Network Simulation Project
Simulation Project
Objectives
• Design and analyze the performance of a network under different traffic conditions.
• Design and analyze the performance of a wide area network.
• Investigates the performance of applications across a wide area network.
• Examine how changing the speed of links impacts application performance.
Project Description
The GotToKachU Inc. security company is aiding the government on homeland security issues. It presently has two corporate locations, Redlands, CA and Phoenix, AZ. Corporate headquarters is in Redlands where all sales data, revenue data, and financial information files are stored. The office in Phoenix is the research and development center. The Redlands office has a 10 Mbps Ethernet LAN with 20 users. The Phoenix office has a 100 Mbps Ethernet LAN with 50 users. GotToKachU Inc. is receiving surveillance images from the CIA and FBI that engineers in Phoenix store on an FTP server. These are retrieved by analysts and various experts from the Redlands office via FTP. These images are organized as project sites, e.g., Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc. Assume the average files are 2 megabytes in size and each project consists of four to six files. There is also a database server in the Redlands office that provides responses to light database queries with respect to financial data. The database queries are spread lightly throughout the day. The two offices are presently connected by a frame relay cloud operating at T-1 speeds. AT&T WorldNet is the service provider.
The company is contemplating several new technology initiatives. First, they want to build a web- based intranet solution that provides HTML document access between offices. Second, they want to experiment with desktop video-conferencing by using their PCs and various software to conference between the two locations. However, they are unsure about the capabilities of their existing network infrastructure. One critical and current requirement is that uploading of their main graphics project files should not take more than 3 hours; so, feedback can be provided from headquarters in Redlands. They want good performance but are not certain if the new applications could cause overloading of current network links. They have the impression that students at CGU can help them by showing network simulation results in a variety of scenarios. So, you are their consultant and big money will come.
Scenarios
1. Benchmarkingexistingperformance.
a. Management wants to know if the current frame relay network is under or over utilized with just the current FTP image transfers and database applications in effect. In particular, they want benchmarks of current link utilization in both directions, link throughput (bits/sec), and global FTP download time and global database query response time.
2. Enablinge-business.
a. The next step is to add a webserver (http) to their Redlands office and model medium website usage. In particular, they want to know about the average web object response time and web page response time. Also, check to see if the addition of http traffic causes any degradation of their FTP and database query response time. Is the 3 hour limit still acceptable?
3. Video-conferencing application support.
a. They are willing to run video conferencing software on a few machines at both locations. The acceptable frame rate is 30 frames/sec, with a frame size of 352x240 pixels, and streaming multimedia as a type of service. They have budget to upgrade to a SONET OC-1 (51 Mb/s) leased link. In this scenario; will video conferencing end-to-end delay be acceptable to users?
Deliverables
1. Summarize the results in a presentation so management can easily understand them.
2. Prepare a report of the findings along with graphs showing results wherever possible.