Designing and Implementing a Router Node
Simulator for Network Management Testing
Presented by:
Mikko Kyllönen
21.5.2008
Tellabs Internal and Confidential
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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July 24, 2016
Basic information
 Author:
 Title:
 Supervisor:
 Employer:
Mikko Kyllönen
Designing and Implementing a Router Node Simulator for
Network Management Testing
Raimo Kantola
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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July 24, 2016
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
> Can’t 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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July 24, 2016
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 --> 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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July 24, 2016
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
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