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- Newsgroups: comp.dcom.sys.cisco
- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!boulder!recnews
- From: dana@taurus.cray.com (Dana J. Dawson)
- Subject: Re: X.25 line utilization???
- In-Reply-To: <CMM.0.90.2.715033652.quadri@last-call.cisco.com>; from "Pasha Quadri" at Aug 28, 92 1:27 pm
- Message-ID: <9208282128.AA10330@taurus.cray.com>
- Sender: news@colorado.edu
- Date: 28 Aug 92 16:28:09 CDT
- X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11b-CRI]
- Lines: 84
-
- > Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 13:27:32 PDT
- > From: Pasha Quadri <quadri@last-call.cisco.com>
- > To: exubho@exu.ericsson.se
- > Cc: cisco@spot.colorado.edu
- > Subject: Re: X.25 line utilization???
- >
- > >
- > > Hi,
- > >
- > > I have some statistics I have been gathering from one of my packet
- > > switch nodes within my company's private X.25 network. I have been
- > > monitoring the incoming and outgoing bit/sec data rates between
- > > Richardson Texas and Stockholm Sweden.
- > >
- > > We have a full duplex communications link capable of 112
- > > kilobits/sec of data throughput. We have recently gotten into a
- > > quarrel over what the utilization of the link is.
- > >
- > > Here is the scenario. My statistics tell me that I have the
- > > following:
- > >
- > > 40,000 bits/sec input data rate
- > > 60,000 bits/sec output data rate
- > >
- > > I think that the utilization of our line during this time (expressed
- > > as a percentage) is ((40,000 + 60,000)/112000) * 100%
- > >
- > > while some others here think that the utilization of our line
- > > (expressed as a percentage) is gotten by taking the higher of the
- > > two data rate figures and dividing that by the maximum data rate, or
- > > (60,000/112000)*100%.
- > >
- > > Does anyone have any input on which is the right way to express the
- > > utilization of our link? Any input would be appreciated.
- > >
- > > Blake Holman
- > > Ericsson Network Systems, Inc.
- > > Richardson, Texas
- > > (214) 997-6784
- > >
- >
- >
- > Hello Blake,
- >
- > Since serial lines are full duplex dividing by the bandwidth of the link
- > will just not work. Hence greater of either input OR output bytes, bits, or
- > packets per second be taken and divided by the BW of the link.
- >
- > One of our Engineers had written an article on this and a formula for
- > average utilization was :
- >
- > average utilization = [(bytes-input OR bytes-output) * 8] / ifSpeed
- >
- > The OR above denotes a case where you should take the larger
- > of the input and output values to divide by the bandwidth (ifSpeed) to
- > determine the true link utilization.
- >
- > Hope this helps.
- >
- >
- > Regards
- >
- > Pasha Quadri
- > cisco Cust.Engg
-
- I agree with Blake (except that I think the two rates should be averaged
- instead of simply summed), and think a combination of the input and output
- is appropriate. Since the traffic in the two directions is mostly
- independent, you could argue that full utilization in one direction and
- zero utilization in the other (as an extreme end condition) would
- represent only half of the total traffic that could be traversing the
- line. As a real world example, a large ftp session could easily
- consume the bulk of the available bandwidth in one direction, but
- would still allow another large ftp transfer to take place in the
- other direction. To me, saying that a line is being utilized at 100%
- of capacity means that no more traffic will fit. That is not the
- case when one bases such utilization numbers on just the larger of
- the IN/OUT traffic. This may not be the most mathematical approach
- to this problem, but most users (and bosses) don't care about technically
- correct statistics - they want numbers that make sense, and that give
- a real measure of how much of what they're paying for is actually
- getting used.
-
- Dana
-