GAMMON at GAETC

Lisa Flynn, EdS

Chemistry and Technology Integration

Osborne High School, Cobb County Schools

lisa.flynn@cobbk12.org

Warren Matthews, PhD

Research Scientist II

Office of Information Technology

warren.matthews@oit.gatech.edu

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance

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Abstract

• We will present quantitative data of network performance from school districts around Georgia, and describe the limitations it sets for the performance of education applications in the classroom. The measurements will also be put in perspective by examining the districts own technology plan. The session is suitable for both IT support staff and teachers interested in the use of technology to enhance their classes.

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Funding

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GAMMON is funded in part by

PART 1: WHAT AND WHY?

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance.

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What is GAMMON?

• The Georgia Measurement and Monitoring (GAMMON) project gathers quantitative data about network and application performance.

– Troubleshooting, Planning (analytics, business intelligence), Security, Inventory.

– Provide the quantitative evidence to back-up qualitative experiences.

• Since 2006, revitalized in 2011.5

If you don’t measure, you don’t know. (Kevin Walsh, UCSD)

Measure, measure, measure. (Rico Mariani, Microsoft)

Active Measurements

GAMMON Server

GAMMON Server

GAMMON Server

Internet

GAMMON servers are placed at the edge of the school district network, making tests and measuring performance across the Internet between each other.

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Active measurements inject additional traffic onto the network to determine end-to-end performance across the Internet.

Passive Monitoring

GAMMON Server

Internet

GAMMON servers can gather data as they enter and leave the district.

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Passive monitoring is peeking at real traffic as it goes by, not adding to the traffic on the network.

Core Switch

ES MS HS Admin

Why?

• Network demand in the classroom has quadrupled over the last five years.

• In a 2010 Federal Communications Commissions survey of E-rate connected schools, nearly 80% of respondents reported that they had inadequate bandwidth to meet educational needs.

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Direct-To-Discovery

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GT Professor Jim Sowell leading an astronomy lesson with classroom in Australia.

GT Professor Lisa Yaszek leading a book discussion between GT class and middle school kids in Barrow County.

Application Performance

Highly interactiveNot interactive

HD video conferencing EmailWeb surfingTelephone call

• High bandwidth• Low latency• Low jitter

• Low bandwidth• Latency and

jitter are almost unimportant

When you’re out for a Sunday Drive.

When you’ve got to get to the Airport.

Gaming

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Motivation (1/2).

• Is it feasible to expect schools to do more and more online?

– Governor’s Digital Education Task Force.

• “I learned with paper and pencil. Today’s students learn with light” (Anonymous).

– But many school districts in Georgia experience slow downloads, choppy audio and video. Access points are maxed out. Online resources too have downtime.

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Motivation (2/2).

• Teachers are expected to teach bell-to-bell, but they can’t if they’re waiting for the technology. Many report that this is the rule, not the exception.

– Our assumption is this disrupts online learning.

• Not surprisingly, districts want to know what is going on in their network.

– but report that they are blind, or partially blind.

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Why develop more tools?

• Varying levels of hardware and software to monitor traffic.

• Do not reinvent the wheel, but

– Common platform to compare results.

– Cost of GAMMON vs numerous commercial tools.

– Extra pair of eyes.

– Share the philosophy of research.

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PART 2: HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance.

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Can we be Friends?

• Similarities with the research community

– Bandwidth is required but not sufficient.

– Development of Research networks (15-20 years ago)

• Research and education are birds of a feather.

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perfSONAR

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Capacity

• Is it enough?

– Now?

– Next month?

– Next Year?

– How do you know?

• What do the school districts plan to do with online learning?

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Current Deployment.

Currently there are 18 GAMMON servers deployed around Georgia.

Each server measures the one-way delay and route to all the others.

Data is being gathered but analysis and interpretation is required.

The current servers are mostly reused machines from older projects. GAMMON itself grew out of CPR, an on-campus measurement project.

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Problem.

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Severely congested connections mean long delays, just like driving on I-85.

This graph show the round trip time (in milliseconds) between the clean room at Georgia Tech and a school district central office . We look “under the hood” and see what causes the slow downloads, choppy audio and video. Think about the time it takes to drive through Atlanta at different times of the day.

In the evenings and weekends, delay is 5 milliseconds, just like driving on I-85.

Day of the month

Ro

un

d T

rip

Tim

e

Solution.

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2.2 milliseconds

2.4 milliseconds

This graph show the delay (in milliseconds) between the clean room at Georgia Tech and a school district central office .

Ro

un

d T

rip

Tim

e

Day of the month

Compare to the problem graph –good connectivity is like your own private Peach Pass.

Example of an Upgrade.

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More capacity means less congestion. Less Congestion enables interactive applications. Interactive Applications enhance learning, especially when combined with the right teacher and the right opportunities.

Immediately see usage 2-3x previous capacity.

Barrow County School System upgraded from 20 Mbps to 150 Mbps.

Putnam County Schools

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"GAMMON greatly helped me sell the need for bandwidth

to my school board.”

-Keith Ellenberg, Chief Operating Officer,

Putnam County Charter School System

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Capacity(Mbps)

PART 3: MEASUREMENTS

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance.

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Achievable Bandwidth

Preliminary

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* Barrow, Ware, Gilmer, Sumter, Clarke, Dawson, White, and Rabun have multiple providers.

Preliminary

Achievable Bandwidth Per Student

• The only good network is one that is not a bottleneck.

• Measurements will be put into context.

Preliminary

27Another view is under development.

Smokeping

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Network Map

29Might replace MRTG with Cacti.

Hosts

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Hosts seen by school.

Last 5 minutes.Last Hour.Yesterday.

NMAP

• Create a database of ports

– Track services

– Detect Changes

• Evaluate free tools

– Intrusion detection

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Total Traffic by Protocol

Evaluating plugin to monitor SYN and RST packets32

Traffic by Application

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Traffic by Destination

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Pythia

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• Pythia uses GAMMON measurements to detect and diagnose network problems.

More Tools

• Work in Progress

• Verify Content Filters

• More External measurement

– PAM tools

• More Internal measurements

• More netflow analytics

– SYN Flood

• Routing (especially multi-homed).

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Join the Website

• https://gammon.gatech.edu

• Not much to see yet.

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PART 4: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance.

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Summary

• GAMMON quantified network performance

– Provides decision makers with data based information to improve network performance

– improves network utilization in the classroom decreasing loss of valuable educational time

• Limitations are identified using the data which are impeding the performance of educational applications and media in the classroom.

• Work in Progress

– Catch up at GAMEIS or GAETC next year.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Even with a small sample, variation in performance and philosophy is huge.

• Many districts suffer congestion.

– No surprises but graphs to prove it.

– We assume this impacts learning.

• How much is enough?

– External bottlenecks -> internal bottlenecks.

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This year (2013-2014)

• More measurements, More analysis

– Readiness Index

– District’s Technology Plans

• Summer 2014

– Performance workshop and GAMMON training.

– Secure K-12 workshop

• We hope to have funding to increase deployment next year

– What if you can’t wait? 41

How to get involved

• Let us know you’re interested.

• Join the monthly conference call.

• Install your own server

– We can provide specs

– Install software, Provide access for us to analyze.

• Create account on website.

– Allow us to share information amongst the community.

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Contact Us.

• For more information, please contact Warren Matthews

– warren.matthews@oit.gatech.edu

– 678-992-9185

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Thanks

• Bill Price and GTA

• Bob Swiggum, Rep. Mike Dudgeon, Joseph Barrow.

• Annette, Gino, Leon, Suren

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Thanks

• And especially all the sites that host servers, and the people that got them there.

– John St.Clair, Morad El-Jourbagy, Jeremy Caswell, Terry Treadgill, Phil Kline, Keith Ellenberg, Sam Ganas, Carol Helton, Jodi Perdue, William Sperin, Chris Usrey, John Call, Jefferey Harrel, Twanda Banks, Charlie Coleman, Aubrey Jones, David Smith, Taylor Duke, Tim Maynard.

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ANY QUESTIONS?

What Everyone Needs to Know About Network Performance.

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