GitHub Projects - Frame Blasting Modifiers

Following the previous article (Insert Link), we are going to explore some modifications to the frame and frameblasting flows. This will enable us to utilize more of the GUI's features; in particular the time and frame-size modifiers. These features create variations in the throughput which simulate non-uniform traffic flows.

We will look at 3 scenarios: 

• Growing frame size - Frame increases size up to a maximum.

• Random size

• Bursty traffic - Frames sent in bursts  (1 second intervals).   

Each one of the tests will run vs a default frame for comparison purposes.

Let's go!

Part 1. Docking the Ports

When you open the .bbp file you will see the following displayed:

• 2 ports configured with DHCP

• Port 2 is NAT enabled

1.1 Connect the Ports to the Trunk Interface.

Port 1 and Port 2 are set are configured for DHCP so they should be docked onto trunk interfaces compatible with DHCP.

You will see that Port_2 has been NAT enabled but this is not strictly necessary.

• In this example, trunk 1-3 and 1-4 are such interfaces.

Part 2. Frame Modifiers

In this part we will look at the different frames and frame blasting flows with their modifications. Frames can be modified in terms of their size (number of bytes) as well as adding a modifier at the level 4 layer. This can mean adding a payload offset. Another feature is changing the UDP source and destination ports at the level 4 layer (see below).

2.1 Frames

• Two frames have been created with the default size of 1024 bytes. 

• Going to the layer 4 setting we can see that Frame_1 and Frame_2 have different source and destination ports.

2.2 Frame Blasting Flows

In this step, we will look at the different frame blasting flows and how they transmit the data frames. The settings of the 'Frame Blasting' tab enable the user to adjust the thoughput speed as well as change the uniformity of the throughput. A frame blasting flow will take the frame defined in the previous step and repeatedly 'blast' it from source to destination.

In this example:

• The growing size frame will produce a sawtooth throughput.

• The random size frame modifier will generate random frame sizes between a minimum (60 bytes) and a maximum (1514 bytes).

• The bursty traffic frame uses a time frame modifier to produce bursts of traffic containing 5000 frames with an interburst gap of 1.2 seconds.

2.3 Flow

The flow is the traffic that will be sent by the ByteBlower server. Here we can define the source and destination of the generated traffic.

• Select the source and destination ports. 

• In this demonstration we will send the frames form Port 1 → Port 2 which are connected back-to-back.

• A latency distribution has been included.