Link Quality test - Backhauls

[tonie16]

Good day Everyone,

I'm fairly new to the Alcatel / Nokia Networking world. Previously only working on the Cisco Side.

My new Company runs Alcatel 7705 SAR-A routers on our edge. over 100 Routers. At the Datacenters side we have 7750 SR-c12.

I'm trying to understand what is the best way for us to actively test our backhaul links. Mostly 1 Gb Layer 2 services provided by other SP's. We are currently using Smokeping (Linux) to send icmp pings to each site from the DC's. I'm not sure if this is a good test. It seems there might be some Queue buffer or something else on the 7705 SAR-A that get full, and then we see massive packet loss. I believe this is not a true reflection of the quality provider by the Layer 2 provider.

What can you suggest?

Thanks for all the help.

[djancan]

I would suggest using iPerf between the two ends verify effective and you must setup a server and client on two workstations.

$ ./iperf3.exe --help

Usage: iperf [-s|-c host] [options]
iperf [-h|--help] [-v|--version]

Server or Client:
-p, --port # server port to listen on/connect to
-f, --format [kmgKMG] format to report: Kbits, Mbits, KBytes, MBytes
-i, --interval # seconds between periodic bandwidth reports
-F, --file name xmit/recv the specified file
-B, --bind <host> bind to a specific interface
-V, --verbose more detailed output
-J, --json output in JSON format
--logfile f send output to a log file
-d, --debug emit debugging output
-v, --version show version information and quit
-h, --help show this message and quit
Server specific:
-s, --server run in server mode
-D, --daemon run the server as a daemon
-I, --pidfile file write PID file
-1, --one-off handle one client connection then exit
Client specific:
-c, --client <host> run in client mode, connecting to <host>
-u, --udp use UDP rather than TCP
-b, --bandwidth #[KMG][/#] target bandwidth in bits/sec (0 for unlimited)
(default 1 Mbit/sec for UDP, unlimited for TCP)
(optional slash and packet count for burst mode)
-t, --time # time in seconds to transmit for (default 10 secs)
-n, --bytes #[KMG] number of bytes to transmit (instead of -t)
-k, --blockcount #[KMG] number of blocks (packets) to transmit (instead of -t or -n)
-l, --len #[KMG] length of buffer to read or write
(default 128 KB for TCP, 8 KB for UDP)
--cport <port> bind to a specific client port (TCP and UDP, default: ephemeral port)
-P, --parallel # number of parallel client streams to run
-R, --reverse run in reverse mode (server sends, client receives)
-w, --window #[KMG] set window size / socket buffer size
-M, --set-mss # set TCP/SCTP maximum segment size (MTU - 40 bytes)
-N, --no-delay set TCP/SCTP no delay, disabling Nagle's Algorithm
-4, --version4 only use IPv4
-6, --version6 only use IPv6
-S, --tos N set the IP 'type of service'
-Z, --zerocopy use a 'zero copy' method of sending data
-O, --omit N omit the first n seconds
-T, --title str prefix every output line with this string
--get-server-output get results from server
--udp-counters-64bit use 64-bit counters in UDP test packets

[KMG] indicates options that support a K/M/G suffix for kilo-, mega-, or giga-