Chapter 4 - MultiFRAD Software
Frame Relay Setup
The Frame Relay dialog box displays the CIR Measurement Interval in milliseconds, the Management Type and details of that management type, and the number of DLCI’s that are active. The MultiFRAD can detect DLCIs and the Management Type when you are connected to an active frame relay service. So it is important that if you change any frame relay parameters, that the new parameters agree with the way your frame relay service is provisioned.
In the Frame Relay Setup dialog box, you can change the Management Type by choosing one of the three options and then the detail parameters for that option are displayed to the right of the Management Type. For example, in the above dialog box, Annex D is the chosen management type with the Full Status Enquiry Interval [N391] set to 6 down thru Polling Verification Timer [T392] set to 15.
Usually, you will have no need to change the management type because the MultiFRAD will automatically detect the network’s management type at
Occasionally the Management Type parameters can be changed to correct a problem. In these cases making the following changes could alleviate the problem:
1.Change the Link Integrity Verification Timer. This feature sets how often the MultiFRAD verifies that the link is good. Changing the setting from the default value of 10 seconds, to a lower value, i.e.,
5seconds, will increase the frequency of those verifications.
2.Change the Full Status Enquiry Interval to affect how often DCLI Status is updated. This
parameter defines how often the MultiFRAD will send a request for DLCI status information along with the Link Integrity Verification request. The default value is to include such a request every sixth time the link integrity is checked. A value less than every sixth request will allow faster detection of active/inactive DLCIs, but will also produce a slight increase in management overhead.
3.Change the Monitored Events Count and the Error Threshold to affect the MultiFRAD’s sensitivity to errors on the link. Every management frame received by the MultiFRAD is considered an event, and if the link integrity sequence numbers are wrong, for example, it is considered an “errored” event. With the default settings, if Error Threshold is 3 and Monitored Events Count is 4, and 3 out of 4 events are “errored”, then the link is considered to be bad, and the FRAD stops sending on all DLCIs and restarts the initial procedures to activate the link.
4.Change the CIR Measurement Interval to change the time frame in which the FRAD calculates throughput for each DLCI. By default, every 1000 milliseconds (1 second), the MultiFRAD calculates how much information has been sent on each DLCI, and depending on the congestion management option for a DLCI the MultiFRAD may stop sending on that DLCI because it has exceeded its CIR or CIR+Be rating. By changing the CIR Measurement interval, the throughput calculations can be made more or less often.
Note: performance could be compromised if the MultiFRAD is set to calculate throughput too often.
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