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SimonFord
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Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:18 pm

Does any of the Mikrotik router hardware have a sufficiently powerful CPU to generate traffic and perform a bandwidth test at 10Gbps, and if not, what level of x86 CPU hardware would I need as a third-party server to achieve this?

Additionally, is it only the 'server' end that requires the powerful CPU to run high bandwidth testing, if I had a suitable server, could I use a fairly low powered (CRS305?) Mikrotik switch / router to run as the testing / client end?
 
ConnyMercier
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:37 pm

Answer 1: Mikrotik Hardware for 10Gbits Bandwith-Test
I don't know...Maybe someone else can help here!
The Problem here is:
We should never use the infrastructure itself to test the Network, especially with >= 10Gbits Bandwiths.
And the only Mikrotik-Device i think are able to generate Random 10Gbits UDP Traffic are Rackmount.
Soo not very practical =)

Side note:
My work colleagues and I get consistent and reproducible results using our Laptops.
Our Laptops have 6-Core/12Treads 32GB RAM, 256GB nvme ssd and USB-C.
So we use external USB-C Thunderbolt to 10GbE adapter to connect to the Network.
We use different Software Products , but Iperf and mikrotik btest.exe are a good place to start.

Our 3-Step Test-Sequence :
Step 1: Reference speed
First we connect two Laptops directly with a short cable together and make the Bandwith-Test.

Step 2: Network-Test
Then we connect the same Laptops at either end of the Network and start the same Bandwith-Test again.

Step 3: Analyse
We compare, analyse and document the results.
If the results are poor, we have a nice evening of "Find the bottleneck"

Answer 2: Bandwith Client
If you only do a Bandwith-Test in one direction
The receiving Mikrotik-Device will indeet need less CPU as the "Bandwith-Server"
For Exemple : /tool bandwidth-test address=10.1.10.11 random-data=yes direction=receive protocol=udp

But no Mikrotik Switch aka CRS-Series will be able to handel 10Gbits Taffic over the CPU.
 
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mkx
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:09 am

None of mikrotik hardware is capable of neither generating nor ingesting 10Gbps speed test data. This holds true even for CHR/x86 running on powerful hardware. One of problems with btest is that it uses single core and iperf (de-facto standard for high-speed testing) needs to run multiple concurrent data streams handled by multiple CPU cores to be able to generate (and ingest) that much throughput. And even then one needs decent NICs with decent NIC-to-CPU connections not to hit another bottleneck.

As @ConnyMercier indicated: use iperf, it's available for variety of HW/OS platforms. And be careful to pick decent testing hardware, it should have decent NICs. Not sure if all thunderbolt 10Gbps adapters are equally good. Make sure you're testing using multiple parallel streams (specially so if testing TCP performance). And never run traffic generator/ingester on the node you're benchmarking, speed tests are all very CPU intensive and sometimes they actually benchmark CPUs vice benchmarking network infrastructure.
 
SimonFord
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:15 pm

Thanks both.

I suspected that most of the Mikrotik hardware would struggle, but I was hoping that one of the newer routers, perhaps the CCR2000 series, would be sufficient. I'm looking for something portable, preferably both ends, and it has to have 10G SFP interfaces as I need to test fibre specifically. Unfortunately the remote ends are not nice warm datacentres, but rather cabinets in fields, sheds, and portakabins. A laptop would potentially meet the requirements for a remote test, but connecting SFPs and fibres makes this a little more tricky.
 
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mkx
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:47 pm

For connecting fibres and SFPs use a small 10Gbps switch, e.g. a CRS305 (one RJ45 SFP+ module to connect laptop and optical SFP+ module appropriate for fibre connections). Most modern switches support wire-speed switching so switch should not be bottleneck in this test setup.
 
ConnyMercier
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:49 pm

I never tried it, but take a look at the Sonnet SFP+ Adapter
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/solo ... rview.html
 
olivier2831
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Nov 18, 2021 2:05 pm

Not sure if all thunderbolt 10Gbps adapters are equally good.
Found https://www.servethehome.com/usb-3-1-ge ... ter-guide/ for 5Gb/s adapters but no such comparison for 10Gb/s networking.

Also found https://www.qnap.com/en/product/qna-t310g1s with Linux support, it seems.
I would be curious to read about its performances.
 
mikruser
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Nov 18, 2021 2:55 pm

[quote=mkx post_id=881758 time=1632373772 user_id=87277]
One of problems with btest is that it uses single core
[/quote]

You are wrong.
Tools - Bandwidth Test has been using multicore for a long time.
 
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mkx
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Re: Hardware for 10Gbps bandwidth test

Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:52 pm

One of problems with btest is that it uses single core
You are wrong.
Tools - Bandwidth Test has been using multicore for a long time.

This doesn't change the fact that btest is not really a great bandwidth testing solution, specially if run on a device with weak CPU (i.e. most Mikrotik routers).

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