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Cutting Through Opinions
Diagnosing Facts
Providing Resolution™
Interpath Technologies Corporation solves a problem that was causing
Great Pain for the CIO of a large national corporation.
Imagine this:
- Two locations.
- Each has the same workstation hardware and images.
- Each is maintained via a patch management system so that they are all at the same build levels.
- Both locations remote to the same Application Server.
- Both locations access the Application Server across the same WAN link.
- Ping times from both locations to the Application Server show identical results.
One accesses the Application in 10 seconds--the other in 4 minutes. Why?
- These tests provide (tentatively) the following working conclusions:
- Same workstation and image--steers away from the PC.
- Same patch level--make the OS less likely to be the cause.
- Same Application Server--makes the Server hardware and OS unlikely.
- Same ping times lets the network off the hook.
What now?
We reviewed the Application architecture and developed a test plan involving multiple protocol analyzers like Sniffer, Ethereal or WireShark, appropriately placed. This was followed by--Single Transaction Analysis--where we took trace files of specific activities from the viewpoint of the test users, Application Server and other critical components--simultaneously.
Results showed the following:
- In many transactions, we could see that there was a great deal of traffic to certain other network resources.
- When this traffic was analyzed it showed that the application required critical files from sources other than the Application Server.
- The ratio of traffic was 4:1, where for every megabyte of traffic between the user and the Application Server, there was 4 megabytes of traffic from other resources--that supported the Application.
- Those other network resources were NOT equally distant from each remote office.
This was the cause of the difference in behavior for the Application between the two remote offices. While they were equally distant (in transport time) from the Application Server, there was a GREAT difference in distance between them to the OTHER network resources required to utilize the Application Server.
These resources were re-architected to allow appropriate access times and the Application performed equally well at all locations.
For more information on this topic, click here. Or, call 215-822-3244 to speak with a Network & Application Performance Analyst.
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