Optimizing Applications on Cisco Networks

Optimizing Applications on Cisco Networks

by Mike Hicks
Released November 2004
Publisher(s): Cisco Press
ISBN: 9781587051531

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Book description

Maximize the performance and availability of network applications and the network infrastructure with application performance management

  • Understand how to identify applications critical to your business model

  • Identify basic application characteristics and how they can be optimized for transmission

  • Understand the principle of proactive planning in order to maintain the delivery criteria necessary for your business critical applications

  • Improve service delivery and outsourcing decisions by utilizing meaningful SLAs

  • Identify and solve network application performance problems, saving valuable time and money

  • Includes real-world case studies that cover design and performance issues

    • The astounding growth of computer networking in recent years has been characterized by the struggle of network managers to keep pace with the demand for network resources. As more and more users, running more and more applications, demand increased network bandwidth and performance, network managers find themselves adding expensive capacity in an effort to satisfy the needs of their customers. Yet networks remain congested, and applications continue to run slowly. Moreover, new aggressive applications, an ever expanding set of business stakeholders, and demands for greater reliability and security compound this struggle.

    Optimizing Applications on Cisco Networks takes a practical look at how application performance management can assist in the end-to-end application delivery model by proactively identifying hot spots within an organization. This book covers network dependent application delivery, with an emphasis on optimizing the underlying infrastructure, procedures, and methodologies to aid and measure delivery. The book also covers applications, delivery techniques, and QoS protocols.

    Use Optimizing Applications on Cisco Networks to identify and profile business critical applications, define and establish service-level criteria, and ensure that these system configurations are continually assessed to maintain the desired level of service.

    This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press¿ which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.

    Table of contents

    1. Copyright
      1. Dedications
    2. About the Author
      1. About the Technical Reviewers
    3. Acknowledgments
    4. Icons Used in This Book
      1. Command Syntax Conventions
    5. Introduction
      1. Approach
      2. Who Should Read This Book
      3. How This Book Is Organized
    6. I. A Comprehensive Approach to Managing Networked Business Applications
      1. 1. The Case for Application Performance Management
        1. Why Application Performance Is Important
          1. Managing an End-to-End System
          2. Isolating Performance Problems
          3. Sharing Information in a Common Format
          4. Establishing and Monitoring Service Level Agreements
        2. A Life Cycle Approach to Managing Networked Applications
          1. Enterprise APM Needs
          2. Establishing an APM Strategy
          3. Areas of Responsibility
          4. Implementation Triggers
            1. Application Performance Troubleshooting/Analysis
            2. Application Assessments
            3. Predictive Performance Analysis
        3. The Benefits to the Enterprise
        4. Summary
        5. End Note
    7. II. Aligning the Network’s Business and Technical Requirements
      1. 2. Understanding Your Business
        1. Defining Your Business-Critical Applications
        2. Determining Total Cost of Ownership
        3. Defining Your Requirements
        4. Prioritizing Your Applications
        5. Business and Technical Alignment Methodology
        6. Summary
      2. 3. Detailing the Business Transaction
        1. Understanding Profiling Terminology
          1. Latency
          2. Bandwidth
          3. Jitter
          4. Application (or TCP) Turns
          5. Protocol/Network Analyzer
          6. Advanced Protocol Analyzer
          7. Application Analyzer
          8. Conversation
          9. Flow
          10. Application Task or Transaction
          11. Cisco Service Assurance Agent
          12. Probe
          13. Agent
          14. Application Thread
        2. Classifying Applications
          1. Latency-Bounded Applications
          2. Bandwidth-Bounded Applications
        3. Profiling Methodology
          1. Define Base Transaction
          2. Determine Application Status
          3. Build Baseline Environment
          4. Characterize Application
          5. Simulate/Model the Effects of Users Traffic
          6. View the Results
        4. Baseline Overview
          1. The Value of a Baseline
          2. Producing a Baseline
            1. Compile a Hardware, Software, and Configuration Inventory
            2. Verify That the SNMP MIB Is Supported in the Devices
            3. Poll and Record Specific SNMP MIB Objects from the Device
            4. Collect Application Data
            5. Analyze Data to Determine Thresholds
        5. The New Application
          1. Virtual-Environment Modeling Methods
          2. Assessing New Application Impact Example
        6. The Deployed Application
          1. Comparing Lab Versus Production Environment for Capturing Data
          2. Locating Capture Points
        7. Optimizing the Application
          1. Optimizing the Latency-Bounded Application
          2. Optimizing the Bandwidth-Bounded Application
            1. Physically Reducing the Amount of Data on All or Part of the Wire
            2. Reducing Unnecessary Interactions by Reducing the Number of Extraneous Calls
            3. Reducing Window Size
            4. Increasing the Capacity
            5. Relocating the Servers to Centralized Sites
        8. Verifying Application Delivery
          1. Identifying the Metrics
          2. Considering the Time Period
          3. Monitoring the Metrics
          4. Amalgamating the Findings
        9. Summary
        10. End Note
        11. References Used in This Chapter
      3. 4. Service Level Management
        1. Defining SLAs
          1. Constructing an SLA
          2. Importance and Limitations of SLAs
        2. Assessing Your Requirements
          1. Business Criteria
          2. Technical Criteria
            1. Identifying Key Data Collection Points
            2. Collecting Data
            3. Measuring Methods
          3. Cisco NetFlow Example
        3. Profiling Case Study
        4. Defining What to Monitor
        5. Summary
      4. 5. QoS and MPLS: Tools to Manage Application Performance
        1. Background
        2. Allocating Network Resources
        3. Traffic-Handling Mechanisms
          1. Queuing Algorithms
          2. Routing Protocols
        4. Provisioning and Configuration Mechanisms
        5. MPLS
        6. Traffic Engineering
        7. Queuing Mechanisms
          1. FIFO
          2. Work-Conserving Queuing Mechanisms
            1. Priority Queuing
            2. Custom Queuing
            3. Flow-Based Weighted Fair Queuing
            4. Class-Based Weighted Fair Queuing
            5. Low-Latency Queuing
          3. Non-Work–Conserving Queuing Mechanisms
        8. Integrated Services
        9. Resource Reservation Protocol
        10. Differentiated Services
        11. Summary
        12. End Notes
        13. References Used in This Chapter
    8. III. Deploying and Monitoring Network Applications
      1. 6. Application Deployment
        1. Baselining Your Infrastructure
        2. Allocating Quality of Service Resources
          1. Understanding Policy Management Architecture
          2. Sharing Responsibility with Policy Domains
        3. The Pilot
        4. Verification Process
        5. Predictive Modeling
        6. Big Bang vs. Staged Rollout
        7. Building a Contingency Plan
          1. Acquiring the Technical Criteria
          2. Deciding on the Business Criteria
          3. Building a Disaster Recovery Plan
        8. Reporting
        9. Summary
        10. End Note
        11. Reference Used in This Chapter
      2. 7. Beyond the Boundaries
        1. Business Requirements Overview
        2. Assessing Demarcation Points
        3. Recognizing Your Limits
        4. Meeting Service Needs
        5. Assigning the Correct QoS System
        6. Summary
        7. End Note
        8. References Used in This Chapter
      3. 8. Monitoring the Delivery
        1. The Pyramid Model
        2. Classifying Management Systems
          1. OSS
          2. Clarifying Network Management Classification Terms
          3. Classifying Management Systems by Function
            1. Fault Management
            2. Configuration Management
            3. Accounting Management
            4. Performance Management
            5. Security Management
          4. Element Management
            1. Telnet
            2. SNMP
            3. Remote Monitoring
            4. Syslog
            5. Cisco Discovery Protocol
          5. Operations Management
          6. Service Management
          7. Business Management
        3. Operating Multiple Systems
        4. Defining Metrics
          1. Choosing the Right Number of Metrics
          2. Balance Metrics Between Business and Technical Objectives
            1. Gathering Network Baseline Data
            2. Availability
            3. Response Time
            4. Utilization
        5. Collecting Metrics
          1. Data-Collection Methods
            1. Collecting Data with Telnet
            2. Collecting Data with SNMP
          2. Deciding What Data to Poll
            1. Monitor Polling
            2. Threshold Polling
            3. Performance Polling
            4. NetFlow Data
        6. Reporting Mechanism
        7. The Delivery Circle
        8. Summary
        9. End Note
        10. References Used in This Chapter
    9. IV. Planning and Troubleshooting Network Applications
      1. 9. Proactive Planning
        1. Baselining Performance Levels
        2. The Dynamic Enterprise
        3. Diagnosing Problems
        4. Validating Changes
        5. Enabling Technologies
        6. Scenario Modeling
        7. Capacity Planning
        8. Reviewing SLAs
        9. End-to-End Delivery
          1. Starting Points to Building an End-to-End View
          2. Monitoring the End-to-End System
        10. Summary
        11. Reference Used in This Chapter
      2. 10. When Applications Fail
        1. QoS Troubleshooting Tools
          1. Network Monitoring
          2. Application Monitoring
        2. Diagnostic Tools
          1. CLI Tools
            1. SAA
            2. MIB
            3. show Commands
            4. debug Commands
            5. Data Analyzers
          2. GUI Tools
            1. QPM
            2. 24. × 7 Application Monitoring
        3. Troubleshooting Methodology
          1. Step 1: Define the Problem
          2. Step 2: Gather the Facts
          3. Step 3: Assess the Data
          4. Step 4: Make a Plan
          5. Step 5: Implement the Plan
          6. Step 6: Observe the Results
        4. Identifying Responsibility
          1. Fault Processing
          2. Reporting Hierarchy
          3. CNS Delay Reporting
        5. Resolving Performance Problems
          1. Transaction- or Task-Oriented Applications
          2. Interactive and Multimedia Applications
          3. Application Architecture
            1. Where to Capture the Trace
            2. How Many Traces to Capture
            3. When to Capture Traffic Information
            4. Capturing Traces on a Busy Network
          4. Fault-Conditions Guide
        6. Redefining Delivery Requirements
        7. Redefining Service Level Criteria
        8. Summary
        9. End Note
        10. References Used in This Chapter
    10. V. Practical Implementations
      1. 11. Business Aligning Case Studies
        1. Case Study 1: Profiling the Business Transaction
          1. Defining Base Transaction
            1. Categorizing Business Transactions
            2. Applying Transactions’ Business Values
          2. Capturing a Trace
            1. Where to Capture Traces
            2. When to Capture a Trace
            3. Cleaning the Trace
            4. Reviewing the Trace
          3. Merging Existing Network Statistics with This Application Transaction
            1. Overall Transaction Time
            2. Transaction Conversation Involves Two Servers
            3. Nature of the Transaction Flow
            4. Average Bytes per Frame
            5. Application Turns
            6. Port Numbers
            7. Specific Repeatable Queries
            8. Total Amount of Data Transferred
        2. Case Study 2: Defining SLAs
          1. Defining the Location of Metric Collection Points
          2. Defining Transaction Targets
          3. Collecting the Data
            1. Load Threshold
            2. Dropped or Lost Frames
            3. Latency
            4. Server/Client Processing Time
        3. Case Study 3: Optimizing the Business Transaction
          1. Checking Window Size
          2. Checking for Retransmissions
          3. Checking Application Architecture
          4. Checking Queries
          5. Verifying Performance Increase
          6. Deploying Changes and Updating SLA
        4. Case Study 4: Implementing QoS in a VoIP Environment
        5. Summary
        6. Reference Used in This Chapter
      2. 12. Optimizing Application Delivery in Storage-Based Networking, Wireless LANs, and an End-to-End Model
        1. Storage-Area Networks
          1. Comparing Network-Attached Storage with Storage-Area Networks
          2. Matching Application Characteristics with Relative Storage Solution
          3. Identifying Flows
          4. Optimizing SAN Traffic Delivery
            1. TCP Window Scaling
            2. Traffic Shaping
            3. Selective Acknowledgment
        2. Wireless LANs
          1. WLAN Site Survey
          2. Supporting Voice Traffic
        3. Complete End-to-End Model
          1. Network and Application Performance Management
            1. Infrastructure Scaling
            2. Traffic Management
          2. End-to-End Optimization Process
          3. Establishing a Baseline
            1. Emulating the Application Traffic
            2. Identifying the Bottleneck
            3. Handing Over the Problem
          4. Tuning
          5. Application Classification
            1. Data Transfers
            2. Video/Voice Streaming
            3. Interactive Video/Voice
            4. Mission-Critical Applications
            5. Web-Based Applications
          6. End-to-End QoS
            1. Enterprise
            2. Network Service Provider
            3. Internet Service Provider
          7. Network Transmission Path
          8. Applying QoS Policies
        4. Summary
        5. End Notes
        6. References Used in This Chapter
    11. VI. Appendixes
      1. A. QoS-Related Requests For Comments
      2. B. Guide to QoS Standards
        1. IETF QoS Standards
        2. ITU QoS Standards
        3. ETSI QoS Standards
      3. Glossary

    Product information

    • Title: Optimizing Applications on Cisco Networks
    • Author(s): Mike Hicks
    • Release date: November 2004
    • Publisher(s): Cisco Press
    • ISBN: 9781587051531