A Few Steps Forward, Many To Go: The DOCSIS Poller
Today marks a significant milestone in the ongoing transformation of my decade-old Perl-based DOCSIS monitoring system into a Go-powered beast. After countless hours of writing, debugging, and rethinking the architecture, I’ve reached a point where the system is successfully querying OpenSearch for modem state data and intelligently deciding whether each modem needs to be polled based on the last poll time. It’s a satisfying achievement, but as with any complex project, the closer you get to the goal, the more obstacles you uncover.
Today's Accomplishment: Efficient Modem State Management
The highlight of today’s work was refining the logic that controls how and when each modem gets polled. The modem state index, now fully integrated, is the backbone of this system. By hashing key customer details with a SHA-256 function, I can uniquely identify each modem's state and quickly check whether it’s time to poll it again. If the modem was polled within the designated interval, it’s skipped, saving valuable resources and bandwidth. This process was designed to be both efficient and scalable, ensuring the system can handle thousands of modems without breaking a sweat.
But this isn’t just about saving resources. It’s about building a system that’s smart enough to know when to act and when to wait. The modem state data is stored in OpenSearch, and the logic I implemented ensures that modems that don’t need polling aren’t unnecessarily queried. This minimizes network load and optimizes the overall performance of the monitoring system.
Tomorrow's Challenge: Balancing Efficiency and Functionality
As much as today’s progress was a win, tomorrow presents a new set of challenges. First, there’s the issue of connection management. I’ve noticed that when querying both the Parse DB and OpenSearch simultaneously for each modem, the number of open connections can skyrocket, leading to potential system overload. This isn’t just a performance issue—it’s a potential point of failure that could undermine the entire system if not addressed.
The goal for tomorrow is to rethink how these queries are handled. One approach I’m considering is to create two structs and execute both queries before the poller threads start and do the comparisons in memory. Deep thoughts about a large project.
There’s also the task of ensuring data integrity and consistency across all indices. While the modem state index is working well, the next step involves integrating the interface data into a separate index and making sure it can relate back to the modem state data efficiently. This involves carefully designing the schemas and ensuring that every piece of data can be traced back to its source, all while keeping the system performant.
Looking Ahead: The Road to Completion
Today’s success is just one part of a much larger picture. The ultimate goal is to create a monitoring system that not only meets but exceeds the needs of a modern DOCSIS network. There’s still a lot of work to be done—integrating more complex data relationships, fine-tuning the polling logic, and ensuring the system can scale to handle future growth.
But with each challenge comes an opportunity to innovate, to push the boundaries of what’s possible, and to create something truly exceptional. I’ve built this system from the ground up, and I’m confident that with a little more time and effort, it will be the best DOCSIS monitoring solution out there.
So, while today was a good day, I’m ready for tomorrow’s battles. After all, that’s what makes this journey so rewarding—the constant pursuit of perfection, one line of code at a time.
And don't forget. I do this while still juggling more NOC responsibilities than most people know exist.
-If You Don't Have Fun Programming, You Are Doing It Wrong
--Bryan Vest