BASELINING
Prepared by:
Wan Ahmad Ramzi Bin Wan Yusuf
Baselining
Definition
Network
baselining is an assessment act of the performance in real-time network
situations which covers measuring and rating process. A network baseline entail testing and
reporting of the physical connectivity, normal network utilization, peak
network utilization, protocol
usage, and average throughput of the
network usage (www.webopedia.com). As define by (en.wikipedia.org), a
method for analysing computer network performance and it is marked by
comparing current performance to a historical metric, or
"baseline".
In detail, an analysis of measurement elements in
the network usually identify by speed and accessibility and other problems
found within the network. A network
baseline then generated and established and being referred by companies and
organizations to determine both present and future network upgrade needs in
order to ensure their current network is optimized for top performance. For instance,
if you measured the performance of a network switch over a period of
time, you could use that performance figure as a comparative baseline if you
made a configuration change to the switch. ( David L.
Goetsch, 2012)
The Red Line – Network break point which determine by
hardware and software perform.
Green Line – Network load to show natural progression of
the load on network as new applications added or other factors.
The
Purpose of baseline is to determine the network natural progression as shown on
the green line. How fast the network load increasing and to predict at what
point the two line will intersect. Performing this will helps to the decisions
of when, where and how the budget reserved for network upgrading purposes.
Objectives
Baselining is useful for many
performance management tasks, including:
·
Monitoring daily network performance
·
Measuring trends in network
performance
·
Assessing whether network performance
is meeting requirements laid out in a service agreement.
Baseline Procedure (Cisco,
2005)
Example: How to
baseline a network (Colasoft, 2012)
This example is using network analyser nChronos
1.
Network diagram: draw the layout of the network structure, marking IP/MAC addresses,
VLAN, and places of all routers, switches, firewalls, servers, management
devices, and even the data flow directions.
2.
Network management policy: helps you understand what services are allowed to run
on the network, what traffic is forbidden, and what services should enjoy
higher priority.
Scope and Objective
It is suggested to do baseline of your network by
selecting only a few service by dividing your network into several layers. This
is to avoid unnecessary area or hosts or routers and switches in a big network
include in your baseline report. Do only the service such ERP, Http traffic,
email and devices such core switch, routers and few critical servers. Every
each point links and hosts are require separate baseline data types. Usually
performance and security reserved for the server and variance such throughput,
utilization and types of traffic is for network itself.
Collecting baseline data
A network baseline report contains
these basic data: network utilization, traffic components, top protocols
talkers, top hosts talkers, conversation statistics, address statistics, packet
sizes, average packet length, and key server info, etc.
use formula to find value max, min, and average of each data type. If the recording is long
enough, a better precise baseline statistics will be generate.
Conclusion
Having a baseline on each project allows you to
monitor current project performance and get better understanding of your
network usage and pattern style. In addition, it helps in decision making on
current policy and to improve the accuracy of future estimates.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baselining
E-Study Guide for: Quality Management by David L.
Goetsch, ISBN 9780135019672: Edition 6, 2012
Baseline Process
Best Practices White Paper, Retrieved from, http://www.cisco.com,2005, Accessed on 12.12.2016
How to baseline
network throughput and performance, Retrieved from http://blog.colasoft.com, (2012) accessed on 11.12.2015
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