One of the biggest challenges of an NMS application is its ability
to scale huge networks with different type of devices. Scalability
testing helps to determine whether your management application scales
with the workload growth as the managed network grew in numbers
and complexity. Hence, scalability testing forms an essential part
of the entire development and testing process of NMS.
To achieve the goals of scalability testing, a unique test bed
for scalability would need to be built. Inorder to assure that the
NMS could find the 1000s of devices typically installed across a
customer’s enterprise, engineers would need to spend massive
amounts of time and capital to build a hardware lab just for testing
the scalability of the new software.
Simulation Toolkit Solution
Simulation Toolkit's Network Simulator helps to create a virtual
lab populated with devices like routers, switches, printers, workstations,
and more that are managed using the SNMP, Cisco IOS, Telnet, TFTP,
FTP and TL1 protocols. IPv4 or IPv6 Address can be assigned to the devices. In addition to providing hundreds of thousands
of simulated devices for scalability testing, the Network Simulator
can easily record service providers’ networks, bringing that
environment directly to the lab. Not only does Simulation Toolkit
simulate the network, but it also simulates loads of traffic just
like a busy, service provider network.
Specialized functionalities provided by Simulation Toolkit for
testing management application scalability:
Simulation Toolkit's Network Recorder records real customer
networks. The recorded network can be saved and replayed instantly
in the Network Designer, thus enabling the management applications
to be tested in huge customer networks. The ability to capture
information on real networked devices, enables developers and
test engineers to determine the impact of additional hardware
by creating "what if" scenarios using the simulations
and thus support their customers with a higher level of efficiancy.
Integrated Network Designer to create a large network with
multiple devices at the shortest possible time. The Network Simulator's
had demonstrated support for upto 10,000 device simulation on
a Windows platform and 100,000 device simulation on a Linux platform,
providing the opportunity to create network environments that
would be impractical to create in a physical lab environment.
The Network Simulator provides the facility to add devices
in bulk at one shot with unique IPv4 or IPv6 Address and port number
combination. With option to add devices of the same type or different
type of devices at random, you can create the desired network
with ease. The virtual IPv4 or IPv6 Address is dynamically configured in
the system, when starting each agent instance in the network.
The Network Simulator is designed to support any SNMP, Cisco
IOS, Telnet, TFTP, FTP and TL1 managebale devices and lets
the user run a variety of device configurations and scenarios
with the management application. The in-built library of pre-configured
devices like host, printers, cisco routers, cisco switches, pix
firewall etc. can be directly used to create the network.
Bulk Modification of IPv4 or IPv6 Address and port number facilitates
testing the same network configuration with different IPv4 or IPv6 Address
range or with different port numbers.
The Network Simulator is designed to provide enhanced network
performance for large networks. As per the Performance Metric
test taken for 50,000 nodes created for our customer test-bed,
the simulator was successfully started with 50,000 nodes and the
response time of 1804 ms was recorded when 250 nodes were queried
simultaneously by the NMS.
Runtime configurations like start/stop of individual
devices, up/down of device interface, delay responses, addition
of new devices through scripts and RMI enable the management software
to be validated aganist large networks with real-time crtitical
scenarios.
The Network Simulator also demonstrated that it could quickly
respond to dynamic changes in configuration, such as generating
problem notifications. Quick and easy to install and use, WebNMS
Simulation Toolkit provides a scalable, flexible and extensible
network simulation environment and is an ideal tool for simulating
very large networks.
