Overview of IEPME-BW Bandwidth Testing of Bulk Data Transfer

摘要

Grid Computing capabilities are needed for the High Energy and Nuclear Physics research of today and in the future. Groups such as the Particle Physics Data Grid are developing tools to meet these needs. An additional challenge is the evaluation and fine tuning of these applications, as well as support for long term monitoring, performance analysis, and troubleshooting. In September 2001, SLAC started the development of an infrastructure for measuring the available bandwidth and actual bandwidth utilization that is achievable by the network and various bulk data transfer applications. The purpose of these active and passive measurements is to understand what throughputs are achievable, the constraints, and how to optimize, and to make the data and predictions available for net-workers and application tuning. This paper discusses the measurement methodology and pathologies, analysis, results, and avenues for future development.