docs/2017-04-27.txt - third_party/iperf - Git at Google

 Subject:  iperf3 status, April 2017

 This is the first of a series of (maybe periodic?) updates about
 iperf3 development:

 State of the iperf3 World, as seen from ESnet...
 ------------------------------------------------

 iperf3 was originally written to be a "better", more maintainable
 follow-on to iperf2.  This was seen to be necessary to fill the
 requirements for the perfSONAR project (http://www.perfsonar.net).

 In the past few years, iperf2 development has been restarted by Bob
 McMahon of Broadcom.  He (and other contributors) have fixed a number
 of problems with iperf2 and added some new features
 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf2/).  We're happy to observe
 that iperf2 is once again under active development, and we have
 started discussing ways in which these two projects could productively
 interact.

 We note that iperf3 lacks several features found in iperf2, for
 example multicast tests, bidirectional tests, multi-threading, and
 official Windows support.  Given the active state of iperf2
 development and maintenance, we feel that the needs of users requiring
 such functionality are best met by using a recent version of iperf2
 instead of waiting for them to be backported or reimplemented in
 iperf3.

 ESnet's main interest in iperf3 is for testing high-performance
 Research and Education (R&E) networks, especially as a part of the
 perfSONAR toolkit.  iperf3 can be useful in other circumstances as
 well, but high-speed R&E network performance testing will remain the
 primary use case.  (Much of iperf2's recent development
 has focused on the use of UDP for end-to-end latency testing on a
 broad range of platforms, although it too is useful for many other
 testing scenarios.)

 iperf3 Support
 --------------

 We're trying to work down the support backlog for iperf3.  To that
 end, we've been aggressively triaging iperf3 issues in the issue
 tracker on GitHub.  Over the past several weeks, we've gone from about
 180 open issues to less than 75.  A number of these issues were user
 questions, not bug reports or enhancement requests.  We're now
 discouraging the use of the iperf3 issue tracker for questions.
 Instead we'd like users to either use the mailing list
 (iperf-dev@google-groups.com) or to look to various question sites on
 the Internet such as Stack Overflow (http://www.stackoverflow.com).

 We're happy to accept enhancement requests, although it should be
 noted that ESnet's time commitments to iperf3 are somewhat limited and
 we need to prioritize our work to match our own requirements.  We have
 begun using the "Help Wanted" label in the issue tracker on GitHub to
 indicate requests we agree with (or at least don't object to), but
 which we don't have the time to work on ourselves.  These are good
 candidates for someone in the community to work on and submit as a
 pull request.

 Pull requests are still encouraged, as long as they're compatible with
 ESnet's goals and requirements for iperf3.  If you're contemplating a
 code change that would have a major, fundamental change on the iperf3
 architecture, we strongly encourage discussion with the iperf3
 maintainers before doing a significant amount of work.

 Some of the above considerations are now documented in GitHub
 templates that we've recently installed for new issues, pull requests,
 and contribution guidelines.

 To make it easier for new users with common questions, we have created
 a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, which is now available on the
 iperf3 Web site, at:

 http://software.es.net/iperf/faq.html

 Future Plans
 ------------

 In the near-term, we're planning another iperf3 release that will
 include some recently added changes.  Because some of the changes are
 rather large, we're considering basing this release off the mainline
 which would make it the first 3.2 release, rather than try to backport
 these changes and make another "bugfix" 3.1 release.  No decisions
 have been made yet.

 The main changes (already on the master branch) are authentication
 (#517), a more fine-grained pacing timer (#460), and some portability
 fixes.  We'd appreciate any testing and feedback that users in the
 community could give on these.

 Thanks for your interest and support of iperf3,

 Bruce Mah
 Software Engineering Group
 ESnet
	Subject: iperf3 status, April 2017

	This is the first of a series of (maybe periodic?) updates about
	iperf3 development:

	State of the iperf3 World, as seen from ESnet...
	------------------------------------------------

	iperf3 was originally written to be a "better", more maintainable
	follow-on to iperf2. This was seen to be necessary to fill the
	requirements for the perfSONAR project (http://www.perfsonar.net).

	In the past few years, iperf2 development has been restarted by Bob
	McMahon of Broadcom. He (and other contributors) have fixed a number
	of problems with iperf2 and added some new features
	(https://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf2/). We're happy to observe
	that iperf2 is once again under active development, and we have
	started discussing ways in which these two projects could productively
	interact.

	We note that iperf3 lacks several features found in iperf2, for
	example multicast tests, bidirectional tests, multi-threading, and
	official Windows support. Given the active state of iperf2
	development and maintenance, we feel that the needs of users requiring
	such functionality are best met by using a recent version of iperf2
	instead of waiting for them to be backported or reimplemented in
	iperf3.

	ESnet's main interest in iperf3 is for testing high-performance
	Research and Education (R&E) networks, especially as a part of the
	perfSONAR toolkit. iperf3 can be useful in other circumstances as
	well, but high-speed R&E network performance testing will remain the
	primary use case. (Much of iperf2's recent development
	has focused on the use of UDP for end-to-end latency testing on a
	broad range of platforms, although it too is useful for many other
	testing scenarios.)

	iperf3 Support
	--------------

	We're trying to work down the support backlog for iperf3. To that
	end, we've been aggressively triaging iperf3 issues in the issue
	tracker on GitHub. Over the past several weeks, we've gone from about
	180 open issues to less than 75. A number of these issues were user
	questions, not bug reports or enhancement requests. We're now
	discouraging the use of the iperf3 issue tracker for questions.
	Instead we'd like users to either use the mailing list
	(iperf-dev@google-groups.com) or to look to various question sites on
	the Internet such as Stack Overflow (http://www.stackoverflow.com).

	We're happy to accept enhancement requests, although it should be
	noted that ESnet's time commitments to iperf3 are somewhat limited and
	we need to prioritize our work to match our own requirements. We have
	begun using the "Help Wanted" label in the issue tracker on GitHub to
	indicate requests we agree with (or at least don't object to), but
	which we don't have the time to work on ourselves. These are good
	candidates for someone in the community to work on and submit as a
	pull request.

	Pull requests are still encouraged, as long as they're compatible with
	ESnet's goals and requirements for iperf3. If you're contemplating a
	code change that would have a major, fundamental change on the iperf3
	architecture, we strongly encourage discussion with the iperf3
	maintainers before doing a significant amount of work.

	Some of the above considerations are now documented in GitHub
	templates that we've recently installed for new issues, pull requests,
	and contribution guidelines.

	To make it easier for new users with common questions, we have created
	a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, which is now available on the
	iperf3 Web site, at:

	http://software.es.net/iperf/faq.html

	Future Plans
	------------

	In the near-term, we're planning another iperf3 release that will
	include some recently added changes. Because some of the changes are
	rather large, we're considering basing this release off the mainline
	which would make it the first 3.2 release, rather than try to backport
	these changes and make another "bugfix" 3.1 release. No decisions
	have been made yet.

	The main changes (already on the master branch) are authentication
	(#517), a more fine-grained pacing timer (#460), and some portability
	fixes. We'd appreciate any testing and feedback that users in the
	community could give on these.

	Thanks for your interest and support of iperf3,

	Bruce Mah
	Software Engineering Group
	ESnet