Overview
Cisco is pleased to announce release 25.07 of Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensor Agents (formerly Skylight sensor: agents).
See section "Agent Installation" for 25.07 version docker pull strings
What's New
Release 25.07 of the Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensor Agent is a maintenance release containing minor fixes and updates.
- Agent actuate will now retry the RFC5357 TWAMP control protocol negotiation upon server (reflector) error signals.
- Base image updated to Alpine 3.22 hardened for latest security updates
Release Components
| Component | Version | Note |
|---|---|---|
| agent throughput X86_64 / AMD64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| agent actuate X86_64 / AMD64 | 25.07_2311 | |
| agent trace X86_64 / AMD64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| agent transfer X86_64 / AMD64 | 25.07_438 | |
| agent sdk X86_64 / AMD64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| agent throughput ARM64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| agent actuate ARM64 | 25.07_2311 | |
| agent trace ARM64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| agent transfer ARM64 | 25.07_438 | |
| agent sdk ARM64 / AMD64 | 25.07_2307 | |
| orchestration | 0.228.0 | component of Provider Connectivity Assurance (formerly Skylight performance analytics) 25.07 |
| sensor collector | 0.601.0 | downloadable from Provider Connectivity Assurance 25.07 |
Agent Characteristics and Capabilities
| agent | capability | max use count | vCPU* max | RAM max | Disk typical | comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| actuate | RFC5357 TWAMP light | 500 | 0.05 - 1 core | 0.2-0.5GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent, 0.1ms delay accuracy on p95** |
| actuate | RFC5357 TWAMP control | 500 | 0.05 - 1 core | 0.2-0.5GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent, 0.1ms delay accuracy on p95** |
| actuate | RFC862 UDP Echo | 500 | 0.05 - 1 core | 0.2-0.5GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent, 0.1ms delay accuracy on p95** |
| actuate | RFC792 ICMP Echo | 500 | 0.05 - 1 core | 0.2-0.5GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent, 0.1ms delay accuracy on p95** |
| throughput | RFC6349 baseline | 1 | 1 core | 0.1GB | 0.2GB | 1Gbps max |
| throughput | RFC6349 throughput | 1 | 1 core | 0.1GB | 0.2GB | 10Gbps max |
| trace | UDP/TCP/ICMP Paris | 100 (sequentially executed) | 0.1 core | 0.1GB | 0.2GB | |
| transfer | TCP L7 https/ftp/tcp | 250 *** (sequentially executed) | 0.1 core | 0.1GB | 0.2GB | |
| sensor collector | - | - | 4 cores | 8GB | 10GB | 16,000 concurrent sessions |
- *) A vCPU is considered as a thread on standard x86 CPU, running typically at 2.2 to 2.4GHz.
- **) Typical value on system supporting kernel timestamps on receive
- ***) Since transfer agent executes tests in sequence, care needs to be taken to not add more sessions than can be finished within the session repeat interval. Example: if 60s repeat interval is used, and 10 sessions each with max execution time of 5s are created, then (5 * 10) 50s is the max execution time for all tests, and this fits within the 60s repeat interval. See transfer agent configuration for more details.
- Max use count refers to the number of sessions per agent instance, multiple agents can be deployed on the same host to increase session count.
- CPU usage for actuate is shown as a range depending on load. Highest load is 5000 pps (for example 500 sessions of 10 pps each).
- Paris, in the Capability column, represents the current algorithm for trace route.
Upgrade Paths
Sensor Agents use a destroy-redeploy model common for container applications. This means that an agent is never upgraded, it is simply replaced. In order to support this mode of operation, only the absolute minimum of configuration parameters are stored with the agent - typically as environment variables, the rest being kept in the orchestration system and downloaded to the agent at startup. The agent 25.07 is backwards compatible with the docker-compose configuration of all versions back to 21.12, which means the agent can be updated by changing the release version and name in the docker compose file. Note that the release name for docker pull was shortened in release 22.11.
See current docker pull strings for latest release here: Agent Installation Guidelines
Agent session configuration in the orchestration is backwards compatible back to 22.11, so no session or test configuration changes are required when upgrading agents or Provider Connectivity Assurance to 25.07.
Deployment Considerations
Sensor Agents deploy as containers on x86_64 and arm64 environments. Thus, a container environment is required and we recommend docker 23.0.6 or later.
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