Respond to Discussions homework

Respond to Discussion minimum 150 Words

Monitoring a network is probably one of the most important things that is needed when running a network. This allows a person to make sure that the network is running as efficiently as possible. There are four major factors that can affect a networks performance. The first is Latency. Latency is a delay from when a packet is sent to when it arrives. A great way to think of latency is like the speed limit on the highway. There are many different things that effect what the speed limit is going to be, like if it is near a city, or certain highway signs (wildpackets). Then there is Throughput. Throughput is the amount of traffic your network can handle at any time. If the traffic gets to heavy for your network, then the speeds will slow down. This can be related to a highway as well, the more lanes there are the more traffic your network can handle. Then there is Packet Loss. Packet Loss is due to network errors or glitches. Monitoring the amount of packets lost is a big deal because you want to make sure your network is not losing a lot. There will always be some packets that are lost but keeping it to the lowest number possible is the biggest concern. Then there is Retransmission. Retransmission happens when a packet loss occurs. The packets are then retransmitted which can cause delays from the re-sending and also a delay from waiting until the data is received correctly.

 

-Eric Paradis

 

http://blog.wildpackets.com/2011/05/31/four-factors-that-affect-your-network-performance.html

Respond to Discussion minimum 150 Words

There are many conditions that can adversely affect network performance. Some of these include issues with the workstation or server such as the operating system, demands on the CPU, hard drive usage, memory usage, the network adaptor, or other software running on the machine. Network conditions that can affect network performance are traffic on the network, connection devices such as routers or switches, network address translation (NAT), virtual private networks (VPN), or even bandwidth measurement devices. Probably the most problematic issue on a network though is user interaction. Anything a user does such as viewing a web page, downloading a file, or streaming music can affect network performance. (Data Expedition, Inc, 2016).

Tools that are available to network managers for monitoring and analysis of different types of networks include hardware and software solutions. Hardware solutions include devices that are plugged directly into the network and monitor traffic as it moves over the wire. Most often network managers use software tools such as network analyzers to capture and analyze data packets. The TCP/IP protocol suite has Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) built in which can analyze and store information on the network using agents and management stations that store data in a Management Information Base (MIB). No matter what tool is used, a baseline must be taken first and then analysis done on a routine basis and compared against the baseline, with records kept on the results. (Data Expedition, Inc, 2016).

References

Data Expedition, Inc. (2016). Common Network Performance Problems. Retrieved August 23, 2016, from Data Expedition, Inc Support: http://www.dataexpedition.com/support/notes/tn0009.html

-Kenneth