Skylight sensor agents 23.07 Release Notes

Overview

Accedian is pleased to announce release 23.07 of Skylight sensor: agents.

Note

Starting with release 22.11 the container image names have been shortened to the format agent-AGENTTYPE-PLATFORM:RELEASE, example:
agent-throughput-amd64:r23.07

See section "Agent Installation" for current docker pull strings

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What's New

Release 23.07 of the Skylight sensor: agent contains a number of new features and functions compared to the previous 23.04 and 22.11 releases:

• Notifications for state changes (sessions and agents) added to agent orchestration. Initially supported only via Skylight Gateway.
• Agent Actuate now supports local enabling of a reflector via environment variable
• Changes made to internal logging framework to reduce logging
  • Use the agentStatus command to enable logging
• Agent Actuate is now using Standard Transmission by default, see behaviour changes in Deployment Consideration section below

Release Components

Component	Version	Note
agent throughput X86_64 / AMD64	23.07_1803
agent actuate X86_64 / AMD64	23.07_1803
agent trace X86_64 / AMD64	23.07_1803
agent transfer X86_64 / AMD64	23.07_226
agent sdk X86_64 / AMD64	23.07_1803
agent throughput ARM64	23.07_1803
agent actuate ARM64	23.07_1814
agent trace ARM64	23.07_1803
agent transfer ARM64	23.07_1803
agent sdk ARM64 / AMD64	23.07_1803
orchestration	0.142.0	component of Skylight analytics 23.08
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.
**) 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.

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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.

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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 23.07 is backwards compatible with the docker-compose configuration of 23.04, 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 23.04 and 22.11, so no session or test configuration changes are required when upgrading agents to 23.07 or Analytics to 23.08.

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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.

Agent Actuate is now using Standard Transmission by default. This is a behavioral change that should improve session robustness in most situations.

• AGENT_STANDARD_TRANSMISSION is not deprecated.

• AGENT_ADVANCED_TRANSMISSION=true can be used to return to normal transmission.

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