If you haven’t checked out all the features available through VIRL, take a look at this features page located on the VIRL website…you can scroll down to the bottom, and under “All Features” click the “OPEN ALL” button. As you can see VIRL is a feature rich environment. One note of interest is the expected release of an updated Nexus switch object later this year…looks like it might include a number of layer 2 features, perhaps even vPC!!
Enjoy!!
Greetings!! So I’ve been playing with the latest Cisco VIRL release (v1.0.0), and let me say for the record, I like it!! Of course I’m still relatively new at VIRL and have much to learn, but I am very impressed by the latest release. AND I’m very pleased with the new bare-metal VIRL installation I have!
If you recall, several months ago, I installed VIRL on my new desktop system (Quad core i7 processor, 32 GB of RAM, fast SSD and storage drives, Windows 8.1 and VMware Workstation 11). VIRL ran very well on that system, which is to be expected, but there were times when my PC just behaved a bit strangely…a bit of pausing, some hiccups…you know what I mean. Of course I was running other power hungry programs at the same time…Photoshop and Lightroom. This installation is a bit more complex…you have a physical PC, running Windows 8.1 for an operating system, running VMware 11, which runs a VM (Virtual Machine), which is running Linux, which then runs it’s own VM that runs the network simulation (routers, switches, etc). Whew…it’s complicated just typing all of that out!
So…I decided to upgrade my Dell 2950 PowerEdge server a bit. I added RAM and another processor, so it now has: dual Quad-core Zeon processors (3 Ghz); 16 GB RAM; and fast 15K RPM drives. Let me tell you…this thing screams. Yes, it has less RAM than my PC, but now it will be dedicated to just Linux and the network simulation…nothing else. The new setup is much simpler now…a physical server, running Linux, which runs a VM for the network simulation.
How does it work? NICE!! I setup a test 20 node router simulation and cranked it up…it took about 2.5 minutes for all nodes to go ACTIVE, and another 1.5 minutes for BGP and OSPF convergence to complete. Here’s the topology for the test…
20 Node VIRL Simulation
And here are the resources used…
Resources used for 20 node test
Everything is looking very good here. Of course, I am using just IOSv nodes (routers)…they are the least CPU and RAM intensive. If I were using other node types (NX-OSv, ASAv, CSR1000v, etc) then I would be running out of resources sooner and would have to balance the number and type of nodes I could run in a simulation. What will help is to upgrade my RAM to 32 GB, which I will do early next year.
Do you like what you see? Then take a look at VIRL…I think you will be very pleased.
Cisco just released yesterday (November 26) an updated version of VIRL (Virtual Internet Routing Lab), version 1.0.0….and let me tell you, it has some great enhancements! You now have the ability to modify parameters on a link…you can configure latency, packet loss and jitter. AND they have increased the node count to 20 (up from 15). This is WAY cool stuff! First though, you need to upgrade to the new version, which I just did.
NOTE: This post is just a high-level overview of a VIRL installation, so you can get a taste of what it takes to install it. Please reference the noted links below to get the full instructions when you are ready to install VIRL. A great place to start is the Cisco VIRL homepage.
STEP ONE: Download the new VIRL version. Normally you have to wait for an email which has the download links and grab the image within 3 days (after which the links expires). But Cisco has finally setup a “self-service” download process which allows current VIRL users to download updated images whenever you want. (See this Cisco VIRL announcement for lots more details.) From your current running VIRL install, you can open up a terminal window to grab the new image…since I’m running VIRL on a bare-metal installation, the commands were…
Self-service download of new VIRL image
STEP TWO: Installation. Unfortunately, you cannot do an in-place upgrade…you must do a fresh install. Go to the VIRL installation documentation and pick your method (for me, it’s ISO to Bare-Metal), and follow the directions. It will take time, so be patient and follow each step carefully.
STEP THREE: Troubleshoot issues. Hopefully your installation will just work. However, in my case, I had an issue…the “linux-bridge-agent” was not up and running…
Bare metal issue: linux-bridge-agent not running (no smiley face!)
It took a lot of time to figure this one out, but I found a posting that addressed this issue. It has to do with running VIRL on a bare-metal server that does not have the minimum required 5 physical interfaces. You can setup dummy interfaces to handle this, which I had done, but there were some additional steps needed to fix some bugs…here is the link if you have the same issue.
So, now things are working properly…
All four agents are running!
And all services are running!
Time to install the license key and make contact with Cisco’s salt servers…
Successful contact with SALT servers
At this time, the VIRL installation is up and running properly. Now it’s time to install the frontend to VIRL, called VM Maestro, so you can create and run network simulations. Just follow the instructions, and this is a very quick step. When logging into VM Maestro for the first time, make sure and enter the IP address as well as the password…only then will the client make the proper connections and the web services go “green”…
With the proper server IP, username and password…everything goes green!
Now that everything is up and running, I configured a simple 4 node router simulation…and added 100 ms of latency between node San Francisco and Los Angeles, like so…
Adding latency to a link
Before I failed any of the links, the ping results from San Francisco to New York were…
Normal latency between San Francisco and Los Angels
After I failed a couple of links, which forced the traffic through Los Angeles to reach New York, ping results showed the higher latency…
Ping results with high latency
This is VERY cool…and there is much more to this new version…I have only just touched the surface of all the new features. Cisco has done a great job of putting a fully functional network simulator into our hands….let’s make great use of it, and let’s give Cisco our thanks!! They deserve it!!
New VIRL Release Announcement
Cisco just released an updated version of VIRL (Virtual Internet Routing Lab), with a number of additional features. And as always, the upgrade process is a test in and of itself…how good are you at following detailed and exact instructions?
Here is the VIRL announcement page.
Enjoy!!
My home PC is over 7 years old, and let me tell you…it was past time for an upgrade. I’ve been running Photoshop and Lightroom, along with an old version of VMware Workstation…talk about old and s-l-o-w! I started planning for a new PC earlier this year, but wasn’t really in a rush…just sort of waiting for something to push me over the edge…the “time to buy” edge.
Well, that edge was Cisco VIRL (Virtual Internet Routing Lab). One of the classes I attended at this years CiscoLive in San Diego concerned Cisco’s efforts in virtual network simulation. They have a commercial product (CMD – Cisco Modeling Labs), and they have a personal edition (VIRL). CMD is very expensive…as in, well…VERY. However, VIRL is reasonably priced…$200/year (it’s subscription based). VIRL is incredibly powerful and flexible; you can design and run many different types of simulated networks, all running real Cisco IOS (IOSv actually…a virtualized version of IOS). There is a limit of 15 nodes though…yes, that’s not really enough, but it does let you do a lot of testing and learning. (Visit here for more info on VIRL.)
Back to my PC. There was NO way it would ever be able to run VIRL…so I just had to buy a new one. 🙂
As you can tell, I don’t buy new PC’s often, so I wanted to make sure they last. The specs on my new PC…
Wow…let me tell you…this thing rocks! And I spent today installing and running VIRL. (This is not an easy installation…you really need to follow directions, but it’s not really that difficult. Knowing your way around Linux sure helps though.) Here is a screen shot of VIRL with 6 routers configured…
VIRL installed and running…with a simple 6 node network configured
I have just scratched the surface of VIRL…it is incredibly complex, but that’s ok…I have a lot to learn, but the rewards will be well worth it. I will post more about VIRL soon.