In this presentation we will present our OpenSource product netTransformer and how did we used it in order to track the Bulgarian Internet network evolution from year 2001 till now!

1. OpenFest 2014
Tracking network evolution process with
netTransformer
Bulgarian Internet BGP Peering evolution from 2001 till now
Nikolay Milovanov
Vasil Yordanov
https://github.com/iTransformers

2. Network evolution in nutshell
• Network evolution could be expressed as:
– Topology changes:
• Appearance, disappearance of nodes or links
• Changes in network diameter
• Changes in node ranks
• Changes in clustarization and giant components
– Changes in node/edge properties
• Appearance of new metadata
• Disappearance of such
• Changes in node/edge metadata values
– All the above reflects changes in the law as per which network
evolves :
• An example of such law is Barbatsi and Albert law – e.g human
networks evolve as per power law

3. Examples for evolving networks
• Internet
• WWW
• Social
• Bio
• Communication
• Networks of SA components and connectors
• Knowing the law will allow us to predict how
does the network will evolve

4. So a question emerge: How can we track how does
the network evolves?
– Globul OMC used a notepad to write down each
and every event that happens in the network
– Traffic/Performance monitoring systems might
give us such information but in really it is quite
difficult to abstract it (too much details)
– Well we don’t care so much of the tiny networking
details we care for evolution on a architecture
level!

5. Views and perspectives
• Many stakeholders result in many perspectives and thus many
views of the network are required!
The cardiologist needs a
cardiogram
.. But the orthopedist
needs an X-ray scan
Stakeholders needs views of the network that will allow them
to reason about it!

6. In more common languadge
• Core network engineers needs a view of the
core network, they don’t care much about the
access…
• BGP peering needs a view of the BGP they
don’t care much neither about the core nor
about the access!
• Support guys from Plovdiv field maintenance
team needs a view of the network from their
region, they don’t care about Sofia network

7. netTransformer
• Software for tracking and pushing the network
evolution process
• Network transformation – a process in which we
push the network evolution in direction that suits
our stakeholder interest
• It is able to discover networks, to fill in different
network models, to diff between any two
discovered network states
• It is able also to “talk” with network devices and
to executes the steps of the strategies for
network from state to state transformation.

8. netTransformer
• Written in java, xslt, glue with maven, groovy, Spring, JUNG
and a lot of swing ;)
• https://github.com/iTransformers/netTransformer
• GPL!
• Architecture is based on the following key
Interfaces/components
– Discoverers (anybody can implement his own, we have a couple raging
from SNMP, Openflow floodlight, BGP peering and some others).
– Node or Network Listeners
– Viewer, resourceFactories, activationFactories
– postDiscoverers (asses networks after the discovery has finished!)

9. Demo

10. SHORT SURVEY ON HOW DOES THE INTERNET IN
BULGARIA EVOLVED FROM 2001 TILL NOW!

11. The approach
• We will generate Global IPv4/IPv6 Internet maps from MRT (RFC 6396) files.
• The raw data from the repository of the route views project
ftp://archive.routeviews.org/
• Each MRT file will contain full Internet routing table.
• We will extract BGP AS PATH attributes and will generate a map based on
Internet Autonomous System numbers.
• As part of the map generation process each BGP AS has been enriched by
whois info from http://www.potaroo.net/bgp/iana/asn.txt)
• The maps itself are generate d with javaMrt2Graphml
https://github.com/iTransformers/javaMrt2Graphml
• We will generate one map per year (lazy and statistically incorrect from the
last day of December
• Each map will contain the “whole” Internet
• Each Internet map will be filtered by netTransformer Filter into a smaller graph
that covers only the Bulgarian & Bulgarian interconnect to external Internet

12. Node Metadata
Autonomous system ID
IPv6 advertised prefix
count
AS name & description (whois)
Advertised IPv4/IPv6 prefixes
(comma separated)
IPv4/IPv6 address count
Country of affiliation
IPv4 advertised prefix
count

13. Survey outcome
• How does the number of BG AS evolve
through the years (totals and node
births/deaths)
• What is the number of Internet BGP peering's
• What is the number of total advertised
addresses
• All that for IPv4 & IPv6

14. Graph Diff

15. BG INTERNET IPV4

16. Bulgarian IPv4 autonomous systems
(totals per year)
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

17. International BGP Peering BG to *
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

18. Bulgarian IPv4 address space
7000000
6000000
5000000
4000000
3000000
2000000
1000000
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

19. IPv4 AS birth /dead
Achieved by diffing per year
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Node births
Node deads

20. Track the evolution process as an animated gif
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTT3nr91zuw

21. BG INTERNET IPV6

22. BG IPv6 ASNs
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

23. International IPv6 peering
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

24. Advertised IPv6 Address Space
300000 M
250000 M
200000 M
150000 M
100000 M
50000 M
M
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

25. BG IPv6 AS birth /dead
Achieved by diffing per year
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014

26. A few words about OpenSource and motivation
• The surprising truth about what motivates us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

27. Tracking network evolution process with
netTransformer
Bulgarian Internet BGP Peering evolution from 2001 till now
Nikolay Milovanov
Vasil Yordanov
https://github.com/iTransformers/
QUESTIONS!