Centre closure

As part of a broader organisational restructure, data networking research at Swinburne University of Technology has moved from the Centre for Advanced Internet Architecture (CAIA) to the Internet For Things (I4T) Research Lab.

Although CAIA no longer exists, this website reflects CAIA's activities and outputs between March 2002 and February 2017, and is being maintained as a service to the broader data networking research community.

LCMON 1.0 - Detailed images

By Carl Javier (CAIA winter intern, 2007)

Detailed images and examples

Additional images and examples of the LCMON 1.0 user interface are provided here.

When LCMON clients connect, the 3D stars may rotate, bounce, change colour and size depending on a number of state variables (such as CPU load, memory in use, and network traffic in/out of the associated cluster node). This section describes what each action represents for each cluster node.

Rotational rate and colour = CPU Load (%) of each cluster node:

3D star models will rotate on their z-axis at the rate according to how much CPU load the current cluster is encountering. The higher the rotational rate, the higher the CPU load.
A 3D star model's colour will change according to the colours chosen to represent CPU load of each cluster node by the ganglia interface.

Below are examples of CPU Load visual representation.


0%	1 - 25 %	26 - 50%	51 - 75 %	76 - 100 %

Scale size = Memory Usage (%) of each cluster node:

The size of each 3D star represents how much memory (as a percentage) is being used by each cluster node. The obvious size difference is demonstrated below. The cluster on the left is the default size and is using hardly any of it's memory where as the cluster on the right is consuming a lot of its memory.

3D Stars representing cluster memory use.

Bounce height = Traffic coming into the cluster node, measured in packets per second (PPS)

3D stars may bounce up and down on the spot. How high they jump represents how many packets per second are coming into the cluster node.
note: The number of packets per second is mapped to a logorithmic bounce height scale to avoid 3D star models from bouncing ridiculously high.

Snapshot of 3D Stars bouncing on the spot. Bouncing representing the number of packets per second coming into the host.

Inspecting cluster node details

Quantitative details regarding each cluster node can be obtained in one of two ways.

Flying up to a star. Figure 1 illustrates how state information about each cluster node will appear floating in front of the star when you are close enough. (The virtual environment shipped with LCMON 1.0 allows you to potentially be 'close enough' to multiple stars at the same time as you fly around.)
Use the 'inspector' tool. Inspection involves shooting a star (in reality, shooting an region of space a few pixels beneath the star - Figure 2). An information screen box will pop up giving more detail about the cluster node being represented by the 3D star model (Figure 3). You will need to then press "OK" on the information screen to resume flying around the virtual world.

Figure 1: Close up inspection by flying towards a 3D star representing a cluster node


Figure 2: Inspector tool being used to view a specific cluster.		Figure 3: Cluster node information presented after shooting with the inspector tool.

(Note: The 'inspector tool' is only one of a number of techniques supported by L3DGEWorld 2.1 for interacting with in-world entities. LCMON 1.0 restricts you to only use the gun that allows inspection of in-world entity state. Other systems based on L3DGEWorld 2.1 may utilise different types of 'guns' to initiate additional in-world interactions.)

Multiple users in-world at the same time

LCMON 1.0 allows more than one user to exist within the virtual world at the same time. Other users will perceive you as a humanoid character flying around the virtual world, armed with an electric beam weapon. You will perceive them in the same manner. Figures 4, 5 and 6 illustrate how another user appears while they are using their own 'inspector tool' on a star. (In Figures 5 and 6 your player is close enough to the node 'green.ssi.swin.edu.au' that floating quantitative stats have appeared in your view.)

Figure 4: Another user in-world is shooting their 'inspector tool'


Figure 5: Viewed from their left, another user in-world is shooting their 'inspector tool'		Figure 6: Viewed from their right, another user in-world is shooting their 'inspector tool'

(Note: The appearance of other users, their weapons, and their weapons shooting, is configurable if you know how to create Quake III Arena player models. Discussion of precisely how to achieve this is beyond the scope of this web page.)

Go back to the LCMON project main page

Last Updated: Wednesday 15-Aug-2007 13:51:46 AEST | No longer maintained. Pre-2018 was maintained and authorised by Grenville Armitage, garmitage@swin.edu.au