Colasoft Blog

What is network baseline?

Do you know what your normal network throughput volume is, what types of traffic are most used in your network? If you can’t answer these questions then you should baseline your network. Network baseline is very important to network management because the data will tell you what it’s like when everything goes all right.

To baseline your network, you need software or hardware to listen on your network or a particular device. Both Colasoft nChronos and Capsa can be used to accomplish this task. Both of them are used to listen into packet data of a wire and generate all kinds of statistics on the network. To baseline a network, you need to use them to monitor the network traffic long enough, because a wider time span presents a more real picture of network traffic pattern. The use of network baseline is listed as follows:

• Understand healthy network pattern and traffic trends.

• Evaluate network management policies compliance.

• Understand how the network resources are allocated.

• Accelerate to troubleshoot network issues, i.e. abnormal traffic and spam traffic, etc.

• Provide data on network and security management to support decision making.

• Provide history statistics on network upgrade.
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It’s always a challenge for IT departments to anticipate how corporate technical demands will evolve, especially when IT budgets have been as tight as a drum for two years.

How do you “do more with less” and prepare for an explosion in bandwidth demand, a need to upgrade both software and hardware, and employees asking that work data be available on their personal smartphones?
The post-recession enterprise IT environment is only going to get more chaotic, but opportunities abound for the savvy IT manager, according to a new report from Technisource, a technology staffing and services company with clients ranging from the mid-market to global Fortune 500 companies.

The pressure to have “efficient operations and visibility into every aspect of the organization despite strict budget constraints has been the genesis of strategic trends that are re-shaping IT priorities, whether you are supporting an online retail portal, a university, or a high-tech manufacturing operation,” writes report authors Andrew Speer, Chad Holmes and Dick Mitchell.

Here are four trends Technisource says will play a key role in defining your organization’s priorities for the next year or more.

1. You’re Gonna Need More Bandwidth

It’s almost a guarantee that organizations of all sizes will increase bandwidth in 2011 and 2012 to support growing multimedia within the corporate network. The main technologies driving this need are video conferencing and tele-presence, VoIP and distributed storage networks.

The smart IT manager will stay ahead of the bandwidth curve by assessing WAN and LAN environments frequently and looking for ways to save money.
“Regularly review WAN options, with special emphasis on emerging access technologies that offer better deals on bandwidth and flexible provisioning plans,” the Technisource report states.

“On the LAN side, pay attention to your cabling plant as well as your switch and router fleet to ensure that there are no hidden bottlenecks to impede the inevitable upgrades you’ll be making.”

2. Prepare for More Mobility and User-Owned Devices

Mobile business apps are no longer a luxury, but a necessity at every level of the organization. Advances in Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies can put much of the corporate network in a worker’s pocket. Handheld devices are now commonly used to access corporate e-mail and sales reports, and track supply chain inventory in real time.

Looking ahead, Technisource predicts companies will establish their own internal “apps stores” that give employees password-protected access to software tools and other corporate resources.

IT departments should also prepare to use mobility asset management software to remotely configure and upgrade mobile apps and secure lost or stolen mobile devices by remotely wiping them clean of sensitive data. Finally, network and security admins must prepare for the inevitable: corporate users requesting to use their personal iPhones, Droids and other consumer-friendly smartphones for work purposes.

3. Ascending to the Cloud, One Careful Step at a Time

Companies are slowly but surely moving to some sort of cloud computing model. According to Gartner Group research, 8% of U.S. corporations had implemented a cloud service at the end of 2010, and Gartner expects that number to jump to over 50% by the end of 2012.

A cloud model offers obvious benefits: cheaper pay-as-you-go delivery methods, less operational complexity and fewer, if any, servers to manage.
But a cloud migration is complex, particularly at the enterprise level where data security is paramount.

“You’ll need to develop heightened level of data security for the cloud computing environment, where some, or all, of your critical data resides outside the traditional corporate firewall,” the Technisource report states, adding that cloud-based apps are also not as flexible, providing users with only a simplified menu of configuration and control options.

“Expect some snags when integrating several applications from different vendors into the seamless cloud platform of your dreams,” the report states.
As for return on investment guidance: Technisource writes that initial cloud ROI gain is in the first two years due to a decrease in infrastructure costs, but fee structures should be reviewed in the third year to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

4. The Windows 7 Upgrade Catch-Up

For most businesses, the Great Recession put a hold on any non-essential technology upgrades. But the standard four-year refresh cycles are timing out and hardware and software are getting long in the tooth, to the point where user productivity is sapped and security is at risk.

While users with old PCs obviously need newer and faster hardware, the main driver for upgrades in 2011 is to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7-capable PCs.
“In 2009 only 7% of businesses had adopted Windows 7, or planned to do so over the next 12 months,” the Technisource report states, “but this has skyrocketed to 46 % in 2010.”

But migrating a large installed base of Windows XP machines to Windows 7 is an IT resource drain and a complicated process that includes re-loading user data, applications, drivers, preferences and settings.

By Shane O’Neill from arnnet.com.au

There comes the moment when the local network becomes very slow and they are suspicious of downloading in their network. To ensure the normal use of bandwidth, they need to find out who’s downloading in the network quickly and stop them to make sure everyone can work with efficiency. But many just don’t know how where to get started.

With Capsa Network Analyzer, you can find out the downloading computers within five minutes. Capsa captures all the traffics in the network, going-in and coming-out, and analyzes them to provide you enough statistics of the traffic. To find out who is downloading, we always start from looking into traffic volume of each machine.
Why should we start from traffic volume? That’s because when the downloading is digesting your bandwidth greedily, they will always generate greater traffic volume, not packets but bytes number.

Step1. Run Capsa, using Full Analysis with no filter, and capture traffic for three minutes.
Step2. Highlight IP Explorer -> Local Subnet in Node Explorer window.

Step3. Open the IP Endpoint tab in the Main View.Click Bytes column header to rearrange the list in DESC order.

The IP addresses with the longest bars on the top of the list are the suspects. But we need to eliminate the ones we trust. Then, we locate the machines with their IP addresses and warn them to stop downloading right away. It takes no more than five minutes and really it’s simple, right?

This article focuses on normal downloading, while there is another kind of downloading, Bit Torrent, out there. If you are interested about finding out Bit Torrent downloading in your network, please refer to here.