Updates docs for network coordinates.

pull/1331/head
James Phillips 9 years ago
parent de01f96d38
commit cef9402ab9

@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
source "https://rubygems.org"
ruby "2.2.2"
ruby "2.2.3"
gem "middleman-hashicorp", github: "hashicorp/middleman-hashicorp"

@ -186,6 +186,3 @@ PLATFORMS
DEPENDENCIES
middleman-hashicorp!
BUNDLED WITH
1.10.6

@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ The Coordinate endpoint is used to query for the nework coordinates for nodes
in the local datacenter as well as Consul servers in the local datacenter and
remote datacenters.
See the [Network Coordinates](/docs/internals/coordinates.html) internals guide
for more information on how these coordinates are computed, and for details on
how to perform calculations with them.
The following endpoints are supported:
* [`/v1/coordinate/datacenters`](#coordinate_datacenters) : Queries for WAN coordinates of Consul servers
@ -36,6 +40,7 @@ It returns a JSON body like this:
"Coord": {
"Adjustment": 0,
"Error": 1.5,
"Height": 0,
"Vec": [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
}
}
@ -46,7 +51,7 @@ It returns a JSON body like this:
This endpoint serves data out of the server's local Serf data about the WAN, so
its results may vary as requests are handled by different servers in the
cluster.
cluster. Also, it does not support blocking queries or any consistency modes.
### <a name=""coordinate_nodes></a> /v1/coordinate/nodes
@ -63,6 +68,7 @@ It returns a JSON body like this:
"Coord": {
"Adjustment": 0,
"Error": 1.5,
"Height": 0,
"Vec": [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
}
}

@ -10,17 +10,11 @@ description: >
Command: `consul rtt`
The 'rtt' command estimates the network round trip time between two nodes using
Consul's network coordinate model of the cluster. While contacting nodes as part
of its normal gossip protocol, Consul builds up a set of network coordinates for
all the nodes in the local datacenter (the LAN pool) and remote datacenters (the WAN
pool). Agents forward these to the servers and once the coordinates for two nodes
are known, it's possible to estimate the network round trip time between them using
a simple calculation.
It is not possible to measure between LAN coordinates and WAN coordinates
because they are maintained by independent Serf gossip pools, so they are
not compatible.
The `rtt` command estimates the network round trip time between two nodes using
Consul's network coordinate model of the cluster.
See the [Network Coordinates](/docs/internals/coordinates.html) internals guide
for more information on how these coordinates are computed.
## Usage
@ -36,7 +30,9 @@ The list of available flags are:
coordinates. By default, the two nodes are assumed to be nodes in the local
datacenter and the LAN coordinates are used. If the -wan option is given,
then the WAN coordinates are used, and the node names must be suffixed by a period
and the datacenter (eg. "myserver.dc1").
and the datacenter (eg. "myserver.dc1"). It is not possible to measure between
LAN coordinates and WAN coordinates, so both nodes must be in the same pool.
* `-http-addr` - Address to the HTTP server of the agent you want to contact
to send this command. If this isn't specified, the command will contact

@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "Network Coordinates"
sidebar_current: "docs-internals-coordinates"
description: |-
Serf uses a network tomography system to compute network coordinates for nodes in the cluster. These coordinates are useful for easily calculating the estimated network round trip time between any two nodes in the cluster. This page documents the details of this system. The core of the network tomography system us based on Vivaldi: A Decentralized Network Coordinate System, with several improvements based on several follow-on papers.
---
# Network Coordinates
Consul uses a [network tomography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_tomography)
system to compute network coordinates for nodes in the cluster. These coordinates
allow the network round trip time to be estimated between any two nodes using a
a very simple calculation. This allows for many useful applications, such as finding
the service node nearest a requesting node, or failing over to services in the next
closest datacenter.
All of this is provided through the use of the [Serf library](https://www.serfdom.io/).
Serf's network tomography is based on ["Vivaldi: A Decentralized Network Coordinate System"](http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~ravenben/classes/276/papers/vivaldi-sigcomm04.pdf),
with some enhancements based on other research. There are more details about
[Serf's network coordinates here](https://www.serfdom.io/docs/internals/coordinates.html).
~> **Advanced Topic!** This page covers the technical details of
the internals of Consul. You don't need to know these details to effectively
operate and use Consul. These details are documented here for those who wish
to learn about them without having to go spelunking through the source code.
## Network Coordinates in Consul
Network coordinates manifest in several ways inside Consul:
* The [`consul rtt`](/docs/commands/rtt.html) command can be used to query for the
network round trip time between any two nodes.
* The [Catalog endpoints](/docs/agent/http/catalog.html) and
[Health endpoints](/docs/agent/http/health.html) can sort the results of queries based
on the network round trip time from a given node using a "?near=" parameter.
* The [Coordinate endpoint](/docs/agent/http/coordinate.html) exposes raw network
coordinates for use in other applications.
Consul uses Serf to manage two different gossip pools, one for the LAN with members
of a given datacenter, and one for the WAN which is made up of just the Consul servers
in all datacenters. It's important to note that **network coordinates are not compatible
between these two pools**. LAN coordinates only make sense in calculations with other
LAN coordinates, and WAN coordinates only make sense with other WAN coordinates.
## Working with Coordinates
Computing the estimated network round trip time between any two nodes is simple
once you have their coordinates. Here's a sample coordinate, as returned from the
[Coordinate endpoint](/docs/agent/http/coordinate.html).
```
"Coord": {
"Adjustment": 0.1,
"Error": 1.5,
"Height": 0.02,
"Vec": [0.34,0.68,0.003,0.01,0.05,0.1,0.34,0.06]
}
```
All values are floating point numbers in units of seconds, except for the error
term which isn't used for distance calculations.
Here's a complete example in Go showing how to compute the distance between two
coordinates:
```
import (
"github.com/hashicorp/serf/coordinate"
"math"
"time"
)
func dist(a *coordinate.Coordinate, b *coordinate.Coordinate) time.Duration {
// Coordinates will always have the same dimensionality, so this is
// just a sanity check.
if len(a.Vec) != len(b.Vec) {
panic("dimensions aren't compatible")
}
// Calculate the Euclidean distance plus the heights.
sumsq := 0.0
for i := 0; i < len(a.Vec); i++ {
diff := a.Vec[i] - b.Vec[i]
sumsq += diff * diff
}
rtt := math.Sqrt(sumsq) + a.Height + b.Height
// Apply the adjustment components, guarding against negatives.
adjusted := rtt + a.Adjustment + b.Adjustment
if adjusted > 0.0 {
rtt = adjusted
}
// Go's times are natively nanoseconds, so we convert from seconds.
const secondsToNanoseconds = 1.0e9
return time.Duration(rtt * secondsToNanoseconds)
}
```

@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-upgrading-compat") %>>
<a href="/docs/compatibility.html">Compatibility Promise</a>
</li>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-upgrading-specific") %>>
<a href="/docs/upgrade-specific.html">Specific Version Details</a>
@ -38,6 +38,10 @@
<a href="/docs/internals/gossip.html">Gossip Protocol</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-internals-coordinates") %>>
<a href="/docs/internals/coordinates.html">Network Coordinates</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-internals-sessions") %>>
<a href="/docs/internals/sessions.html">Sessions</a>
</li>
@ -96,8 +100,7 @@
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-commands-leave") %>>
<a href="/docs/commands/leave.html">leave</a>
</li>
<a href="/docs/commands/leave.html">leave</a></li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-commands-lock") %>>
<a href="/docs/commands/lock.html">lock</a>
@ -123,6 +126,10 @@
<a href="/docs/commands/reload.html">reload</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-commands-rtt") %>>
<a href="/docs/commands/rtt.html">rtt</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-commands-watch") %>>
<a href="/docs/commands/watch.html">watch</a>
</li>
@ -143,8 +150,8 @@
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http.html">HTTP API</a>
<ul class="subnav">
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-kv") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/kv.html">Key/Value store</a>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-acl") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/acl.html">ACLs</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-agent") %>>
@ -155,20 +162,24 @@
<a href="/docs/agent/http/catalog.html">Catalog</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-session") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/session.html">Sessions</a>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-event") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/event.html">Events</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-health") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/health.html">Health Checks</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-acl") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/acl.html">ACLs</a>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-kv") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/kv.html">Key/Value store</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-event") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/event.html">Events</a>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-coordinate") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/coordinate.html">Network Coordinates</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-session") %>>
<a href="/docs/agent/http/session.html">Sessions</a>
</li>
<li<%= sidebar_current("docs-agent-http-status") %>>

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