| Hi Kam,
Prior to working at Digital, I used to be with a consulting company,
and network design represented a lot of business to us because it *is*
hard to automate.
A lot of it is experience and rule of thumb, like dimensioning
(bandwidth/user and users/segment etc) and managing the trade-off between
cost and future upgradeability.
>>> Is there an application that can assist a Business Partner in
configuring and sizing Networks.
Usually such tools are associated with enterprise NMSs such as Polycenter,
HP OpenView etc. The catalogues of 3rd party applications are helpful, and
look for apps related to Performance Management, capacity planning, trend
analysis, simulation etc. However they are not cheap.
>>> Assume that they design a network around the DEChub 90 or 900 with
ethernet or FDDI modules. Later they find that some clients need
dedicated 10Mbs. What should they be considering or what should
they choose?
PEswitch 900TX for dedicated 10Mbps-FDDI. Also if you are not sure about
Ethernet bandwidth usage etc, you can use options like PORTswitches instead
of DECrptrs, which will give you more flexibility.
A typical pattern for a site might be that they start with shared
Ethernet segments, then introduce Ethernet-FDDI switches with "fat
pipes" to servers (DECswitch 900EF), then implement dedicated Ethernet
where necessary (PEswitch 900TX), and possibly upgrade certain workstations
to 100Mbps (DECconcentrators) etc. All of this is supported in the
DEChub 900.
As far as bottlenecks etc, you could consider benchmarking of response
times etc, and look at some RMON probes (DECpacketprobe) to measure
traffic.
:-)
Jeannie
(Networks - Tech Support)
|
| There is an application that can help with configuring a network using
Digital Network hardware. We call it Open DECconnect NETdesigner; it's
not yet a product, but we do make it available upon request.
It allows you to draw a LAN based network using current and some
historical devices. You can specify media types, choose from cable
specs, and specify cable distance. NETdesigner will check your design
against 802 rules. V1.8 will include non-hub-based FDDI design analysis
as well. It prevents you from making illegal connections. In addition
to the list of Digital network products, it allows you to configure
and analyze simple third party devices.
While this tool doesn't help with capacity planning, it does help
ensure that the network as designed will work once installed. And when
you're all done, you can print out a bill of materials for what needs
to be ordered.
I'll put a note in when we have V1.8 ready for internal use.
jack
|
| We're ALL familiar with the OpenDECconnect Designer from Joe Burnett.
I thought it was a product as we've been shipping, and they have been
using this product from quite some time now.
That product, from memory, doesn't assist in Sizing. If I know the
components that I want to use it will ensure that you don't violate any
rules.
If I design a network and all of a sudden I add 10 more clients and the
network response goes down drastically what network products should I
use instead of what I am using, etc. This is what we're looking for.
Regards,
kam
|
| Kam,
Take a look at notesfile HORUS::NETCW (Network Consultants Workbench)
for an internal product, and COMNET III, a PC based product from CACI, at:
http://www.caciasl.com tele: (619)457-9681.
These are network performance/sizing/modeling tools.
Good Luck,
Chuck
|