heiDPI Benchmark Repository

Benchmark and tooling suite for evaluating the performance of the heiDPI logging pipeline.
The project compares a Python baseline against a C++ port and provides auxiliary utilities for post‑processing and visualization.

---

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Repository Layout
3. Building
4. Running the Benchmark
5. Utility Scripts
6. Benchmark Results
7. License

---

Overview

heiDPI (https://github.com/stefanDeveloper/heiDPI) turns nDPId (https://github.com/utoni/nDPId) events into accessible structured data.
This repository contains:

• A C++ benchmark harness that generates synthetic traffic and drives loggers.
• The original Python heiDPI logger.
• A C++ logger port to evaluate performance benefits.
• A collection of utility scripts for analysing and plotting benchmark data.

---

Repository Layout

.
├── benchmark/                 # C++ benchmark harness + heiDPI-Logger
│   ├── src/                   # C++ implementation (generator, watcher, analyser …)
│   ├── include/               # C++ headers
│   ├── heiDPI_logger.py       # Python logger entry point
│   ├── heiDPI_logger_profiler.py
│   ├── heiDPI_logger_mock.py
│   ├── config.json            # Config-File for benchmark tool
│   ├── config.yml             # heiDPI-Logger related configfile
│   └── scenarios.json         # Predefined load scenarios (IDLE, BURST, RAMP)
├── heidpi/                    # Python baseline (env, server, logger, JSON schemas)
├── heidpi_logger_cpp_port2/   # C++ logger port
│   ├── src/                   # C++ source files (Config, EventProcessor, NDPI client …)
│   └── include/               # Corresponding headers
├── utility/                   # Stand‑alone scripts & diagrams (see below)
├── benchmark_results/         # Sample output data for various scenarios
└── CMakeLists.txt             # Root build file (adds benchmark and C++ logger subprojects)

---

Building

Prerequisites

• CMake ≥ 3.10
• C++17/20 compiler with pthreads
• Python 3.9+ (for baseline logger & utilities)
• Install Python packages: pip install -r requirements.txt
• Third-party C++ libraries such as yaml-cpp, nlohmann/json, json-schema-validator, and libmaxminddb are fetched automatically via CMake FetchContent_Declare, so no manual installation is required.

Build Steps

Build each CMake project separately.

# Build the benchmark
cd benchmark
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..          # Fetches third‑party dependencies
cmake --build .   # Produces the benchmark binary

# Build the C++ logger port
cd ../../heidpi_logger_cpp_port
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .   # Produces the heidpi_cpp logger

These steps generate two binaries: benchmark (scenario driver) and heidpi_cpp (C++ logger).

---

Running the Benchmark

1. Prepare configuration Edit benchmark/config.json (select logger type, paths, scenario file etc.).

2. Run From benchmark/build:

   ./benchmark

3. Scenarios
   benchmark/scenarios.json defines traffic patterns:

   • IDLE – minimal event rate
   • BURST – fixed high rate for a duration
   • RAMP – gradually increasing event rate

---

Utility Scripts

The utility/ directory provides stand‑alone analysis and visualization helpers:

• analyze_watcher_files_cpp_burst.py, analyze_watcher_files_ramp.py, …
  Parse .watch files produced by the benchmark, generate plots using pandas/matplotlib.
• analyze_watcher_file_overlead_python_version.py
  Offers a Python-only perspective on watcher data.
• detected_dropped_events.py
  Detects dropped events across runs.
• *.puml + plantuml.jar
  PlantUML diagrams to visualize benchmark and logger sequence flows.

Tip: Many utility scripts use relative paths (e.g., ../benchmark_results). Adjust them as needed when running from different directories.

The utility suite is not tied to the academic paper and can be freely adapted for custom analyses.

---

Benchmark Results

benchmark_results/ contains example outputs for several scenarios (e.g., burst_cpp_1000events, ramp-python).
These can serve as reference data for the utility scripts or for validating new builds.

---

License

This repository does not specify a license. Check with the authors before redistributing or reusing the code.