Analysis of network traffic and bandwidth capacity: load balancing and rightsizing of Wide Area Network links

• Main Author: Trovini, Kevin L.
• Other Authors: S. Sridhar
• Language: en_US
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 2013
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/32283

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a process model to assist organizations in analyzing their Wide Area Network communication lines. The Naval Medical Information Management Center (NMIMC), in Bethesda, Maryland, is used as the model site, due to its imminent deployment of World Wide Web (WWW) servers to Navy Medical Treatment Facilities (MTF's). To model the typical MTF, an analysis of the data traffic transmitted from the existing WAN links managed and monitored by NMIMC will be performed. Theses WAN links are critical for the delivery of health care related information transmitted between MTF's. The WAN links must be analyzed to ensure that adequate bandwidth is available to allow unobstructed traffic flow between destinations. The data traffic will be plotted to illustrate problematic conditions caused by high utilization rates. Corrective actions will be recommended that should help to reduce or eliminate the bottlenecks and increase network bandwidth, such as: load balancing, rightsizing of the WAN links, and increasing operational availability. The hypothesis is that the WWW servers should be installed after the WAN links are analyzed and either balanced or properly sized. The load balancing and rightsizing of the WAN links will ensure that adequate bandwidth is available for the proper and timely transmission and access of vital WWW server information.