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Looking for a way to test network capacity, accounting for swicth / router response times etc

I've been tasked with writing a test spec for a project with applications spanning several geographic locations, and comprising multiple LANs, using a combination of TCP/IP and serial comms.

I am not a comms expert, but I think I know enough to get by.

What I want is a way of calculating the maximum time that should be allowed for two applications on a network to communicate a certain amount of data.

I'm planning so far on using some batch files with ping commands, ideally I'd like to say:

"We need to be able to send X1 amount of bytes in X2 amount of seconds, therefore, tests require a response to a Ping of 50000 bytes in X3 milliseconds."

If I know X1 and X2, do you think this is a reliable way of working X3?

I hope that makes sense, any help appreciated.

Hendrik Wiese

Hi,

You could try and use the following open source application to monitor the line while you push the data through: http://www.ethereal.com/

Hope it helps.

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Roachy1979

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sda100

I use Nagios - it scales quite well, but if you want a serious solution take a look at OpenNMS - both of which are free.

With regard to making calculations using ping as a guide... it's not a good idea - most of the time 'pings' are given a very low traffic priority so will not necessarily give you accurate results.

Steve :)

Cognize

ASKER

Thanks - Iperf was the best solution in the end.