WLAN traffic graphing application using simple network management protocol
Bhargavi Hiremagalur, Dulal Chandra Kar · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2005
As today's world is making transition from being wired to becoming wireless, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are gaining importance. Like the wired networks, WLANs also need to be managed. One of the key things in managing a WLAN is to monitor the bandwidth usage. This is possible by monitoring the network traffic at the wired and wireless interfaces of an access point, a device that acts as a bridge between the wireless and wired networks. In this work, we present a Web-based graphing application that can be used to monitor, collect, maintain, and visualize traffic data of the access points deployed in a network. The application uses the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to communicate with the access points in a network. This application can be used by network administrator to determine idle or underutilized access points as well as congested or overloaded access points in a network. This information can be used by the administrator for relocating the idle access points or deploying additional access points at the overloaded segments of a network for better load sharing. The application can also be used for educational purposes in a computer networking course.