Network Traffic Test

This is an internal test that monitors the incoming and outgoing traffic through a host system such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX and HPUX.

Target of the test : A host system

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every network interface of the target host.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Exclude	Provide the network interfaces to be excluded from monitoring, as a comma-separated list.
Is Full Duplex	By default, this flag is set to Yes, indicating that the incoming and outgoing data traffic is handled in full duplex mode. This means that the network interfaces are sending and receiving data at the same time. If the data traffic in your environment is handled in half-duplex mode, set this flag to No. This means that the network interfaces are not sending and receiving data at the same time; in essence, it is a one-way conversation. In this case, the test halves the value of the Incoming traffic and Outgoing traffic measures.
Report By Connection ID	By default, this flag is set to No. This implies that by default, the network interfaces are identified using their names. On the other hand, if you want the test to identify the network interfaces using their connection IDs instead of the names, then set this flag to Yes. Then, the test will identify the network interfaces using the connection IDs and report metrics for every connection ID.
Show Top	By default, this parameter is set to 10 indicating that the test will report detailed diagnosis only for the top -10 applications that used maximum bandwidth while transferring data over every network interface. Using the information displayed by the detailed diagnosis, you can easily find out the non-critical applications (if any) that are using more bandwidth than the business critical applications and take necessary steps to alleviate the issue. However, you can increase or decrease the value of the Show Top parameter depending upon the level of visibility you require.
Event Capture Interval In Secs	This parameter is applicable only when the Trace flag is set to Yes. By default, the value of this parameter is set to 10 seconds. This setting ensures that the test will only capture the incoming/outgoing traffic during the last 10 seconds of the specified measurement period. Administrators can override the default value if they wish to capture the incoming/outgoing traffic for a longer duration.
Trace	By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that detailed diagnosis is not reported by default for the Incoming Traffic and Outgoing Traffic measures of this test. However, administrators can set this flag to Yes, if detailed diagnosis should be reported for this test.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Incoming traffic	Indicates the rate at which data (including framing characters) is received on a network interface.	Mbps	An abnormally high rate of incoming traffic may require additional analysis. The detailed diagnosis of this measure reveals the name of the application, Pid, remote address, and the rate at which the bits are transferred during incoming and outgoing data transmission through a network interface.
Outgoing traffic	Indicates the rate at which data (including framing characters) is sent on a network interface.	Mbps	An abnormally high rate of outgoing traffic may require additional analysis. The detailed diagnosis of this measure reveals the name of the application, Pid, remote address, and the rate at which the bits are transferred during incoming and outgoing data transmission through a network interface.
Max bandwidth	Indicates an estimate of the capacity of a network interface.	Mbps	This measure will not be reported for the ‘Total’ descriptor of this test.
Bandwidth usage	Indicates the percentage of bandwidth used by this network interface.	Percent	By comparing the bandwidth usage with the maximum bandwidth of an interface, an administrator can determine times when the network interface is overloaded or is being a performance bottleneck.
Output queue length	Indicates the length of the output packet queue (in packets).	Number	If this is longer than 2, delays are being experienced and the bottleneck should be found and eliminated if possible.
Outbound packet errors	Indicates the number of outbound packets that could not be transmitted because of errors.	Number	Ideally, number of outbound errors should be 0.
Inbound packet errors	Indicates the number of inbound packets that contained errors preventing them from being deliverable to a higher-layer protocol.	Number	Ideally, number of inbound errors should be 0.
Outbound packet discards	Indicates the number of error-free outbound packets that were discarded by the network interface.	Number	These measures may report a non-zero value when an interface runs short of resources – e.g., NIC buffers.
Inbound packet discards	Indicates the number of error-free inbound packets that were discarded by the network interface.	Number

Note:

If this test is not reporting measures for a server, make sure that you have enabled the SNMP service for that server.