Netw420

NETW420 Enterprise Network Management

Week 2 Lab Title: Performance Management 10 Mbps

Explanation and Background

Performance management is one of the five network management categories defined by the International Standards Organization (ISO). Performance management has many subcategories and therefore consists of many variables. In general, the basic attributes for network performance are considered to be throughput, accuracy, efficiency, delay, response time, and line utilization. The goal of performance management is to establish minimum threshold levels for these variables that will ensure the network will meet client needs and customer service level agreements. Then, we need to measure and monitor these variables appropriately so that, if they fall below these target levels, the appropriate corrective action can be taken.

Methodology

In this lab, you will build an Ethernet LAN network. The network will consist of two small groups of five users each connected to their own hub, and the two hubs will then be connected together by a switch. The physical design will be two star topologies connected by a switch, and the logical design will be 10 users sharing an Ethernet bus topology. You will then analyze the performance of the network by measuring the end-to-end delay, throughput, and network efficiency when the frame sizes of network traffic are varied from a small size (256 bytes), to a medium size (512 bytes), and then to a large size (1,024 bytes) for a fixed network link rate of 10 Mbps (low bandwidth).

Motivation

Specific areas of performance management that you will analyze in this lab include how small frames, as compared to large frames, affect delay, throughput, and efficiency for a low-bandwidth network. These are important performance management considerations.

For example, if your end-to-end delay is very high, your network users may not be able to properly perform their jobs. In addition, they will become frustrated due to the long...