Direct performance analysis of local area networks by distributed measurement of traffic patterns
Will Cook, B.N. Malm, R.C. Hall · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1986
Network performance analysis provides a valuable tool for making decisions about a network. Although the development of queueing models is the popular way to investigate network performance, there are some problems with that approach. An alternative method is to use techniques which can give information about the underlying network structure from an analysis of traffic characteristics. The traffic information is accumulated during normal network operation by each network node and reported at intervals to a central station. This data is analyzed without using detailed knowledge of the network and the traffic characteristics are inferred. The characteristics that can be extracted in this manner are surprisingly informative. This paper identifies a general set of techniques for traffic analysis that does not require a queueing network model. These techniques are designed to work with the limited variety of raw information that can be obtained from many networks by using passive, noninvasive measurements with normal traffic data. These techniques are then applied to the analysis of traffic on a 50 Mbps HYPERchannel CSMA/CD bus network at a major national laboratory. 6 refs., 5 figs.