Hi Everyone - Here is a barebone outline for the Crossbow documentation that will make its debut at an upcoming Solaris Developer's Express. The documentation will have its own "part" in a new manual called "System Administration Guide: Network Interfaces and Network Virtualization." Please have a look and by all means send me comments.
Note: Complete discussion of Zones, Xen, and IP Instances are outside the scope of this documentation, although they will be mentioned with appropriate links for more information. - Stephanie Brucker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CROSSBOW OUTLINE PART TITLE : Network Virtualization and Resource Control Chapter One: "Introducing Network Virtualization and Resource Control" (Overview) This chapter introduces the major concepts that the users must know before they configure Crossbow. Here are some big topics that I can think of. 1. Who Needs to Use Crossbow a. Consolidators - ISPs, Telco,s HPC, Financial Sector They want to use the following Crossbow features: - NIC hardware, including classifier space, RX rings, TX rings, and DMA channels - Multilple MAC addresses - NIC's bandwidth Their main tool is dladm. More than half will create Zones or Xen domains. b. System administrators in traditional companies who want to manage flows. They need Crossbow's bandwidth management and differentiated services features. They will chiefly use flowadm, though they need to create vnics with dladm. c. System administrators who do provisioning/capacity planning They are the principal consumers of the network observability features. They might use the Crossbow observability features to get an idea of network usage BEFORE implementing bandwidth management or network virtualization. 2. What is Network Virtualization? This section will contain definitions of the various terms users will need to know when planning and setting up the Crossbow features. These terms will include: o vnics o virtual machines o virtual networks o virtual switch o IP Instances (link to the zones documentation) o Zones link to the Zones documentation) o Xen (link to a good definition of Xen domains on the web) At least one figure will show how packets travel among vnics on the same system. 3. What is Resource Control This section defines the terms: o Bandwidth management o Quality of service o Flows and flow control A diagram will show how flows for particular applications are assigned to certain portions of bandwidth. Chapter Two: Planning for Network Virtualization and Resource Control (Tasks) This chapter needs to have at least two user scenarios upon which to base the examples to come in the task chapters. a. Preparing a System (Network?) to Support Network Virtualization This would include a diagram showing the system or possibly the local network to use network virtualization. The section would include whatever planning methods are necessary on the system/network before actual configuration for network virtualization. b. Preparing a System (Network?) to Support Resource Control Includes a diagram of the system or network on which bandwidth management would be set up.The section includes any planning steps that are necessary prior to configuring bandwidth management, for example, observing packet flow among a system's appllications. Chapter Three:Configuring Network Virtualization (Tasks) This chapter will include various procedures involving vnic configuration. These procedures would encompass the most common tasks consolidators would perform to implement network virtualization. Most would involve the dladm command, in concert with other relevant commands. I need a list of most common tasks under the network virtualization category. This chapter will include examples that draw on the sample network virtualization configuration created for the planning chapter. Chapter Four: Configuring Resource Control (Tasks) This chapter will include procedures to implement the most common flow management tasks used to achieve particular goals. Most would involve the flowadm and dladm commands in concert with other relevent commands. I need a list of most common tasks under the network resource control category. Chapter Five: Observing and Trouble-Shooting Network Virtualization (Tasks) This chapter will contain procedures to help system administrators monitor networks that run virtual machines and/or systems configured for bandwidth control. The netstat options added by Crossbow would be featured, as well as other commands that might be used to troubleshoot network virtualization and bandwidth control. Chapter Six: Network Virtualization in Depth (Reference) If we want to go into further detail, this is the place for more involved or obscure configurations. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ networking-discuss mailing list [email protected]
