Scalable integrated performance analysis of multi-gigabit networks

Monitoring and managing multi-gigabit networks requires dynamic adaptation to end-to-end performance characteristics. This paper presents a measurement collection and analysis framework that automates the troubleshooting of end-to-end network bottlenecks. We integrate real-time host, application, and network measurements with a common representation (compatible with perfSONAR) within a flexible and scalable architecture. Our measurement architecture is supported by a light-weight eXtensible Session Protocol (XSP), which enables context-sensitive adaptive measurement collection. We evaluate the ability of our system to analyze and detect bottleneck conditions over a series of high-speed and I/O intensive bulk data transfer experiments and find that the overhead of the system is very low and that we are able to detect and understand a variety of bottlenecks.