Designing and Implementing a Router Node Simulator for Network Management Testing

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Designing and Implementing a Router Node
Simulator for Network Management Testing

• Presented by
• Mikko Kyllönen
• 21.5.2008

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Contents

• Basic information
• Background
• Stress testing
• Problem
• Simulator design possibilities
• Final design
• Initialization mode
• Simulation mode
• Basic message handling
• Simulator GUI
• Faults and PMS data
• Using the Simulator
• Simulator performance
• Conclusions and future development

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Basic information

• Author Mikko Kyllönen
• Title Designing and Implementing a Router Node
  Simulator for Network Management Testing
• Supervisor Raimo Kantola
• Employer Tellabs Oy
• The goal was to build a simulator that would
  simulate a large amount of Tellabs 8600 nodes so
  that Tellabs 8000 Network Manager would see them
  as real network equipment.

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Background

• Tellabs 8600 Managed Edge System
• 8600 series multiservice routers
• Data transport in mobile access networks
• IP MPLS over Ethernet, ATM, TDM
• VPN and pseudowire services
• Tellabs 8000 Network Manager
• 8600, 8100, 8800, 6300, 7100
• Several components
• Element-, Network- and Service Management
• FMS, PMS, customers,
• accounting, network tests

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Stress testing

• Heavy tests in large environments
• Efficiency in terms of delays and error caused by
  mass usage
• Trend for efficiency during development releases
• Now environments are database only, but this is
  not enough
• This is where the Simulator is to be used

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Problem

• How to test Tellabs 8000 Network Manager
  scalability?
• Big networks thousands of nodes
• Impossible to bring that many nodes to laboratory
• Cant test wild things in production networks
• Could the nodes be simulated?
• Information model
• Very complex
• BMP protocol for node communication
• Hexacode based
• Quite simple
• Well specified

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Possibilities for simulator design

• Pure infomodel implementation
• Hard task, maintenance problem
• EMS server internal simulator
• Very hard task, might not work
• ESW porting to Windows platform
• Does not scale

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Final design

• Initialization --gt Simulation
• The Simulator is initialized by running an
  automated test case through the simulator.
• The Simulator stores all the messages and
  learns how to reply to each message type
• The stored messages are used as a basis for the
  reply in the simulation mode
• Uses the features of BMP protocol
• Several advantages quite simple, low
  maintenance, scalable

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Initialization mode

• Two modes
• Initialization mode

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Simulation mode

• Two modes
• Simulation mode

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Basic message handling

• Receive the request
• Find a similar request from message database
• Get the matching response as basis for the new
  response
• Change message id and other fields if needed
• Send back to NMS

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Simulator GUI

• Intuitive
• Easy to use
• Only the needed features

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Faults and PMS data

• Special message handlers
• Support for a limited set of faults
• Easy to add more
• PMS data only for T1s
• Others use SNMP
• SNMP support planned
• but not implemented

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Using the simulator

• For basic load
• Tests to real HW
• More like real network environment

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Simulator performance

• Tested with 5000 nodes
• Probably would handle a lot more
• Max CPU 9, max memory usage 30,1MB
• Biggest initialization 10h and 33k messages
• IP addressing a problem, workaround done

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Conclusions and Future development

• Conclusions
• The project went well
• Simulator is being used
• Simulator has been found useful
• Future
• More product families 8100, 7100, 8800, 6300
• SNMP
• Generic fault and PMS features
• Simulator programmability

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• Questions