Referencing is a technique used by network administrators to evaluate network performance. Baseline data is collected periodically and used as a reference during real-time monitoring. It is often confused with performance management, but is used in many aspects of network management. Poorly constructed baselines can lead to inaccurate measurements. Once data is collected, it needs to be monitored and evaluated to plan for network growth and identify problem areas. Reports can be generated periodically or baselines can be continuously evaluated in real time with alerts for immediate problem notification.
Referencing is a technique used by computer network administrators for analyzing data accumulated over a certain period of time. Basic data is collected periodically so that network performance can be properly evaluated. The data collections are then used as a reference during real-time monitoring and evaluation. While the concept may seem simple, it is more like an iceberg, where greater complexity exists beneath the surface.
It can be easy to confuse the reference with other network management and assessment techniques. It can often be confused with performance management, which is used more for ongoing planning. Because performance management is an ongoing process, use baseline data collection as a guideline. It is the trends that appear over time, analyzing the baselines, that are used in performance management for proper decision making when considering possible network changes. The truth is that the data in baselines is also used in many other aspects of network management beyond performance management, including service level analysis and fault tolerance assessments.
A common mistake can be made by network administrators who feel that the technique takes too much time. In a poorly constructed baseline, the data collection can be too generalized, which cannot provide an accurate resource from which to measure the measurement. Without a detailed enough focus, it becomes difficult to narrow down problem areas that need improvement. Simply counting a series of averages asking how fast the network was each week doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Once you’ve done some planning, you need to collect the actual metrics. Depending on the extent of the baseline or its overall goal, different data can be collected and will most likely consume a large amount of storage space in a short time. In the case of a performance management assessment, for example, the data might include the latency and bandwidth used on a particular backbone router or set of branch routers. The measurements then provide baselines that can be used to plan for network growth. The size of the data collected on disk can also become very large when you consider the accumulation of a few kilobits of information every few minutes over the course of weeks across multiple devices and interfaces.
After all data has been collected and organized, it needs to be monitored and evaluated. In some situations where benchmarking is used for things like capacity planning, reports are generated periodically by comparing historical data against a measurement period. Such reports can provide a clear view of when and where updates to the network should occur. It is also possible to have baselines continuously evaluated in real time and receive alerts when a predefined threshold is exceeded. In these cases, a network administrator can be notified immediately of a problem occurring at a particular point in the network.
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