Introducing ndt7

The new ndt7 protocol for the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) is now generally available on the M-Lab platform. Since 2009, NDT has been the premier TCP performance measurement service test hosted by M-Lab. During its history on the platform, NDT has produced the largest test volume to date, spanning the longest history. Since late 2018, M-Lab has worked with researcher Simone Basso to develop the ndt7 protocol and archival data format.

Read More

M-Lab 2.0 Platform: Global Pilot Assessment

We deployed the new M-Lab platform to 1/3rd of the M-Lab fleet, and now we need to assess whether or not it is a performance regression, relative to the old platform. As long as we can be sure the performance of the new platform does not constitute a regression, then we can roll out the new platform and be confident that we have not made anything worse.

Read More

M-Lab 2.0 Platform: Global Pilot Entry

For a while, we’ve been developing M-Lab 2.0 [1, 2]. This month, we are launching a global pilot for the new software stack. The changes include:

  • Stock Linux 4.19 LTS kernels with modern TCP and Cubic congestion control
  • Standard instrumentation for all experiments using tcp-info
  • Virtualization and container management using Kubernetes and Docker
  • Reimplementation of the NDT server

Read More

Modernizing the M-Lab Platform

When the M-Lab platform was initially launched in 2009, the software and operating system running on our servers used the best available boot management, virtualization, and kernel-level measurement instrumentation available. In the years since M-Lab’s initial launch, the state of system administration has improved dramatically. In 2017, the M-Lab team began work to upgrade the platform to adopt modern and flexible system administration components. This post provides a roadmap of that work.

Read More

Back to Top