
Alain Hebertaheb...@pubnix.net
PubNIX Inc.
50 boul. St-Charles
P.O. Box 26770 Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 6G7
Tel: 514-990-5911  http://www.pubnix.netFax: 514-990-9443

On 1/16/19 2:45 PM, Casey Russell wrote:
I don't think a raspberry pi will reliably fill a full Gig and keep it 
full (maybe that's not required in this scenario), but I've installed 
a Linux based OS with the PerfSONAR tools (including iperf) on a 
couple of different mini PCs in the "few hundred dollars" price range.


The last one was the Liva X from ECS.  It was more than capable of 
filling 1G circuits with traffic and keeping them full without loss or 
wonky results due to things like CPU overrun or other processes 
causing bus contention.  I'm pretty sure the Liva X is retired now, 
but their current gen should suffice as should a number of comparable 
competitors.


Sincerely,
Casey Russell
Network Engineer
KanREN 
phone785-856-9809
2029 Becker Drive, Suite 282
Lawrence, Kansas 66047
linkedin 
 
twitter  twitter 
 need support? 




On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 1:27 PM Chris Kimball 
mailto:ckimb...@misalliance.com>> wrote:


Would a raspberry pi work for this?

Could 3D print a nice case with your logo for it.

*From:* NANOG mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org>> *On Behalf Of *Colton Conor
*Sent:* Wednesday, January 16, 2019 2:16 PM
*To:* David Guo mailto:da...@xtom.com>>
*Cc:* NANOG mailto:nanog@nanog.org>>
*Subject:* Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

Last time I setup Iperf3 it was semi difficult, and would be
impossible trying to coach a soccer mom on how to setup over the
phone.

I am leaning towards a CPE that has speed test built in, or a low
cost, sub $100 device we could ship to the customer to install.
Anyone know of something like that?

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 10:55 AM David Guo mailto:da...@xtom.com>> wrote:

We ask our customers use iperf3 to test speed.

Get Outlook for iOS 



*From:*NANOG mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org>> on behalf of Colton Conor
mailto:colton.co...@gmail.com>>
*Sent:* Thursday, January 17, 2019 00:54
*To:* NANOG
*Subject:* Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

As an internet service provider with many small business and
residential customers, our most common tech support calls are
speed related. Customers complaining on slow speeds,
slowdowns, etc.

We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that
mainly tells us up-time and if data is flowing across the
interface. We can of course see the link speed, but customer
call in saying the are not getting that speed.

We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet
connections besides telling the customer to go to
speedtest.net , or worse sending a tech
out with a laptop to do the same thing.

What opensource and commercial options are out there?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -

The information contained in this electronic message may be
confidential, and the message is for the use of intended
recipients only. If you are not the intended recipient, do not
disseminate, copy, or disclose this communication or its contents.
If you have received this communication in error, please
immediately notify me by replying to the email or call MIS
Alliance at 617-500-1700 and permanently delete this communication.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Eric Dugas]

There's a Montreal startup called Obkio who are doing network probes (VM
and hardware). I've tested the product in its early phase (i.e. it was
lacking features that are now implemented or are going to be implemented
soon).

They recently launched the speed test feature:
https://medium.com/obkio/app-new-release-v1-6-0-public-agents-support-chat-and-speed-tests-c84651f7008a
and launched a beefier probe called X5001 which can supposedly do 940Mbps:
https://medium.com/obkio/new-hardware-agent-x5001-the-10x-agent-b278e435c458

I think it's worth a look.

Disclaimer: the CEO is an acquaintance of mine

Eric

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 9:04 AM tgrand via NANOG  wrote:

> Just download the btest.exe
> It run on windows PC.
> Most routerboards not fast enough for TCP test as TCP packet assembly is
> intensive.
>
>
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
>
>  Original message 
> From: Colton Conor 
> Date: 2019-01-17 7:17 AM (GMT-06:00)
> To: James Bensley 
> Cc: NANOG 
> Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform
>
> All, thanks for the recommendations both on and off list.
>
> It has been brought to my attention that a Mikrotik has a bandwidth speed
> test tool built into their operating system. Someone recommended a
> https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 for MSRP of $69. The release notes
> of the newest version say:
>
> !) speedtest - added "/tool speed-test" for ping latency, jitter, loss and
> TCP and UDP download, upload speed measurements (CLI only);
> *) btest - added multithreading support for both UDP and TCP tests;
>
> Do you think this device can push a full 1Gbps connection? It does have a
> quad core qualcom processor.
>
> Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to
> build a solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that.
>
> Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this.  I though CAF
> providers have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding?
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:59 AM James Bensley  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > As an internet service provider with many small business and
>> residential customers, our most common tech support calls are speed
>> related. Customers complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.
>> >
>> > We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly
>> tells us up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of
>> course see the link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting
>> that speed.
>> >
>> > We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet
>> connections besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or
>> worse sending a tech out with a laptop to do the same thing.
>> >
>> > What opensource and commercial options are out there?
>>
>> Hi Colton,
>>
>> In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the
>> customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that
>> customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate
>> the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes
>> back.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> James.
>>
>

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[tgrand via NANOG]

Just download the btest.exeIt run on windows PC.Most routerboards not fast 
enough for TCP test as TCP packet assembly is intensive.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
 Original message From: Colton Conor  
Date: 2019-01-17  7:17 AM  (GMT-06:00) To: James Bensley  
Cc: NANOG  Subject: Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring 
Platform 
All, thanks for the recommendations both on and off list.

It has been brought to my attention that a Mikrotik has a bandwidth speed test 
tool built into their operating system. Someone recommended a 
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 for MSRP of $69. The release notes of the 
newest version say:
!) speedtest - added "/tool speed-test" for ping latency, jitter, loss and TCP 
and UDP download, upload speed measurements (CLI only);
*) btest - added multithreading support for both UDP and TCP tests; 
Do you think this device can push a full 1Gbps connection? It does have a quad 
core qualcom processor. 
Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to build a 
solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that. 
Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this.  I though CAF providers 
have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding? 

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:59 AM James Bensley  wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor  wrote:

>

> As an internet service provider with many small business and residential 
> customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers 
> complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.

>

> We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells us 
> up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course see the 
> link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that speed.

>

> We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections 
> besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or worse sending a tech 
> out with a laptop to do the same thing.

>

> What opensource and commercial options are out there?



Hi Colton,



In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the

customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that

customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate

the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes

back.



Cheers,

James.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[Colton Conor]

All, thanks for the recommendations both on and off list.

It has been brought to my attention that a Mikrotik has a bandwidth speed
test tool built into their operating system. Someone recommended a
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac2 for MSRP of $69. The release notes of
the newest version say:

!) speedtest - added "/tool speed-test" for ping latency, jitter, loss and
TCP and UDP download, upload speed measurements (CLI only);
*) btest - added multithreading support for both UDP and TCP tests;

Do you think this device can push a full 1Gbps connection? It does have a
quad core qualcom processor.

Besides mikrotik, I haven't found anything that doesn't require me to build
a solution. Like OpenWRT with ipef3, or something like that.

Seems like a commercial solution would exist for this.  I though CAF
providers have to test bandwidth for the FCC randomly to get funding?

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:59 AM James Bensley  wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor  wrote:
> >
> > As an internet service provider with many small business and residential
> customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers
> complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.
> >
> > We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells
> us up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course
> see the link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that
> speed.
> >
> > We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections
> besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or worse sending a
> tech out with a laptop to do the same thing.
> >
> > What opensource and commercial options are out there?
>
> Hi Colton,
>
> In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the
> customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that
> customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate
> the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes
> back.
>
> Cheers,
> James.
>

Call for Nominees NANOG Program Committee

[L Sean Kennedy]

Dear NANOG Community,

Nominations  are
now open for the NANOG Program Committee
!

The volunteers on the committee are responsible to develop and select
content to program each of the three yearly NANOG conferences and other
events. The Program Committee is a highly skilled, dedicated and diverse
team of people who strive to improve the NANOG organization and make our
industry, as a whole, better.  Specific committee member responsibilities
are listed here
 and
appointments are to 2 year terms, except when appointed to complete a
retiring members term.

Committee nominations will close at 9:00 PM ET on Tuesday, February 19,
2019. The NANOG Board of Directors will make appointments on February 20,
2019. Emails detailing the selection results will be sent to candidates
shortly thereafter, and a full announcement will be sent to the
nanog-announce distribution list during the following week.

Volunteer participation by members on NANOG committees is part of the
essential fabric of the NANOG organization.  PC members have developed new
NANOG programs such as the Hackathon, proposed changes such as providing a
meeting maker tool and having a forum to discuss the experiences of women
in our industry, and meeting after meeting develop unique programs
showcasing the state of Network Operations.

Please consider running for the Program Committee if you are passionate
about NANOG and can commit to participating!  If you know someone that you
believe would be interested, please nominate them. The nomination form
 accepts either self
or 3rd party nominations.  Myself and the other board members are available
to discuss this opportunity, so do not hesitate to reach out to us if you
are interested and want to learn more.



As always, our dedicated professional staff stands ready to answer your
questions at operati...@nanog.org.

Finally, I’d like to extend my best wishes to each of you for a happy and
healthy 2019. I look forward to seeing you on February 18 in San Francisco
for NANOG 75

.

Thanks,

L Sean Kennedy

(for the NANOG Board of Directors)

Re: Your opinion on network analysis in the presence of uncertain events

[James Bensley]

On Tue, 15 Jan 2019 at 19:01, Vanbever Laurent  wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG,
>
> Networks evolve in uncertain environments. Links and devices randomly fail; 
> external BGP announcements unpredictably appear/disappear leading to 
> unforeseen traffic shifts; traffic demands vary, etc. Reasoning about network 
> behaviors under such uncertainties is hard and yet essential to ensure 
> Service Level Agreements.
>
> We're reaching out to the NANOG community as we (researchers) are trying to 
> better understand the practical requirements behind "probabilistic" network 
> reasoning. Some of our questions include: Are uncertain behaviors 
> problematic? Do you care about such things at all? Are you already using 
> tools to ensure the compliance of your network design under uncertainty? Are 
> there any good?
>
> We designed a short anonymous survey to collect operators answers. It is 
> composed of 14 optional questions, most of which (13/14) are closed-ended. It 
> should take less than 10 minutes to complete. We expect the findings to help 
> the research community in designing more powerful network analysis tools. 
> Among others, we intend to present the aggregate results in a scientific 
> article later this year.
>
> It would be *terrific* if you could help us out!
>
> Survey URL: https://goo.gl/forms/HdYNp3DkKkeEcexs2
>
> Thanks much!
>
> Laurent Vanbever, ETH Zürich
>
>
> PS: It goes without saying that we would also be extremely grateful if you 
> could forward this email to any operator you know and who may not read NANOG.

Hi Laurent,

I have filled out the survey however, I would just like to request
that in the future you don't use a URL shortner like goo.gl; many
people don't like those because we can't see were you're sending us
until we click that link. Some people also block them because they are
a security issue (our corporate proxy does, I have to drop off the VPN
or use a URL expander to retrieve the original URL).

Also have you seen Batfish? I looks like you guys want to write a tool
that has some overlap with Batfish. Batfish can ingest the configs
from my network and answer questions such as "can host A can reach
host B?" or "will prefix advertisement P from host A will be
filtered/accepted by host B?", "if I ping from this source IP who has
a return route and can respond?" etc.

Kind regards,
James.

Re: ASNs decimation in ZW this morning

[Mark Tinka]

On 17/Jan/19 11:29, Colin Johnston wrote:

> Would a service be viewed as the same as (layer2 connectivity to a out of 
> country layer3/layer4 endpoint).
> ie ip source out of country but connectivity layer in country ?
> satcomms in effect but terrestrial based pvc with leaf router out of country.

Logically, Layer 2 services would not apply. But this is because
gubbermints are clueless about the differences between the various layers.

Mark.

Re: ASNs decimation in ZW this morning

[Colin Johnston]

> On 17 Jan 2019, at 09:07, Mark Tinka  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 16/Jan/19 19:49, John Von Essen wrote:
> 
>> Im confused as to what exactly happened and how it was implemented. I
>> assume the government wanted to restrict access to sites like
>> whatsapp, facebook, twitter, etc.,. So did they tell national
>> ISPs/Mobile (strong-arm) to simply block access to those sites, or
>> they did they tell them to completely shutdown and go dark until the
>> protests were over. Im just curious as to how an ISP/Mobile would
>> selectively block access under government influence, reason being...
>> understanding how can help us think of ways to get around it.
>> 
>> For example, lets say the mobile networks null routed all traffic
>> destined to twitter and facebook networks... not a complete IP
>> shutdown. So a local citizen is using email from a local provider
>> (non-gmail, etc.,.) and still has access to email, Twitter knows they
>> are blocked in ZW, but they still try to email updates to this example
>> citizen. If their networks are being null routed, they can simply
>> deliver the email via an alternate network/platform.
>> 
>> The whole thing is very disturbing, I mean this is 2019 right? Not
>> 1984...
> 
> It's not unusual for networks to be shutdown, particularly during riots
> and/or elections. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying
> it's not unusual.
> 
> This happened during the recent elections in Uganda and Kenya, for example.
> 
> Typically, the operating licenses issued by the gubbermints to operators
> provide for legal avenues by the gubbermint to shutdown services. It is
> not the gubbermint's responsibility as to how this is implemented by the
> operators, just that it be done.
> 
Would a service be viewed as the same as (layer2 connectivity to a out of 
country layer3/layer4 endpoint).
ie ip source out of country but connectivity layer in country ?
satcomms in effect but terrestrial based pvc with leaf router out of country.

Colin


> In recent years, social media resources have been targets, so Facebook,
> WhatsApp, Twitter et al. However, if the gubbermint takes a broader
> approach, it's up to the operator to figure out how to do it. Failure to
> comply can result in arrests, fines, jail or even revocation of the license.
> 
> All mobile operators have terribly advanced DPI infrastructure, so it's
> not difficult to shut services down at a very granular level.
> 
> Operators that deliver services via terrestrial means also employ DPI
> infrastructure, because selling bandwidth access by the Gig-loads is big
> business :-\. So they, too, can implement shutdowns with a reasonable
> degree of granularity.
> 
> Mark.
> 

Re: ASNs decimation in ZW this morning

[Mark Tinka]

On 16/Jan/19 19:49, John Von Essen wrote:

> Im confused as to what exactly happened and how it was implemented. I
> assume the government wanted to restrict access to sites like
> whatsapp, facebook, twitter, etc.,. So did they tell national
> ISPs/Mobile (strong-arm) to simply block access to those sites, or
> they did they tell them to completely shutdown and go dark until the
> protests were over. Im just curious as to how an ISP/Mobile would
> selectively block access under government influence, reason being...
> understanding how can help us think of ways to get around it.
>
> For example, lets say the mobile networks null routed all traffic
> destined to twitter and facebook networks... not a complete IP
> shutdown. So a local citizen is using email from a local provider
> (non-gmail, etc.,.) and still has access to email, Twitter knows they
> are blocked in ZW, but they still try to email updates to this example
> citizen. If their networks are being null routed, they can simply
> deliver the email via an alternate network/platform.
>
> The whole thing is very disturbing, I mean this is 2019 right? Not
> 1984...

It's not unusual for networks to be shutdown, particularly during riots
and/or elections. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying
it's not unusual.

This happened during the recent elections in Uganda and Kenya, for example.

Typically, the operating licenses issued by the gubbermints to operators
provide for legal avenues by the gubbermint to shutdown services. It is
not the gubbermint's responsibility as to how this is implemented by the
operators, just that it be done.

In recent years, social media resources have been targets, so Facebook,
WhatsApp, Twitter et al. However, if the gubbermint takes a broader
approach, it's up to the operator to figure out how to do it. Failure to
comply can result in arrests, fines, jail or even revocation of the license.

All mobile operators have terribly advanced DPI infrastructure, so it's
not difficult to shut services down at a very granular level.

Operators that deliver services via terrestrial means also employ DPI
infrastructure, because selling bandwidth access by the Gig-loads is big
business :-\. So they, too, can implement shutdowns with a reasonable
degree of granularity.

Mark.

Re: Network Speed Testing and Monitoring Platform

[James Bensley]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 16:54, Colton Conor  wrote:
>
> As an internet service provider with many small business and residential 
> customers, our most common tech support calls are speed related. Customers 
> complaining on slow speeds, slowdowns, etc.
>
> We have a SNMP and ping monitoring platform today, but that mainly tells us 
> up-time and if data is flowing across the interface. We can of course see the 
> link speed, but customer call in saying the are not getting that speed.
>
> We are looking for a way to remotely test customers internet connections 
> besides telling the customer to go to speedtest.net, or worse sending a tech 
> out with a laptop to do the same thing.
>
> What opensource and commercial options are out there?

Hi Colton,

In the past I have used CPEs which support remote loopback. When the
customer complains we enable remote loopback, send the traffic to that
customers connection (rather than requiring a CPE that can generate
the traffic or having an on site device) and measuring what comes
back.

Cheers,
James.

Re: Your opinion on network analysis in the presence of uncertain events

[Vanbever Laurent]

Hi Adam/Mel,

Thanks for chiming in!

My understanding was that the tool will combine historic data with the MTBF 
datapoints form all components involved in a given link in order to try and 
estimate a likelihood of a link failure.

Yep. This could be one way indeed. This likelihood could also be taking the 
form of intervals in which you expect the true value to lies (again, based on 
historical data). This could be done both for link/devices failures but also 
for external inputs such as BGP announcements (to consider the likelihood that 
you receive a route for X in, say, NEWY). The tool would then to run the 
deterministic routing protocols (not accounting for ‘features’ such as 
prefer-oldest-route for a sec.) on these probabilistic inputs so as to infer 
the different possible forwarding outcomes and their relative probabilities. 
For now we had something like this in mind.

One can of course make the model more and more complex by e.g. also taking into 
account data plane status (to model gray failures). Intuitively though, the 
more complex the model, the more complex the inference process is.

Heck I imagine if one would stream a heap load of data at a ML algorithm it 
might draw some very interesting conclusions indeed -i.e. draw unforeseen 
patterns across huge datasets while trying to understand the overall system 
(network) behaviour. Such a tool might teach us something new about our 
networks.
Next level would be recommendations on how to best address some of the 
potential pitfalls it found.

Yes. I believe some variants of this exist already. I’m not sure how much they 
are used in practice though. AFAICT, false positives/negatives is still a big 
problem. Non-trivial recommendation system will require a model of the network 
behavior that can somehow be inverted easily which is probably something 
academics should spend some time on :-)

Maybe in closed systems like IP networks, with use of streaming telemetry from 
SFPs/NPUs/LC-CPUs/Protocols/etc.., we’ll be able to feed the analytics tool 
with enough data to allow it to make fairly accurate predictions (i.e. unlike 
in weather or markets prediction tools where the datasets (or search space -as 
not all attributes are equally relevant) is virtually endless).

I’m with you. I also believe that better (even programmable) telemetry will 
unlock powerful analysis tools.

Best,
Laurent


PS: Thanks a lot to those who have already answered our survey! For those who 
haven’t yet: https://goo.gl/forms/HdYNp3DkKkeEcexs2 (it only takes a couple of 
minutes).