WAN Link Monitoring Basics Availability, Utilization, Latency. Editors Note Last week we posted a news article on Kratos Networks new version of doppler. VUE. It turns out that Kratos has a number of great network management tips that can be found on their website, and we wanted to share this with you. The network management tip below was written by Kratos Director of Training, Ken Heller email protected, and is reproduced here with full permission from Kratos Networks. Techniques for Monitoring WAN Links. Most business organizations use WAN links to interconnect local area networks LANs at geographically dispersed sites. Over the years, as business organizations continue to grow both nationally and globally, the demand for WAN links has steadily increased. Call centers, for example, have moved off shore distributed computing has replaced large regional data centers sales offices have expanded to new locations. As WAN links become integral to the day to day operations of the business organizations, the availability and reliability of WAN links has a direct, highly visible impact on business operations, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction. Adobe Premiere Pro Cs3 Setup Exe. The cost of WAN Links versus Business Impact. Monitoring WAN links for availability and reliability is essential business organizations absolutely require continuous uptime, fast response times, and minimal transmission errors. But the cost of WAN links is also a factor. A T1 line, which is the most common type of WAN link, provides 1. Mbps of bandwidth at an average cost of 6. A T3 line, which offers 4. Mbps of bandwidth, can cost 1. Monitoring WAN link utilization can help ensure the business organization is receiving optimal network performance without over investing in network infrastructure. Due to the cost of leasing a WAN link, its often difficult to justify an additional T1 or T3 line unless an existing link is consistently running at 8. In theory, the link can run at 1. For example, utilization may be high in the morning when people come to work and read their email or later in the afternoon when customers scramble to submit their orders before going home for the day. And sometimes the network simply gets hit with a lot of traffic. Wireshark-Portable-Free-Download.png' alt='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' title='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' />The point is, when monitoring link utilization, its important to allow for spikes in network traffic. Otherwise, if a link is running at 9. WAN router may become overwhelmed and start to drop packets or experience other sub optimal behavior. Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' title='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' />Business application users and customers, in turn, will notice significantly reduced response times and throughput. So its crucial to monitor WAN links not only for availability and reliability, but for utilization as well to determine a nominal utilization rate that can withstand spikes without impacting the business organization. Also, should high utilization rates begin to impact business efficiency, collecting historical data on utilization rates can underscore a business justification for an adding a new WAN link. Key Metrics for Monitoring WAN Links. When monitoring WAN links, the three key metrics to consider are availability, utilization, and latency. Availability is the up or down status of a router interface over time also referred to as uptime. High availability 9. WAN link is fully available to business users. Web Site Test Tools and Site Management Tools More than 570 tools listed in 14 categories. Organization of Web Test Tools Listing this tools listing has been. This document describes troubleshooting procedures for the RSA Authentication Manger which can be integrated with the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance ASA and the. Low availability less than 9. WAN link. Utilization is the percent of data throughput relative to the maximum capacity of the router interface. Ideally, interface utilization should not exceed 7. If utilization is consistently running above 9. Main_window.png' alt='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' title='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' />Low utilization, on the other hand, indicates the interface is operating well below capacity. Latency is the time it takes in milliseconds for a data packet to travel across the WAN link. D4DAEA' alt='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' title='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' />High latency means data travels more slowly across the network, which can affect business users. Typically, high latency is caused by network congestion over the WAN link. Tools for Monitoring WAN Links. There are a number of simple, easy to use tools for monitoring WAN links. As most network managers know, the ping command on a Windows or UNIX computer measures the round trip latency across a WAN link by pinging a device or computer at the far end of the link. For example, pinging a computer on the East coast from a computer on the West coast shows the round trip latency for the link, point to point, averages 1. For more detail, the trace route command lists the physical routers that form the WAN link and the number of milliseconds required for each hop between routers. Because most network devices are SNMP enabled, an SNMP monitoring tool can be used to measure the availability and utilization of the router interfaces that host the WAN link. For instance, SNMP OID Tracker, a free desktop SNMP tool, can graphically monitor any SNMP MIB 2 object. Monitoring the if. Oper. Status operational status object shows the availability or updown status of the interface, and the if. My Step Cousins Pretend on this page. Nero-8_23.png' alt='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' title='Advantages Of Wireshark Tool' />In. Octets octets in and if. Out. Octets octets out objects can be used in conjunction with the if. Speed interface speed object to calculate interface utilization. Monitoring WAN Links with doppler. VUEUsing basic, low cost point tools has its advantages, but an integrated network management solution such as doppler. VUE provides a single, robust approach to managing networks. With doppler. VUE, you can easily monitor the availability, utilization, and latency ping response time of the WAN link from a single view. Moreover, you can set latency, utilization, and availability thresholds that automatically trigger alarms, email notifications, and other alerts whenever the respective metric exceeds the threshold value, allowing you to take immediate action before business users are affected. To monitor WAN links with dopplervue Make sure the devices on both ends are SNMP enabled, then run a discovery job using the correct community strings to discover the devices. Availability, utilization and latency metrics will be automatically collected. Click Network. VUEs in the navigation pane and right click d. VUEs. 2. Point to Create d. VUE and select a scope user, group or public to designate who has access to this d. VUE. 3. Name the d. VUE for example, WAN Links, then double click the new d. VUE to open it in the workspace. Right click in the workspace and point to Add d. VUE Item. 5. Select a digital gauge, two line charts, and a circular gauge for each site for example, Sacramento and Reston in screen shot. Click Metrics in the navigation pane and expand Metric Groups. Expand the Ping metrics group and drag Response Time to the first digital gauge. In the drop down list below the gauge, select the router for the Sacramento site. Repeat this step for the Reston site using the second digital gauge. Expand the Interface metrics group and drag Utilization In to the first line chart, then drag Utilization Out to the second line chart. Using the drop down list, select the router interface for the Sacramento site. Frets On Fire Ultimate Edition Modern'>Frets On Fire Ultimate Edition Modern. Repeat this step for the Reston site using the remaining line charts. In the Interface metrics group, drag Availability to the first circular gauge. Using the drop down list, select the router interface for the Sacramento site. Repeat this step for the Reston site using the second digital gauge. In todays world, the availablity and reliability of your organizations WAN links have a direct impact on productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability.