Planning for Network Growth

Add or Upgrade Equipment

you must decide if you want the new port to be a member of the VLAN if it isn’t already. For example, if a node is on Port 1 in VLAN A, and you move the node to Port 6, you may want to include Port 6 in VLAN A.

How the Data is Analyzed

The Network Performance Advisor analyzes historical traffic data for the time period specified to determine which nodes on the network converse. These nodes then are examined to determine if they have conversed frequently with nodes on other segments. The Network Performance Advisor will recommend moving a node to a different segment if: it is not on a desktop switch and the move will reduce network traffic through networking devices that add latency to each packet.

Add or Upgrade Equipment

The Add or Upgrade Equipment Report makes recommendations about which segments can be divided into two or more segments to optimize network performance. If the segment utilization is high, but segment division will not reduce network utilization enough to improve network performance, the report will recommend upgrading each segment to desktop switching or a higher speed shared media. This will result in shorter response times for software applications that are accessed across the network because each node has its own dedicated network segment. The extraneous traffic that each node hears in a shared-media environment is eliminated. Each node can use the full capacity of the network.

If desktop switching is not feasible, an alternate option is to upgrade the shared segment’s speed.

Recommendation Details Section

The Recommendation Details section of the report supplies the supporting information for the recommendations made by the Network Performance Advisor. It include a textual explanation and the “before” and “after” graphical representations of the affected network. The recommendations are in priority order, starting with High Priority.

Dividing Segments into Workgroups

The Network Performance Advisor may determine that network performance can be enhanced by dividing a segment into two or more groups of nodes. The nodes in each group, often called a “workgroup”, converse among themselves most of the time. The workgroups are physically divided using a switch, bridge or router.

A “before division” representation of the network traffic might look like the following figure:

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