OpenIMP

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 openimp.sourceforge.net

Internet Measurement Project

The OpenIMP internet measurement application has been designed for distributed IP traffic and quality of service measurements supporting metrics such as volume, one-way-delay, jitter and packet loss. It integrates passive and active measurement components with analysis and visualization functions. It provides solutions for usage-based accounting, SLA validation, intrusion detection, traffic profiling and other applications. Due to the modular design and the combination of a variety of components it can be adapted to the measurement demands of a variety of applications.

The OpenIMP system uses one central control unit (controller) and multiple measurement units (probes). The probes are distributed within the network. Probes can passively monitor network traffic or do active performance measurements. The measurement tasks are configured on the controller which distributes single measurement tasks to the remote probes. The measurement results are sent back to the measurement controller (e.g. using IPFIX protocol) and are stored in the central results data base. On the controller it is possible to do further evaluations and to display the measurement results.

Components
The OpenIMP system consists of the following components:
  • Passive probes are connected to network tabs or optical splitting boxes at special network locations (e.g. at access routers). Passive probes filter incoming traffic and perform special operations like ip flow classification and packet counting or packet id generation. Passive probes do not transmit any test traffic.
     
  • Active probes are able to generate and receive test traffic. They can act like end systems and handle higher layer protocols like TCP or HTTP. These probes are used to test the network for specific characteristics. With active measurements well defined and repeatable measurement experiments can be performed.
     
  • The data collector requests/collects the measurement result data from the distributed probes and stores it in the measurement results database.
     
  • The evaluation server uses the measurement data generated by probes and calculates IP QoS metrics like one-way-delay, jitter and packet loss.
     
  • The measurement control unit is used for the management of the measurement system, to download measurement tasks to the distributed probes and to execute complex measurement tasks.

Each component can be accessed via a common control interface which offers a text based command line interpreter. A webserver is used to set up measurement tasks and to display the result data.

Figure: The FOKUS Internet Measurement Platform (OpenIMP)

Example Configuration
The figure below shows an example configuration. There are monitor points installed at the access links to the internet. In addition there are active probes behind the access routers of the local networks. The control host can be installed at any location.

Figure: Example Configuration

Functions
The OpenIMP measurement platform can be deployed in IPv4, IPv6 and heterogeneous environments. The following functions and metrics are supported.
  • Packet capturing
  • Volume (packet and byte count)
  • Non-intrusive IP one-way-delay measurements
  • Non-intrusive IPDV/jitter measurements
  • Non-intrusive loss measurements on RTP flows
  • Active IP QoS measurements (one-way delay and loss, roundtrip delay and loss)
Requirements
  • Standard x86 PCs with FreeBSD, Linux or Solaris Operating System
  • Time synchronization: GPS signal (recommended) or NTP (lower accuracy)
  • Access to network (network tap, hub or monitoring port)

 
contact: Lutz Mark, mark@ fokus.fraunhofer.de