EE55517 Workshop

Assignment 2.4:
"Wide Area Network Simulation using OPNET"

By Ivan Cheung
 Introduction
This fourth assignment (2.4) is about the simulation of a WAN (Wide Area Network)
with OpNet, something on a scale much larger than the previous assignments
which were simulating the Ethernet LAN and the Wireless LAN. It will be a
demonstration of a WAN example for a company organisation which has six office
sites dotted across Europe, with a particular topology structure.

The objectives are:

• To observe the attributes of the network components
• Research about WAN and the theories behind this company’s network
design, i.e. cabling types, protocols, etc.
• To observe the case study of the performance between 2 particular sites
when there is/isn’t any errors introduced in the communications line.
• To see if the network design and performance can be enhanced
• To see the performance when the company expands by a factor of 3

The aims are:

• Getting familiar with the OpNet network simulation package, from a steep
learning curvedjdjgkd
• Being able to define a network architecture and topology
• Being able to define the network loading
• Being able to run simulations and collect statistics
• Being able to determine the network performance
• Being able to give recommendations for network changes

First of all there will be theoretical descriptions on how a WAN organisation and its
various components function.

Theory on Network Architecture

What is a WAN and how does it compare to the other types?
There are different types of sizes of coverage areas for networks in
communications, ranging from small or regional, through to national and then to
international (large). A WAN is one of these types, which is the largest in terms of
geographical coverage, and can encompass all these other types integrated
together. Let’s differentiate these various types before discussing the main topic.

1) LANs (Local area network) are regional and cover a small geographical area
e.g. home, office or building, or a group of buildings linking all the computers
available so that information can be exchanged easily, which is vital for
organisations such as companies. They can be of any topology, but in the modern
age they are usually of the bus type. The data transfer rate is high, and there is no
need for leased lines, but what is a leased line? It is basically a permanent
telecommunications connection between 2 computers or 2 LANs which is
symmetric (same data rate from A to B as B to A), sometimes known as a ‘private
circuit’. But why doesn’t a LAN use lease lines? Well the structure of current LANs
is based on Ethernet technology, and having a bus or a central access point hence
all the computers aren’t connected to each other using lease lines, otherwise
there’ll be too much wiring. Also lease lines are used by WANs (explained later on)
to connect 2 LANs together, hence a single LAN operating on its own would not
require one.

The interconnect devices (routers) within the network must understand the OSI-
model layer 3 – Network layer, as with most LAN topologies especially the modern
Ethernet ones, they all have to handle multiple subnets. Some of these working
between the PC and the central router are called ‘layer 3 switches’. LAN
architectures (number of cables and hubs) range depending on the number of user
devices/PCs, and the various needs of the network.

Example of a LAN
An example of a LAN is within a library. There will be interconnections between the
PCs and the printers, creating a local network within the library building, and then
this network can connect to the internet as well. The users of the library are able to
share information with each other using the LAN, gain access to the facilities such
as a printer using their current PC, and even take information from the internet.

What cabling does LAN use?

In the past LANs used technologies such as ARCNET (Attached Resource Computer
NETwork) and Token Ring. With ARCNET, initially it used coaxial cables but later
upgraded to twisted-pair. The original ARCNET used the RG-62/U coax. It was of the
star-wired bus topology. With Token Ring, the cabling is mainly the IBM “Type-1”
Shielded twisted Pair with hermaphroditic (genderless) connectors. Disadvantage
of these is that they are quite bulky and quite fragile due to its plastic pieces. The
Token Ring is of the Ring topology of course. Ethernet technology was already
present in the early days but wasn’t as popular as these two due to its original
thick/thin coax cable approaches, and ARCnet was far more feasible (maintaining
and cost) due to its “Interconnected Stars” topology based on the use of ‘active
hubs’ to simplify implementation. Active hubs (multi-port repeaters) are hubs
which have signal amplifiers, and work on the physical layer.

Later on Ethernet adopted the “Interconnected stars” approach, and removing the
need for the thick + thin coax cables, and later became more attractive by the
90s. Therefore LANs gradually abandoned ARCNET and Token Ring, and Ethernet
eventually became the most widely installed LAN in the world.

The Ethernet family of LANs uses coax as well as twisted pair. These are the
specifications:
– The Ethernet and IEEE 802.3 LAN specifications uses coaxial cable which
operates at 10Mbps
– 100-Mbps Ethernet specification (Fast Ethernet) uses twisted pair operating at
100Mbps
– 1000-Mbps Ethernet specification (Gigabit Ethernet) uses twisted pair and
optical fibre operating at 1Gbps.

In the case of the library example described, all the PCs are connected using the Category 5 (Cat 5)
cable, a twisted pair optimised for high signal integrity, running with the IEEE 802.3 protocol.

2) WLANs (Wireless LANs) are LAN architectures with their cabling replaced by wireless links i.e.
radio transceivers involved. It’s about linking two or more computers without wires. The topology of a
basic WLAN is that there is an access point in which acts like the central point (analogy of a Base
Station for mobile phones) for all data transactions to bypass, i.e. star topology. Hence if 2 computers
wanted to communicate the Access Point will be the middle person. That’s the main difference between
WLAN and Wireless PAN (explained later on) is that WPAN interconnects it’s devices in an ad-hoc
fashion, i.e. without an access point.

Examples of WLAN

The most basic configuration will be in a home where only one access point, having a range of tens of
metres, for connecting PCs, laptops and printers, and the access point would be able to uplink to the
internet as well. The coverage of one access point is sufficient for home use, however in an office
building, more access points may be connected by a back bone cable, hence creating a Wireless Ethernet
LAN.

3) PANs (Personnal Area Networks) are networks for personal use, which is used for
communication of personal devices such as telephones, PDAs (Personal Digital
Assistants), and PCs. The objective of a PAN is linking all the electronic equipment
surrounding a person (intrapersonal connectivity) wirelessly. Therefore the size is
small and reaches about a few metres. PANs can also connect/uplink to ‘higher
level’ networks such as the internet.

Example of PAN
An example of a Wireless PAN is the Bluetooth piconet, which is a Wireless PAN
capable of having up to 8 devices communicating in a master-slave fashion.

What cabling does PAN use?

PANs can be wired up using buses used for computers such as USB and Firewire

4) MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks) are larger computer networks ranging

from covering say several blocks of buildings, to entire cities. They can also be
referred to as inter-networking of LANs. These can span up to 50km, according to
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_area_network). They are
larger than LANs, but smaller than WANs (described later on) in most cases.

An example of a MAN
An example described in Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_area_network ) is the DQDB (Distributed
Queue Dual Bus) which is a MAN for data communication working on the IEEE
802.6 standard. This enables networks to be 30 miles long at speeds of 34 to
155Mbps.

What cabling does MAN use?

Typical MANs use wireless infrastructures or optical fibres for linking say LANs
together.

5) CANs (Campus Area Networks) are networks interconnecting LANs within a

certain geographical area, hence it can be considered to be one type of MAN, but
configured to a specific setting, for academic purposes. A good example will be the
case of a university campus area network, where the LANs for each of the buildings
(library, halls of residence, department buildings) will be linked, and the network
for the whole university is a CAN.

6) A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a network which covers a broad area,

which will encompass the interlinking of MANs and LANs, covering regional to
national sizes. Again like the LAN and the MAN, it consists of routers and cabling
links, but only on a larger scale. The reason for interlinking LANs and other types of
networks is to let users who are very far apart (from different LANs) to
communicate.

Image from wally.cs.iupui.edu/n241-new/webMag/index.html

Examples of WAN
Many WANs The largest example of a WAN is the Internet, for public use. Usually
WANs are built for individual organisations, who can own 1 or more of these for private
use. In other cases, organisations using LANs can be connected to the Internet using
WANs built by Internet Service providers (ISPs).

Leased lines are used to construct many WANs. To connect a LAN using one lease line,
one end is connected to a router which connects to the LAN, and the other end to a hub
which is within the WAN.
To reduce the cabling, WANs can be built using less costly circuit or packet switching
methods. TCP/IP will be the data addressing and transporting mechanism. The protocols
usually used in WAN are ATM, MPLS, Packet over SONET/SDH, and Frame Relay.

Comparisons of the Data-rates/Bandwidths of these

types

The common parameter to distinguish between all these network types is the data-
rate or bandwidth. The WAN has the highest data-rate, using Gigabit Ethernet or
fibre optics, ranging from 1 to 40Gbps transmission. LAN has the next highest,
using 10/100 Mbps Ehernet.
WLANs use the IEEE 802.11 a/b/g standards and achieve from 2 to 54 Mbps.
PAN is lower than these two since most PANs are defined as Wireless PANs and the
data-rate is low such as Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15). Having said so, wireless
technologies have improved the bandwidth, and technologies such as UWB (Ultra
Wide Band) enable even PANs to have very high data-rate.

Definitions of some network components

Here are some brief definitions of the components that make up the WAN in this
assignment

What is a Backup server

The Backup server helps a network backup all the important files
(containing information on status’ of all the nodes) into one single
compressed file and stored in the headquarter node. After installing the
server, it can be configured to backup important files as many times as
the installer wants.

Brief about 10/100/1000 BaseT cables

10 means the cable is operating at 10Mbps, 100 means100 Mbps,
1000 means 1GBps, Base means at baseband frequency, T means
Ethernet over Twisted pair. It is a type of copper based networking.
Higher speed ones support lower speeds.

Brief Facts about PPP DS3

PPP stands for Point to Point Protocol, working on the data link layer
used for establishing a link between 2 nodes over cable and wireless
medium e.g. serial, phone line, cellular phone. It is used to establish
connections over symmetrical and unsymmetrical circuits. DS3 stands
for Digital Signal 3 T-Carrier. T-Carrier is a type of designator for
multiplexing digital signals in a communications line.

Breif definition of Network Workload, sourced from

http://www.hipc.org/hipc2006/posters/NWorkload_modeling.pdf:
“Within the confines of a network, workload is
the amount of work assigned to, or done by, a
client, workgroup, server, or inter network in a
given time period. Therefore, workload
characterization is the science that observes.”

Tasks
Initial tutorial steps for getting started

These were the steps of the instructions given in the assignment for setting up the
project, steps for going through procedures that will help answer the 4 questions in
the next section.

Steps 1 and 2
In this assignment the project to be opened up will be MScWAN, copied over from
the R: drive to the H: drive
But actually the project wan_msc_project was opened up first (under the old
scenario folder), which shows only the Europe area, whereas the new project
shows the whole world map.

Step 3

This network of an example company is uploaded:

The company here has sites in different cities in Europe, all inter-linked in this WAN
example. The red octagons for each city represent small sub-networks, each with a
collection of computers and a server. This is the ‘parent subnet’ containing all the
individual city sites’ subnets. It can be seen that there are 2 icons on the top left
corner, those will provide information into what the network nodes will do during
simulation, how they will perform.

Steps 4
This step is to show that using the mouse and right-clicking, the properties of the
objects within the window can be observed. With every object, whether it be a

node an icon or just a connection line between nodes they can be right
clicked which will always show a menu, which will have ‘edit attributes’ as the first
item. This is an example of the node when clicked:

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF ‘PROFILE’ ICON IN PARENT SUBNET

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF ‘APPLICATIONS’ ICON IN PARENT SUBNET
OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN LONDON AND LISBON

If model of the cable (at the moment PPP DS3) is double clicked, it can show the
different types of cabling available:
OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN LONDON AND GENEVA

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN LONDON AND

FRANKFURT

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN LONDON AND VIENNA

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN LISBON AND
FRANKFURT

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN FRANKFURT AND

VIENNA

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN VIENNA AND

BRATISLAVA

OBSERVING ATTRIBUTES OF INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN BRATISLAVA AND

GENEVA
Step5
OBSERVING THE SUBNODES FOR LONDON HQ AND LISBON
Here the nodes for these 2 cities are zoomed in and the attributes for their
individual components observed, for London:

NOT FINISHED

For Lisbon:
OBSERVING LISBON’S MEAN TIME TO FAILURE (MTTF) AND MEAN TIME TO REPAIR
(MTTR)

This icon was right-clicked to view its results

There is an option in ‘Link Failure/Recovery Specification’ to choose whether to
have errors introduced or none.

If so, there’s a choice whether to have 1 or 2 rows to specify how much time the
line should fail with respect to how much time it will recover. Usually 2 is chosen
because the time to fail and the time to recover can be specified before starting a
simulation.

For both Row 0 and 1

the name should be
Lisbon<-> London
HQ due to the fact this
is Lisbon’s
MTTF&MTTR being
observed here.
 Time can be varied in
the ‘Time(seconds)’
and whether it will be
a fail or recover can be
specified in ‘Status’ so
usually Row 0 will be
‘Fail’ and Row 1
‘Recover’. It can be
switched around.

So this is how errors can be introduced for simulation of a network, by giving time
intervals of when a link will be down and when it is alive

Step 6
This just shows how to zoom in and out from child subnet to parent subnet, using

this button on the toolbar.

Step 7
This step shows how to view the Profile details of the network. From the parent

subnet there is this icon . When right clicked to view it’s attributes, it
shows the 2 profiles defined for all the sub-networks. These happen to be
‘Database User’ and ‘Backup User’
 By selecting ‘edit’ from
‘Profile Configurations’ the
properties for the 2 profiles
can be seen.

Step 8
This step is to show how to simulate the Lisbon <-> London HQ Link with/without
failures introduced.
For this the attributes of Lisbon’s MTTF and MTTR had to be changed:
No failures:
Double checking for ‘No Failure/Recovery’

Run is initiated, for 5 mins.

Step 9
This step is about viewing the results for the simulation of Lisbon<->London
without failures introduced. As can be seen the global statistics of DB Entry, DB
Query are needed, and the Object statistics of Lisbon <-> London HQ are needed

Step 10
This step is about configuring the attributes of the MTTF and MTTR of Lisbon so
that a minute the link between Lisbon and London is dead, and a minute after it is
recovered.
 ‘Link Failure/Recovery
Specification’ edited to 2
rows for time to failure
and time to recovery
shown below.

Step 11
This step is to investigate what happens when the company expands with 3 times
more computers, i.e. each subnet has not got 10, but 30 computers now.

To change the number of workstations, the individual sites’ icon was right clicked
to change the attributes of each subnetwork’s network, and “Number of
workstations” was found to be 10, this was altered to 30:
There were no failures introduced to the Lisbon/ London link

Run was initiated, and results collected. Remember the graphs of Steps 10 and 11
will be shown in the next section, and will be discussed.

Answering the 4 qs

1. Describe the network topology given, in terms of the connectivity between the
different sub-networks. Why is the London site called the headquarters of the
company?

What is a headquarter?

What features of the London Site make it a Headquarter?

TOPOLOGY:
Well first of all the London HQ site is situated in the most central point in the
network topology.
This is the structure of the entire network’s topology:
 London HQ

Lisbon Geneva

Frankfurt Bratislava

Vienna

This topology is of the partial mesh type. The London HQ is connected to all the
other nodes except the Bratislava node. The fact that London has access to nearly
every node means that it has the main database of the company, and is capable of
being updated by all the other nodes’ progress in the contribution to the company.
The headquarters makes the main decisions to the company and keeps all the
other nodes updated.

For each of the nodes, they can send/get the information of their neighbours easily
as there is a direct connection between them. However if they wanted to find out
about cities further away then they have to bypass the Headquarter node first, e.g.
if Lisbon wanted to send information to Geneva, then it would send to London first,
which will then forward it to Geneva. The worst case situation here would be if
information was to be sent/requested to Bratislava. It would have to go through
London first, then either to Geneva or Vienna (whichever is the fastest path), which
will then be forwarded to Bratislava. Hence these nodes act as transceivers as well
as forward mechanisms.

Each site, when double clicked, will zoom in and show their own infrastructure.
Taking the London example, it can be seen that these sites bear its own computer
sub network as well, which is connected to a router, which is responsible for
connecting to the outside world. In the London HQ example the router is just like in
the other sites, except that this is the entire company network’s central router, and
very important for this network to function:
COMPARING THE COMPONENTS OF THE LONDON SITE WITH THE OTHERS:
1) Lisbon

2) Frankfurt
3) Vienna

4) Geneva

5) Bratislava

It seems like they look the same, except Lisbon has its MTTF and MTTR icon (used
for question 3).

INVESTIGATING THE ATTRIBUTES OF ALL THE CITIES:

Apart from the x and y positions, these properties are identical for all the cities:
– Priority
– User id
– X and y span
– Threshold
– map
– Icon name
– Outline colour
– Attribute promotion
– Doc file
– Minimized icon
– Creation source
– Creation timestamp
– Creation data
– Label colour

However comparing the attributes of each city’s individual network attributes,

, London HQ’s LAN LAN Server name was found to be ‘DB Backup
Server’, whilst the other cities are just called ‘Auto Assigned’:

Hence this is another configuration to make London the Headquarters. The word
DB Backup Server means it is a Database and Backup server, using the 2 profiles
shown in Step 7, which are Database User and Backup user.
FINDING OUT THE WORKLOAD DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EACH CITY:

Now the workload on the headquarter node during simulation should be higher
than the rest.
From Step 3 of the assignment in mentions that from the main parent subnet
showing all the sites of this company there are 2 icons on the top left corner,
Applications and Profiles. These define what the nodes do during simulation, what
each workload is.

Now to find out the workload, the parent subnet was loaded up again, showing
‘Applications’ and ‘Profiles’ on the top left corner:

It states in Step 3 that these two icons define what the networks nodes do during
simulation, measuring the workload.
Now looking into the attributes of the Applications and the Profiles icons;
In the Application
Definitions section
under rows 0 and 1, the
Database Access has a
high load, and the File
transfer protocol has a
high load as well
 Here shows that the
Database user and
Backup user profiles are
used

2.
How efficient is the current topology in terms of speed between the
links?
At the moment the fact that it is a partial mesh topology shows that it is not the
optimal design. Observing the interconnecting of the nodes:
This is a partial mesh. If Bratislava was connected to London HQ then this will be a
mesh, an improvement to the topology which will improve the speeds. The
arrangement of which city should be connected to which is another factor as well
e.g. connecting Lisbon to Geneva instead do Frankfurt will improve efficiency as
the distance is shorter.

In terms of speed between the links, when the links themselves were right clicked,
and these were the attributes shown. As can be seen, there is NO ‘Intensity’
(speed) selected here for this example of London to Geneva. The same applies to
any link in the topology. This shows that there’s no speed improvement profiles
used in the links, just the default available speed in the PPP DS3 cables.
Could the performance of the network be increased? Describe how and
justify

To increase the performance by altering the topology:

The obvious possible enhancement is to link London with Bratislava, but apart from
that, the mesh topology can be re-arranged in terms of which city should be
connected to which, shown in ‘Possible Improvement 1’ below (ignore the previous
lines). Another improvement which can certainly save the storage space for the
headquarter database, is to have 2 headquarters. Two sub-WANs consisting of 2
cities and a headquarter joined up by a lease line, shown in ‘Possible Improvement
2’. Here Geneva is made a headquarter, and pairing up with London would mean
that the load is shared between them and that would mean improving on the load
handling efficiency.

Possible Improvement 1
Possible Improvement 2 – Geneva as headquarter as well i.e. there are 2
headquarters.

To increase the performance by altering the speed of each link:

Another answer will be to go into the attributes of all the links in this network and
select an intensity for them. Any intensity shown here will be better than selecting
‘NONE’:

As shown here, the profile which has the most intensity (fastest speed) will be
T3_1hour_bps, which can go up to 45 Mbps, hence selecting this speed will mean
that the links will operate at their top speed.
Combining this with the improved topology should enhance the efficiency.

3. Display the results you have gathered for the London HQ – Lisbon link
for
both the 'failures' and 'non-failures' simulations. Describe your findings
using
the collected statistical results.

Non-Failures
Global Statistics
Viewing results for DB Entry:
Viewing results for DB Query:

FTP
Object Statistics
London HQ <-> Lisbon [0]
Failure introduced- 1 minute fail, 1 minute recover:

After simulating,
Global Statistics
DB Entry - Empty

DB Query

FTP
Object Statisitcs
London HQ <-> Lisbon[0]
Describing the findings

Comparing the Global Statistics with the Non Failures with Failures
simulations
First of all in both simulations, all the DB Entry statistics show no results. That’s
because there is no new data entered to the London headquarters database about
any new network linking changes.

For DB Query, there’s not much difference between the failure and non-failure
sims.

For FTP, the average download response time graph differs slightly, as with the
no failures sim, the response rises steeply and becomes level to a point of
saturation, and almost remains constant. With the failures sim, it rises not so
steeply but to the point of saturation it doesn’t remain as constant as the previous
sim. This is because without the failures introduced, the network link protocols can
decide better when to respond, and hence the response time is cleaner. With the
on and off times of the link at 60 second intervals, the protocols get shut on and
off, and are confused with the situation

This applies to the following graphs in the FTP statistics, as the in sent/received
and upload response times of the failures sims, there seems to be small degrees
of uncertainty, compared to the non failures which have smoother curves.

Comparing the Object Statistics with the Non Failures with Failures
simulations

The Object statistics include: point-point queuing delay, point-point throughput,

and point-point utilization. The point-point throughput (packets and bits per
sec going from London-> Lisbon), point-point utilization, and the point-
point queuing delay (London -> Lisbon) for both graphs are almost identical,
however the outstanding graphs are drastically different.

With the point-point queuing delay (Lisbon-> London), there’s clear evidence that
with the expanded network, there is more queuing as the value stays above the
0.000020 whereas in the original network, it roughly stays below the 0.000010
point.

With the point-point throughput (Lisbon->London), the value in the non failures
sim spikes up to the 20,000 mark and gradually decreasing, indicating a huge
amount of throughput. The value in the failures sim rises from 0 very slowly and
gradually hitting the 5000 mark, indicating there is much traffic due to the delay of
the frequent dead link occurrences. Now the other graph of throughput from
London to Lisbon has no difference, because the failures introduced only affect
Lisbon’s transmissions to London, not the other way round.

4. Display the global statistics results you have gathered for both the
original
topology and the expanded one. Compare your findings.

Note this is a simulation without failures introduced.

Original Network
Viewing results for DB Query:

FTP
Expanded network ( 3 times more computers in every sub-network i.e. 30
instead of 10)
DB Query

FTP
This is the global statistics comparisons between original topology and
expanded one
Original Expanded
DB Entry - -
DB Query 1) response time remaining 1) response time rising rapidly
roughly around 0.10 mark above 2.5 mark, and then
2) traffic received value rises exponentially falling to zero
slowly in a nearly constant 2) traffic received value rises
gradient, reaching 100, 000 in much faster but in constant
the end. gradient which is higher than the
3) traffic sent value behaviour original network’s sim graph,
similar to traffic received. reaching 300,000 in the end.
3) traffic sent value behaviour
similar to traffic received.
FTP 1) Download response time 1) Download response time rises
rises steeply to 0.20 mark and less steeply to value 4 and then
roughly remains in this value exponentially decreases to 1
2) traffic received rises to 2) traffic received rises to 60,000
20,000 and then exponentially and then exponentially decreases
decreases to 10,000 to 40,000.
3) traffic sent value behaviour 3) traffic sent value behaviour
similar to traffic received. similar to traffic received.
4) Upload response time rises to 4) Download response time rises
0.20 mark and roughly remains less steeply to value 4 and then
there. exponentially decreases to 1

How can you tell from the statistical results that there is a growth for the
expanded topology
when compared to the original topology?

The DB Query response time, the FTP traffic sent/received, the FTP
upload/download response time seems to be higher in the expanded network, and
this is all because of more computers sending data creating traffic and delay

Conclusions
The comparisons of the simulations of ; no failure/failure, original/expanded
network proved that 2 factors, which can work together to slow networks down
are; network size, and link failure frequency. The more frequent or longer lasting
the dead time for a link, the less workload the link can provide to the nodes, and
more delays introduced. The larger the network, the more traffic congestion made
by the simultaneous communications of each nodes’ computers all sending
packets, which are awaiting their destination.

This fourth assignment shows how a global network such as a WAN can be
simulated using. During the conduction of this third assignment using this powerful
software, there was more steep learning of the software, and the objectives met
were:
 • There was more understanding on the various network components
• More research done about WAN theories
• There was more understanding on what sort of errors may occur in a link
between subnets
• More understanding on how a network design and performance could be
enhanced
• To see how maintenance of networks is constant for an ever growing
network.

References
http://www.highfrequencyelectronics.com/Archives/Mar04/HFE0304_Tutorial.pdf 
http://www.hipc.org/hipc2006/posters/NWorkload_modeling.pdf
http://www.spamlaws.com/backupserver.html
wally.cs.iupui.edu/n241-new/webMag/index.html

www.wikipedia.org