Network Performance Visualization: Insight Through Animation.
Jeremy A. Brown, Braun H-W · 2000
In passive and active measurement projects it is easy to generate large volumes of raw data. Although this allows for detailed analysis, the large volume is an impediment to understanding the data and locating interesting events. One approach to this problem is to use visualization tools to produce a graphical rendering of the data that allows a user to explore the data "by eye." Cichlid is a visualization tool that provides highquality 3-D, animated visualizations of a wide range of network analysis related data sets. Cichlid allows the viewer to explore and interact with the data sets in real time. It was designed with remote data generation and machine independence in mind; data is transmitted via TCP from any number of sources (data servers) to the visualization engine (the client), which displays them concurrently. Cichlid features real-time data display, pointand -click user feedback, and dynamic data coloring and labeling. Sequences of frames may be captured for later encoding in a standard movie format and single frames may be rendered at arbitrary resolutions. Using Cichlid has allowed us to gain new insights into the data we collect and will, we feel sure, aid others in the networking community, particularly network providers, to more easily gain an overview of the data that they collect. Keywords--- Network performance, visualization, OpenGL. I.