End to End Performance Measurement

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

We have two DSL-connected sites that connect to each other often.
Performance is very intermittent, and we are trying to determine
which connection is the bad one. I think one of the two DSL
lines is probably giving terrible performance. What would be
the best tool for monitoring performance of these lines? I
think a program that runs as a Windows service and did pings to
public web sites and graphed the latency over time would reveal a
lot. Who has such a tool?

What program could be used to trace end to end performance of the
various systems, keeping in mind that there are firewalls that
block ICMP traffic?

--
Will
Internet: westes at earthbroadcast.com

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

Will <DELETE_westes@earthbroadcast.com> wrote:
> We have two DSL-connected sites that connect to each other often.
> Performance is very intermittent, and we are trying to determine
> which connection is the bad one. I think one of the two DSL lines
> is probably giving terrible performance. What would be the best
> tool for monitoring performance of these lines? I think a program
> that runs as a Windows service and did pings to public web sites and
> graphed the latency over time would reveal a lot. Who has such a
> tool?

> What program could be used to trace end to end performance of the
> various systems, keeping in mind that there are firewalls that block
> ICMP traffic?

Firewalls. Wonderful devices aren't they.

netperf 2.4.0rc1 allows one to set the addressing information for both
ends of its control and data connections. combined with a bit of
forwarding setup on one end you would probably be able to run either
TCP_STREAM or TCP_RR tests from one end to the other at will.

If configured with --enable-histogram=yes and with the verbosity (-v)
set to 2 at the end of each run you would get a histogram of the time
spent in the send() call (TCP_STREAM) or for each transaction
(TCP_RR).

At various points in its history, netperf has compiled and run under
Windows. I'm not certain how well 2.4.0rc1 would compile at the moment
- lots of changes have been made with no access to a Windows system
for test compilation.

Going from one DSL site to another brings the issue of asymmetry -
unless you have the same speed up and down on the DSL links, sending
from one DSL link will probably max that DLS link's upload speed
before it maxes the other DSL link's download speed. To deal with
that you need a source that is as fast or faster than the DSL download
speed - www.dlsreports.com may be a good place for that.

happy benchmarking,

rick jones
--
denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, rebirth...
where do you want to be today?
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to raj in cup.hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Archived from groups: comp.dcom.lans.ethernet (More info?)

"Will" <DELETE_westes@earthbroadcast.com> wrote in message
news:bcGdnfhpecM2z93fRVn-qA@giganews.com...
> We have two DSL-connected sites that connect to each other often.
> Performance is very intermittent, and we are trying to determine
> which connection is the bad one. I think one of the two DSL
> lines is probably giving terrible performance. What would be
> the best tool for monitoring performance of these lines? I
> think a program that runs as a Windows service and did pings to
> public web sites and graphed the latency over time would reveal a
> lot. Who has such a tool?
>
> What program could be used to trace end to end performance of the
> various systems, keeping in mind that there are firewalls that
> block ICMP traffic?

i have heard good things about ping plotter
http://www.pingplotter.com/

i tried it for some enterprise nets and it was useful - but we didnt have an
intermittent fault to try it out on.....

big issue for you is that it is going to send pings - so you need any
"firewalls" at the your sites to allow a ping through

(should be OK if it comes from the secure LAN, but maybe not when it comes
from the internet), and / or respond to ping. then try a PC at 1 end to the
WAN connection at the far site.
>
> --
> Will
> Internet: westes at earthbroadcast.com
--
Regards

Stephen Hope - return address needs fewer xxs