Overview
Accedian is pleased to announce release 23.04 of Skylight sensor: agents.
Starting with release 22.11 the container image names have been shortened to the format agent-AGENTTYPE-PLATFORM:RELEASE, example:
agent-throughput-amd64:r23.04
See section "Agent Installation" for current docker pull strings
What's New
Release 23.04 of the Skylight sensor: agent contains a number of new features and functions compared to the previous 22.11 and 22.07 releases:
- New UI component in Analytics to manage actuate and throughput agents - trace and transfer will be added in the next release
- Improved parameter support for agent transfer - full proxy server support
- Agent actuate now scaled to support 500 simultaneous sessions
- Support for generic configuration objects for agent SDK
- Enhanced support for running agents on Cisco Third-Party-Application space
- Logs for troubleshooting now available to download via UI or API from agents via "Generated report file"
Release Components
| Component | Version | Note |
|---|---|---|
| agent throughput X86_64 / AMD64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent actuate X86_64 / AMD64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent trace X86_64 / AMD64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent transfer X86_64 / AMD64 | 23.04_145 | |
| agent sdk X86_64 / AMD64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent throughput ARM64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent actuate ARM64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent trace ARM64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| agent transfer ARM64 | 23.04_145 | |
| agent sdk ARM64 / AMD64 | 23.04_1668 | |
| orchestration | 0.125.0 | component of Skylight analytics 23.04 |
| roadrunner | 0.456.11 or later |
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 |
| actuate | RFC5357 TWAMP control | 500 | 0.05 - 1 core | 0.2-0.5GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent |
| actuate | RFC862 UDP Echo | 500 | 0.15 core | 0.3GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent |
| actuate | RFC792 ICMP Echo | 500 | 0.15 core | 0.3GB | 0.2GB | 5000 pps per agent |
| 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 | |
| roadrunner data proxy | - | - | 4 cores | 8GB | 10GB | 2,500 concurrent sessions |
A vCPU is considered as a thread on standard x86 CPU, running typically at 2.2 to 2.4GHz.
Notes:
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
Skylight 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, the rest being kept in the orchestration system and downloaded to the agent at startup. The agent 23.04 is backwards compatible with the docker-compose configuration of 22.11, 22.07, 22.04 and 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.
Agent session configuration in the orchestration is backwards compatible with 22.11, so no session or test configuration changes are required when upgrading agents or Analytics to 23.04.
Deployment Considerations
The sensor: agents deploy as containers on x86_64 and arm64 environments. Thus, a container environment is required and we recommend docker 20.10.0 or later.
Corrected Issues
| ID | description | details |
|---|---|---|
| SA-420 | Agent management | Management over IPv6 caused issues on some linux platforms in AWS. Fixed in 23.04 |
| SA-1172 | Packet IO on some Cisco router models not working (TPA space). Fixed in 23.04 |
Known Issues
| ID | description | workaround |
|---|---|---|
| SA-306 | Payload size for IPv6 TWAMP can be set to larger values than the MTU | Do not use larger IPv6 payload size than 1452b |
| SA-509 | TWAMP-CP: When control session is down, data is not accepted into analytics | Make sure the (3rd party) TWAMP responder is up |
| SA-821 | Control API: Deleting multiple objects in parallel may fail of more than 10 requests in parallel | Check for HTTP error 502 bad gateway and re-send the query |
| SA-1093 | throughput: reflector mode does not work fully in k8s | Only TCP port can be forwarded into container, not UDP - this makes baseline test fail |
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