The principal challenge in implementing a change on any network is to define the existing network and any limitations imposed by its hardware and software configurations. Comprehensive documentation is the key to conducting an effective and economical upgrade for any network. This lesson focuses on how to lay a foundation for making later network changes by documenting the network and looks at some useful tools that can help facilitate the process.
After this lesson, you will be able to:
- Document network components in order to establish a baseline for network performance.
- Identify tools that can help to document a network.
Estimated lesson time: 40 minutes
Preparing and maintaining network records are essential tasks that will pay off when you need to implement changes to a network. Up-to-date documentation provides information about how the network should look and perform, as well as where to seek help if there are problems. Documentation developed for maintenance, upgrading, and troubleshooting should contain:
Documentation should be thorough, well-organized, and stored where it is readily available. While this might seem obvious, it is easy for documentation to be lost or the individual responsible for maintaining these records to leave the organization without training a successor.
As soon as the network is operational, it is time to establish a baseline, which is simply a documentation of the network's normal operating values. The baseline needs to be updated whenever users, hardware, or software are added to or subtracted from the system.
Creating a good inventory and establishing baseline performance values form the basis upon which you can identify future needs for network modification.
The list that follows includes the steps you need to take to document the network:
Figure 12.1 The plenum space
Understanding how a healthy network functions is as important as knowing how to solve problems after the network has failed. Monitoring and documenting the network when it is performing well provide baseline measurements against which unusual performance can be compared.
The baseline must be established over time before anything goes wrong. After a baseline exists, all network behaviors can be compared to it as part of the ongoing monitoring process.
The baseline is especially helpful in establishing and identifying:
After the hardware has been documented and your network is in operation, it is almost time to record the network performance baseline. However, it is best to wait to do this until you have verified that all network connections are correct, all hardware is operational, and any necessary system fine-tuning has been accomplished. When the network's performance has been determined to be acceptable, it is time to record the baseline.
The concept of network performance is a broad one that encompasses the entire network, including:
A selection of tools is available to help administrators document network performance, including network monitors, protocol analyzers, and other utilities.
A network monitor is a useful tool that captures and filters data packets and analyzes network activity. It is easy to document the network performance indicators with a network monitor, but it takes extra practice to quickly analyze the network performance statistics. Some network operating systems include network monitoring software among their resources, and a number of other software manufacturers also offer network monitors.
A protocol analyzer is a tool that keeps track of network statistics. It can capture bad frames and isolate their source. (Data frames are packets of information transmitted as a unit on a network. They are defined by the network's data-link layer and exist only on the wire between network nodes.) A protocol analyzer can be helpful for a company that has a large network with a highly trained staff.
Various protocol analyzers exist. Protocol analyzers can be inexpensive software programs that run on existing networked computers. More advanced and more expensive protocol analyzers are special-purpose portable computers that can be connected to any physical portion of the network to better isolate data-transmission problems.
To test if your network connection is complete from the server to the workstation, you can use a simple utility, the Packet Internet Groper, better known as "ping." The ping utility works by sending a message to a remote computer. If the remote computer receives the message, it responds with a reply message. The reply consists of the remote workstation's IP address, the number of bytes in the message, how long it took to reply—given in milliseconds (ms)—and the length of time-to-live (TTL) in seconds. If you receive back the message "Request timed out," this means that the remote workstation did not respond before the TTL time expired. This might be the result of heavy network traffic or it might indicate a physical disconnection in the path to the remote workstation.
The following is an example of the ping utility:
C:\>Ping 125.55.222.1 Reply from 125.55.222.1: bytes=32 time=100 ms TTL=50 Reply from 125.55.222.1: bytes=32 time=100 ms TTL=50 Reply from 125.55.222.1: bytes=32 time=100 ms TTL=50 Reply from 125.55.222.1: bytes=32 time=100 ms TTL=50 |
Figure 12.2 shows an example of a ping utility.
Figure 12.2 Ping utility
Another utility that documents network performance is called "tracert." The UNIX equivalent is called "traceroute." While the ping utility merely lets us know that the connection from A to B is complete, tracert informs us of the route and number of hops the packet of data took to arrive at its destination.
Here is a simplified example of a tracert response:
"Tracing route to 100.50.200.10 over a maximum of 30 hops from Widgets in Ozona Fl to Widgets in Seattle WA." 1 125 ms 150 ms 155 ms Widgets.Ozona.Fl .gte.net 2 160 ms 165 ms 170 ms BZNet.Memphis.TN 3 175 ms 180 ms 185 ms Mtnnet Denver. CO 4 190 ms 200 ms 210 ms Widgets, Seattle.WA mci.net |
Run the c12dem01 video located in the Demos folder on the CD accompanying this book to view a presentation of the ping and tracert utilities.
Other software tools that document network performance include a variety of utilities that work with the TCP/IP protocol.
Ipconfig
This diagnostic command displays all current TCP/IP network-configuration values. This command is useful on systems running DHCP, allowing users to determine which TCP/IP configuration values have been configured by DHCP.
Winipcfg
A Windows 95 and 98 troubleshooting utility that enables users to access information about TCP/IP and network interface card settings. Winipcfg displays the physical address, IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway settings of the primary TCP/IP NIC (or settings of multiple NICs if more than one is installed).
Netstat
This command is available only if the TCP/IP protocol has been installed. Netstat displays all connections and listening ports, Ethernet statistics, addresses and port numbers, protocol connections and statistics, and the contents of the routing table.
Nbtstat
Nbtstat is available only if the TCP/IP protocol has been installed. It displays protocol statistics and current TCP/IP connections using NetBIOS over TCP/IP. This utility can list:
Nbtstat can also:
Most network activities involve the coordinated actions of several devices. Each device takes a certain amount of time to perform its part of the transaction. Poor performance results when one of these devices uses noticeably more CPU time than the others. The problem device is referred to as a bottleneck. Performance monitoring can help identify and eliminate bottlenecks.
Finding bottlenecks is usually an indication that upgrading a portion of the network is necessary. To resolve bottleneck problems, an administrator must be able to identify the devices that are taking more time than they should to perform their tasks. Administrators can use performance monitors, included with the major network operating systems, to identify bottlenecks.
These devices tend to become bottlenecks:
A device becomes a bottleneck for one of the following reasons:
Proper monitoring will uncover these situations and provide information to help identify the problem component or components.
Server performance is usually affected by an increase in the number of users who are on the system. Comparing current server performance statistics with your initial baseline information can help you confirm a suspicion that the server is not running as well as it once did. However, your first hint that the server is not performing well is just as likely to come from the end users. Their daily use and familiarity with system response is a good indicator of server performance. (Chapter 13, "Troubleshooting a Network," discusses how to interview users when troubleshooting network problems.)
Performance monitors—software that is included on most operating systems—track server performance on a network and can monitor several system functions, displaying the results in tabular or graphical format. Certain indicators can help locate and isolate problems with server performance, including:
A performance monitor can observe the performance of a remote system and alert the system administrator to server conditions that need attention. It can also transfer data from the performance monitor to other performance tools.
As networks have grown in size and complexity, keeping track of an entire system has become more challenging. Because of this, vendors have developed utilities that do for system management what performance monitors have done for system monitoring. These system-wide management applications provide centralized management for distributed systems programs.
System-management software provides centralized administration of computers in a WAN. This service includes:
The system management software complements other system management utilities found in the network operating system. The examples that follow use Microsoft's Systems Management Server to illustrate these utilities.
Inventory Management This software collects and maintains an inventory of hardware and software for each computer and stores the inventory in a database. Typical inventory items include the type of CPU, amount of RAM, hard-disk size, operating system, and application software for each component installed.
Software Distribution After a computer's inventory has become part of the database, a software distribution utility can install and configure new software or upgrade previously installed software directly on a client. This distribution mechanism can also be used to run commands, such as virus scans, on clients. Figure 12.3 shows Microsoft NT Server's Systems Management Server distributing software.
Figure 12.3 Systems Management Server distributes software
Shared Application Management Shared applications can also be distributed to a server for clients to access. When a user logs on to the network, the management software builds a program folder on each client. See Figure 12.4 for an example. These program folders in turn contain more folders that include the program icons representing the shared applications available to the user. To start the shared application, the user selects an icon from the program folder displayed on the local workstation. (The application is actually stored on the server's hard disk.)
Figure 12.4 Systems Management Server simplifies application sharing
Remote Control and Network Monitor Systems Management Server, shown in Figure 12.5, provides Help Desk and diagnostic utilities that allow you to control and monitor remote clients directly. The diagnostic utilities let you view the client's current configuration. The Help Desk utilities provide direct access to a remote client.
Figure 12.5 Systems Management Server simplifies remote client maintenance
Table 12.1 illustrates the environments supported by Systems Management Server:
Table 12.1 Environments Supported by Systems Management Server
Environment | Supported |
---|---|
Network operating systems | Windows NT Server 3.51 and later; Windows 2000 Server; LAN Manager 2.1 and later; Novell NetWare 3.1x and 4.x; IBM LAN Server 3.0 and 4.0; any network protocol supported by Windows NT Server, including TCP/IP and IPX |
Client computers | Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11; Windows 95 and 98; Windows NT Workstation 3.5 and later; Windows 2000 professional; MS-DOS 5.0 and later; IBM OS/2 2.x, and OS/2 WARP; Apple Macintosh (System 7 and later) |
Documenting a network's history is as important as monitoring its real-time performance. A network's written record can:
If there is more than one administrator, it is important that they all record in only one shared logbook. This log can become an invaluable guide to future administrators who might need to trace a performance problem or resolve network issues related to system growth as well as equipment, maintenance, and system configuration changes.
This document should record:
It is important that all network historical documentation be easy to access and easy to read. Graphics or even hand-drawn sketches can be very helpful.
A network's history can be either logged online or in a notebook. Keeping the log in a computer file can cause difficulties, however, especially if the file is stored on a hard disk and the computer or disk crashes. Should such an event occur, this is exactly the type of behavior the log should record.
Answers
The following points summarize the main elements of this lesson: