NetGraf: A Collaborative Network Monitoring Stack for Network Experimental Testbeds

TL;DR

NetGraf is an integrated, open-source network monitoring solution that aggregates heterogeneous data from multiple devices into a single real-time Grafana dashboard, simplifying network performance analysis on testbeds.

Contribution

The paper introduces NetGraf, a novel architecture that automates deployment of a comprehensive network monitoring stack on testbeds like Chameleon Cloud.

Findings

Single-script deployment on testbeds

Real-time visualization of network metrics

Enhanced usability for researchers

Abstract

Network performance monitoring collects heterogeneous data suchas network flow data to give an overview of network performance,and other metrics, necessary for diagnosing and optimizing servicequality. However, due to disparate and heterogeneity, to obtainmetrics and visualize entire data from several devices, engineershave to log into multiple dashboards.In this paper we present NetGraf, a complete end-to-end networkmonitoring stack, that uses open-source network monitoring toolsand collects, aggregates, and visualizes network measurements on asingle easy-to-use real-time Grafana dashboard. We develop a novelNetGraf architecture and can deploy it on any network testbed suchas Chameleon Cloud by single easy-to-use script for a full view ofnetwork performance in one dashboard.This paper contributes to the theme of automating open-sourcenetwork monitoring tools software setups and their usability forresearchers looking to deploy an end-to-end monitoring stack ontheir own testbeds.