Performance Modeling of Ahmadu Bello University Data Network using a Storage Area Network (SAN) Design Concept
Anthony Ngozichukwuka Uwaechia, D. D. Dajab, B. A. Adegboye · 2013
In Ahmadu Bello University, students ’ portal are not stored in the University data Centre but is hosted by the company hosting the University, in this research, a core/edge SAN was modeled into the current data network, thus allowing the students ’ portal to be hosted directly on a dedicated secondary network in the University. This work was limited to just the storage of students ’ portal, but gives us a good initial understanding of the viability of this approach. The main components of the network were modeled modularly as Arena Submodels. It involves building a model of a switch and explicitly including this in a discrete event simulation of a SAN in evaluating how the SAN design will perform in its stochastic environment. For every host-device pair in the core/edge SAN two links was utilized for redundancy. The Performance of the proposed core-edge SAN Design model was tested under two component failure scenarios, the failure of an edge link and a core switch. Effective measurement of storage system activity, such as throughput was checked. The results from the simulation shows that the actual mean through-times for the ABU_I.C.T network was seconds, and seconds for the proposed SAN design (a reduction on a 95% confidence since p-value was 0.01) and with (at max. power) the there was a reduction. The mean through time for the failure of an edge link (scenario 1) in the SAN design was % reduction). The mean through time for the failure of core switch (scenario 2) in the SAN design was (a % reduction) showing that the SAN design is of a higher performance measure.