Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High Availability Enterprise Networks

8/17/2019 Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High Availability Enterprise Networks

1/173

BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT WITH TRAFFIC SHAPING FOR HIGH

AVAILABILITY

ENTERPRISE NETWORKS

By

VICTOR SIBANDA

TP027245


2/173

Acknowledgements

Any feat of accomplishment does not suddenly fall upon men but by continuous

encouragement and motivation do men achieve greater heights. First of all I would

have never put this project together without the quiet and peaceful whisperings

“Peace be still” from the Lord God. He gave me the strength to work on this project.

Putting it project together was not an easy task, there were a number of agonizing

setbacks and countless sleepless nights

I would also like to thank my supervisor and second marker for their unwavering

support and words of wisdom. Regardless of their busy schedules they always made

time for me and most of all their positive encouragement and feedback. Their push

for good quality research to work harder.

T f i d l t d l t I th k f ll id d


3/173

Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High

Availability Enterprise Networks


4/173

Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High AvailabilityEnterprise Networks

ABSTRACT

Our society is increasingly becoming a connected generation through the use of the internetand the internet of things. However the connections that brings together come at a huge cost.

In recent years it has become a network administrators nightmare having to watch their

networks become slower and slower by the day due to abuse of bandwidth abuse. Large

corporations buy a lot of bandwidth in-order to enable them to carry their business daily. Large

corporations require high bandwidth for instance to connect their data centres and branchnetworks. Large Organisations with Wide Area Networks that require a 99% availability have

had to suffer due to slow network traffic and bottle necking over their networks due to large

files moving across their networks in most cases non work related

Bandwidth required to carry information through is extremely scarce, there is not enough to go

around for each and every one. Because of this scarcity it becomes clear that bandwidth or

bandwidth usage has to be managed or critical systems and services have to be given higher

priority to ensure that economies and businesses do not suffer at the expense of people using

too much bandwidth to download or share non-core business files or communications which

them consume much of the bandwidth available


5/173


Table of Contents

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 6

List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. 7

List of Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 8

ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................................. 9

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study ....................................................................................... 11

1.1. Background to the project ......................................................................................... 12

1.2 Aims and Objectives ...................................................................................................... 16

1.2.2 Objectives ............................................................................................................... 16

1.2.3 Deliverables ............................................................................................................ 17

1.3 Target user ..................................................................................................................... 17

1.4 Functionality of the Proposed System ........................................................................... 17

1.5 Resources ....................................................................................................................... 18


6/173


2.1.1 Traffic to be Monitored and Shaped ........................................................................... 23

2.1.2 Traffic Shaping in Bandwidth Management ............................................................... 24

2.1.3 Comparison of Traffic Shaping to Traffic Policing .................................................... 24

2.1.3.1 Traffic Policing .................................................................................................... 24

2.1.3.2 Traffic Shaping ........................................................................................................ 24

2.1.4 Quality of Service ....................................................................................................... 25

2.1.5 Bandwidth Control Methods and Techniques......................................................... 26

2.1.5.1 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) ................................................ 26

2.1.5.2 Packet Sniffing ..................................................................................................... 27

2.1.6 Similar Systems .......................................................................................................... 27

2.1.6.1 NetLimiter ............................................................................................................ 27

2.1.6.2 cFosSpeed ............................................................................................................ 28

2.1.6.3 Websense ............................................................................................................. 29


7/173


2.2.3.3 SQL Server........................................................................................................... 39

2.2.3.4 Comparison of DBM Systems ............................................................................. 39

2.2.3.5 Choice of Database Management System............................................................ 39

2.2.4: System development methodology ............................................................................ 40

2.2.4.1 Agile Methodology .............................................................................................. 40

2.2.4.2 Waterfall Methodology ........................................................................................ 42

2.2.4.3 Prototyping ........................................................................................................... 43

2.2.4.5 Methodology Decision ......................................................................................... 45

2.2.4.6 Project Development Plan.................................................................................... 45

2.2.5 Architecture................................................................................................................. 46

2.3 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 46

Chapter 3: Research methods................................................................................................... 48

3.1 Interview Questions and Justification ............................................................................ 48


8/173


5.2: Database design .......................................................................................................... 79

5.2.1 Database Tables ...................................................................................................... 80

5.2.1: Entity relationship diagram .................................................................................. 81

5.2.2: Data Dictionary ...................................................................................................... 82

5.3. Interface design ........................................................................................................... 84

Chapter 6: Implementation ................................................................................................... 87

Chapter 7: Testing .................................................................................................................. 106

7.1: Unit testing ................................................................................................................ 106

7.2: Integrated testing....................................................................................................... 108

7.3: System testing ........................................................................................................... 108

7.4: User acceptance testing .............................................................................................. 111

7.5 Overall Assessment ...................................................................................................... 112

Chapter 8: Critical Evaluation ............................................................................................. 113


9/173


List of Figures

Figure 1: Used International Bandwidth, 2002-2020 .............................................................. 13

Figure 2: Most Popular Protocols and Applications ................................................................ 14

Figure 3: Bandwidth management system when completed.................................................... 21

Figure 4: Protocols to be monitored......................................................................................... 23

Figure 5: Traffic Shaping and Traffic Policing ........................................................................ 25

Figure 6: SNMP Components .................................................................................................. 26

Figure 7: NetLimiter Screenshot .............................................................................................. 27

Figure 8: cFosSpeed Screenshot .............................................................................................. 28

Figure 9: Websense Screenshot ............................................................................................... 29

Figure 10: The Java Platform ................................................................................................... 32

Figure 11: Token Bucket Algorithm ........................................................................................ 35

Figure 12: Leakey Bucket Algorithm ...................................................................................... 36


10/173


Figure 26: Bandwidth Monitor ................................................................................................ 86

Figure 27: Login Page .............................................................................................................. 87

Figure 28: Administrator Dashboard ....................................................................................... 88

Figure 29: User registration page ............................................................................................. 89

Figure 30: Bandwidth Monitor ................................................................................................ 89

Figure 31: Band Width, Traffic Flow Monitor Graph ............................................................. 90

Figure 32: Bandwidth Monitor, Logs ...................................................................................... 90

Figure 33: Network Latency .................................................................................................... 94

Figure 34: Protocol Analyser ................................................................................................... 95

Figure 35: Network Layer Protocol Ratio Graph .................................................................. 100

Figure 36: Network Layer Protocol Ratio Pie Chart ............................................................. 100

Figure 37: Transport Layer Protocol Ratio Pie Chart ............................................................ 102

Figure 38: Network Monitoring tool...................................................................................... 105


11/173


List of Appendices

Appendix Title Page

A Project Proposal Form 123

B Project Specification Form 128

C Ethical Form 138

D Gantt chart 144

E Log Sheets 146

F Interviews 150

G Questionnaire 154

H EC Forms 163

I Learning Contract 167

j Class Diagrams 169


12/173


ACRONYMS

API Application Programming Interface

ARP Address Resolution Protocol

CIR Committed Information Rate

DBMS Database Management System

DSCP Differential Services Code Point

FTP File Transfer Protocol

Gib/s Gigabits per Second

HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

HTTPS Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure

ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol

IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol

IoE Internet of Things


13/173


QoE Quality of Experience

QoS Quality of Service

RAM Random Access Memory

RARP Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

RMI Remote Method Invocation

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol

SQL Structured Query Language

TCP Transmission Control Protocol

UDP Universal Datagram Protocol

UML Unified Modelling Language

VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol

WAN Wide Area Networks


14/173


Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study

Society increasingly relies on computing environments ranging from simple home networks,

commonly attached to high speed Internet connections, to the largest enterprise networks

spanning the entire globe. (Nicholas Pappas, 2008) To meet this increasing demand, Grid

computing has been proposed and has quickly become the de facto paradigm in bringing

distributed resources and services together into an integrated virtual environment, where the

heterogeneity of resources is masked using standardized access protocols (Sanjay Hegde et al.

2008).

Since the turn of the new century there has been a large shift into the use of high speed

networks. Subsequently with the growth of business and their need for a permanent presence

online there has been an explosion in the use of High Availability Enterprise Networks. High

speed networks are critical for High Availability Networks allowing business to access data in

real time and allow them to setup shop anywhere in the world. High speed networks are

necessary to accommodate the aggregate traffic generated when many pairs of data sources and

sinks communicate simultaneously. High speed hardware is needed to attain high


15/173


in to monitor the bandwidth being used in their network, the amount of traffic and type of

traffic that is traversing through their enterprise network, The Traffic Shaping portion of the

system will help administrators to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) by Prioritizing business

related traffic over the network to non-business related of network for example the system can

prioritize Database requests to their data centres over web streaming traffic that is not core

business of the Bank.

1.1. Background to the project

Available bandwidth is limited and insufficient to meet demand and over the years existing

capacity has been running at maximum volume (Sara Gwynn year). The internet has brought

with it new possibilities for companies and individuals. The term that has become the buzz

word of the twenty first century has been the Internet of Everything (IoE). With the emergenceof the Internet of Everything there is a huge projected increase in the number of devices, clouds,

and devices that will be connecting to the network (Lasser-Raab, 2013). Corporations and

organisations large and small now have a permanent presence on the internet. Business now

takes place more on the internet than in real world. Since the year 2000 there has been a large

i i hi h d k i f i h i d d f


16/173


Figure 1: Used International Bandwidth, 2002-2020 (Telegeography, 2012)

The Network environment comprises of clients, servers, and data all come in different types,

handling all network connections as a single traffic flow does not give administrators the power

to ensure that business-critical applications perform as required (Blue Coat Systems, 2007).

Managing network bandwidth is a top-of-mind concern for many network engineers today.


17/173


else trying to work. Clearly, this presents a need to manage bandwidth usage as well as

prioritize network traffic.

It should also be considered that lately a lot of organizations in their bid to cut down costs on

telephony are moving to using VOIP and Video Conferencing over their networks hence the

need to also prioritize such kind of traffic as it is sensitive to delays and jitter.

Other previous studies have shown that network traffic like online streaming and file sharing

are huge consumers of bandwidth. If a user were to stream a video from You Tube using

Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) it uses progressive download technique and the video is

played back whilst it is still downloading. The drawback is that if a user pauses the video the

server will continuously send packets even if they are not being used. The apparent drawback

is that if the user decides to terminate the session all stored and un-viewed video in the buffer

is discarded hence wastage of bandwidth that was used in transferring this data. (Domingo-

Pascual, 2011).

A recent study by broadband service company Sandvine estimates that YouTube and Netflix

pooled together account for almost fifty percent of peak-hour download data flow in the United


18/173


mirrored on corporate networks and it is imperative that bandwidth be efficiently managed and

all non-core business activities be limited to the minimal usage patterns while prioritising core

business applications traffic over the networks.

There is an ever-increasing need for bandwidth. Companies are growing, adding new offices

and remote sites, using technically advanced and powerful applications, and of course, Internet

usage has exploded in the last two decades. All this point to the undeniable fact that Local Area

Networks (LANs) are in need of bandwidth (IMC Networks, 2002). How much bandwidth is

required depends on each individual company and user, user requirements can change

unexpectedly. However with such use of the networks Bandwidth management has remained

a challenge and a nightmare for all organisations and infrastructure administrators.

New technologies have making inroads onto the global cyber scene pushing up the demand for

more bandwidth in organisations, learning institutions and homes. According to Emulex server

virtualisation, cloud computing, big data and the convergence of storage and data networks

were the key factors adding unprecedented demand for network bandwidth in their datacentres

space.(Venkatraman, 2012)


19/173


controlling how bandwidth is used within their networks. Because of the plight of network

engineers and administrators researcher intends to find out how best to resolve the issue of

bandwidth wasted on organizational networks without affecting the user experience as well as

application and network performance.

Real-time streaming and voice protocols frequently present a need for traffic shaping. Controls

are applied to network traffic in order to enhance network performance and to meet service

level guarantees, or increase usable bandwidth. Traffic shaping delays packets that are

classified as relatively unaffected by delays or that meet a specified classification criteria and

flags such traffic as low priority. Traffic shaping also provides users with acceptable voice and

video services at the same time enabling normal network service to proceed for other protocols

(Tittel, 2012).

1.2 Aims and Objectives

1.2.1 Aims

To build a bandwidth management system with the capability of Traffic Shaping throughout

an Enterprise Network.


20/173


1.2.3 Deliverables

The Bandwidth Management and Traffic Shaping System will be adopted for the Bankingsector which requires high availability reliable networks. The bandwidth management system

will be designed to tackle the problem of bandwidth wastage and abuse in corporate

organizations. The application will be specifically designed for IPv4 Wide Area Networks. The

Bandwidth Management and Traffic Shaping System will feature the following functionality

Allow administrators to login and logout from the application. Allow administrators to view bandwidth usage in real time

Allow administrators to control the traffic, network port or network address

Allow administrator to log peak bandwidth usage

Allow administrators to implement Traffic Shaping and Management

Allow administrators to generate and view Reports

Allow administrators to prioritize traffic based on Traffic Shaping Rules

Allow administrators to manage the Network

1.3 Target user

h f h d id h ill i l b S Ad i i


21/173


a special class of embedded systems, where sensors, controllers and actuators are

interconnected using a common bus network architecture.”

The system that is going to be developed by the researcher will look to address some of the day

to day operational challenges that System and Network Administrators face.

1.5 Resources

1.5.1 HardwareMinimum Hardware Requirement for this application

Hard disk: 160 GB

RAM: 1Gb

Processor: Pentium 4

Monitor: 15” color monitor

Mouse: HCL

DVD Drive: LG 52X

Printer: Laser

1.5.2 Software

i i f i f d l f hi li i


22/173


1.5.4 Access to information / expertise

The development of the system will require consultation from IT experts who are experiencedin developing web applications and security field. Apart from that, information may be

gathered from interviews and surveys done from Systems and Network Administrators in

industry and the assignment department staffs and lecturers of APU.

1.5.5 User InvolvementDue to the technical nature and know how required to implement and use this system the only

user that will be able to use this system shall be Systems Administrators and Network

Administrators. Regular user shall only be questioned on whether they believe such a systems

will bring required network efficiencies and also their experience after the implementation of

the system.

1.6 Success Criteria

To be successful, the bandwidth monitoring and traffic shaping systems must maximize the

user experience of the maximum number of users for the maximum amount of time. It must do

i h f ili h f ll d l d h b d id h i i d ffi h i f


23/173


1.6.2 Integration Testing

The Bandwidth Monitor will then be deployed in a WAN environment and tested for Real-Time Bandwidth Monitoring polls the network interface as frequently as every half second and

reports real-time bandwidth usage and plots this on a graph. Set critical and warning thresholds

to instantly see when usage is out of bounds. When deployed the system should generate

notifications including a list of heavy users and are specially throttled using traffic shaping.

The system should be able to traffic shape and limit bandwidth for protocols such as Ethernet,

IP, TCP, UDP, passive FTP, HTTP, P2P and to Schedule filters for particular day or week

period

1.6.3 Usability Testing

In usability testing the developer will test how easy the user interfaces can be used and whetherthe application is user-friendly or not. In this phase we will use the black box testing technique.

Testing will reveal whether users feel comfortable with the application. In this test we the

researcher will conduct tests on the software of features such as:-

Whether it is easy to use the software.


24/173


also giving some statistics on growth and projected use of bandwidth in the world today. This

information directly impacts on the business world all around the globe.

Having looked these issues in detail the developer will then move to the next chapter, Domain

and Technical Research. In Domain research the researcher will attempt to look at the findings

by other researchers in connection Bandwidth Management and Traffic Shaping. The

researcher will focus on what can be done to alleviate the problem of bandwidth wastage how

other researcher has tackled the problem in the past and what gaps are there to try and fill in

those gaps.

In Technical Research the researcher will investigate on a number of technical issues before

embarking on the project. The first issue to be looked into will be the Programming Languages.

The developer will compare a set of programming languages in order for him to come up with

the best programming language to develop the software. The researcher will then look at the

some Database Management Systems available for him to deploy with the Bandwidth

Management System, this will be used to store logged data from the systems


25/173


Chapter 2: Literature review

2.1: Domain research

According to Livingstone (2006) file sharing protocol called bit-torrent now takes up a third of

internet traffic, even by the most conservative estimates. The true figure is probably higher

(Livingstone, 2006). Bit torrents have become a threat to global bandwidth usage. This menace

has become increasingly a cause for concern for administrators who manage large Wide Area

Networks operated by large corporations. Apart from Torrents Administrators have other

internet traffic to worry about which can tend to monopolise the organisations bandwidth there

by crippling their business operations. Administrators have had to turn to Bandwidth

management systems to monitor and track bandwidth usage within their networks. However

over time bandwidth management has become inadequate to manage the bandwidth in these

large networks.

This research aims to look into the issue of Bandwidth management with Traffic Shaping for

Wide Area Networks in large corporation’s setup. Bandwidth management is a complex and

evolving concern for a lot of network operators around the world. Surveys conducted on


26/173


2.1.1 Traffic to be Monitored and Shaped


27/173


2.1.2 Traffic Shaping in Bandwidth Management

Traffic shaping is used in Bandwidth management systems the method delays some or alldatagrams in the network to make them fit a desired traffic profile. It is a form of rate limiting.

That aims to decrease the load on the routers and switch buffers and additionally removes

latency and jitter caused by long queues in the shaper. Traffic shaping technique classifies

traffic flows, then attempts to cap their transmission rates based on preconfigured parameters

(Keneipp, 2001).

2.1.3 Comparison of Traffic Shaping to Traffic Policing

2.1.3.1 Traffic Policing

Traffic policing and traffic shaping are quite similar bandwidth management tools in that they

both examine traffic and then take an action centred on the characteristics of that traffic. The

characteristics may be based on whether the traffic is over or under a given rate, or based on

some bits in the headers The difference between these two techniques is that Traffic Policing

discards any packets on the network that do not conform to the required rules on that network.


28/173


though it does not control the network core. This can be done in order to smoothen the flow of

datagrams along the network to its ISP, as well as to allocate and manage bandwidth among

applications or departments. In most Enterprise setups the core application of the business tend

to suffer sue to misuse of the available bandwidth accessing streaming sites social networks.


29/173


physical mediums. Streaming applications transmit and they in most cases specify the

bandwidth they require for reliable successful transmission.

2.1.5 Bandwidth Control Methods and Techniques

2.1.5.1 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Simple Network Management Protocol is mainly used for controlling and monitoring network

bandwidth usage on large networks. SNMP is mainly used for collecting information networkconfigured devices such as network switches, routers servers and other devices connected to

the network (Microsoft Corporation, 2003). SNMP makes it easier to manage large Enterprise

networks on which thousands of devices are connected and in most cases are located in

different places. In-order for SNMP to work devices on the network have to have SNMP

enabled on them. Network messages can be initiated by the SNMP Network Management

System (NMS) or by an SNMP enabled network element such as a server (Tech-Faq, 2013)


30/173


2.1.5.2 Packet Sniffing

Sometimes referred to as packet analysers, Packet Sniffers are used for bandwidth monitoring

and control on large Enterprise Networks. Network administrators can use Data gathered by

packet sniffers to see where there are bottle necks or bandwidth wastage on the network

(Bradley, 2012). A packet sniffer captures packets that pass through a given network interface.

Packet sniffers can capture all packets that traverse over a network in a given subnet.

2.1.6 Similar Systems

2.1.6.1 NetLimiter

NetLimiter is a bandwidth management tool that allows users to limit the amount of bandwidth

used by applications that use the network. The application is available Windows based

machines. The application is quite small that on can download it from the internet. The user

interface of the application is quite neat and clean a new user can quick understand it within a

few minutes of installation. However the application seems to be pretty weak in terms of actual

bandwidth management and traffic shaping role. The researcher tried NetLimitter and noted

that apart from being able to configure the rules the user cannot see a graphical representation

of traffic coming through the network. The user can only see which applications are active over


31/173


Features of Netlimiter

Netlimiter can be integrated with other Bandwidth Monitoring Systems

The administrator can set their own rules for traffic Shaping

NetLimiter can Act as a firewall for a small network

2.1.6.2 cFosSpeed

cFosSpeed is a traffic shaping tool for the Windows based systems. It increases Internet latencyat the same time maintaining impressive transfer rates (cFos Software GmbH, 2014).

cFosSpeed installs itself as a virtual device driver on the Windows TCP/IPfrom this vantage

point it gets access to all traffic coming in and performs layer-7 protocol analysis. The software

is a web based program that ensures that it is as light weight as possible on the host machine.

The drawback with this application is that it is not user friendly and the graphical display forreal time monitoring is too small. Traffic summary is displayed in a list that is fairly easy to

understand


32/173


2.1.6.3 Websense

Websense is a bandwidth monitoring tool used by businesses and government departments to

protect their networks from, malware, and cybercrime and prevents users from inappropriate

content on the internet. It is also used to discourage employees from spending time browsing

non-work-related websites. Websense uses some classification engines, filtering categories,

data fingerprinting to filter out content that is not allowed by an organisations network policy.


33/173


difficult to detect on the networks because most bandwidth management software available are

not able to detect this new kind of traffic.

The developer understands that it is every network administrators wish to have one solution

that can monitor his network on and off peak hours. They require a system that is able to

identify all kinds of network traffic and log it in a database for example they would want to

know when the application that caused the congestion was launched where it was launched

from. They would also want to prioritise traffic based on the traffics relevance to their

organisation but at the same time the system should be flexible enough to promote or demote

new traffic classes for bandwidth limiting or blocking

2.2: Technical research2.2.1: Programming language

There are a number of software programing languages on the market today. Each Language

has its own strength and weaknesses while some of these programming languages work best in

certain projects and scenarios and may not be the best software development platform for other


34/173


Popular Software Written in C++

Microsoft Office

VLC Media Player

MySQL Database

Secure Shell

IBM Lotus Notes

Advantages of C++

C++ is a fast programming language and works well for Graphic User Interface

programming on a computer.

C++ is platform Independent

Is a good language for writing operating systems, drivers, and platform dependentapplications?

Is a good language to learn to program with C++ is a good language for both beginners

and engineers?


35/173


mechanism delivers a lot of functions to applications. Java developed applications can run in

multiprocessor systems without needing to be reengineered.

Syntax for java is simplified and easy to understand for new software developers. There are

currently virtual machines for UNIX, Windows and Macintosh platforms (TechMetrix

Research, 1999)

Figure 10: The Java Platform


36/173


Popular Software Written in Java

Skype

Blu-Ray Disc Java

NASA World Wind

Nagios

Advantages of Java

One program can be run on other different platforms. A developer will not need to put

a lot effort developing a different version of software for each platform.

There are quite a lot of programmers who can understand and write code in Java, A lot

of programmers can participate in developing an open source software.

A Java virtual machine prevents an incorrectly written application program fromcausing problems to the rest of computing devices and software.

Disadvantages of Java

Programs written in Java language run in a virtual machine and they tend to run slower


37/173


C# type-safe, object-oriented programming language. It has many of the same features as Java,

but it also has language-level support for properties, events, attributes, and interoperability with

other languages. C# also has operator overloading, enumerations, value types, and language

constructs for iterating over collections

Popular Software Written in C#

ATI Display drivers

Internet Relay Code (IRC)

Business Applications

Advantages of C#

When compiled it is converted to an intermediate language (CIL) which is independent

of the language it was developed in or the target architecture and operating system

Automatic garbage collection

Pointers no longer needed (but optional)

C# Source code is more legible because of the Get Set Methods it implements


38/173


2.2.2.1 Token Bucket Algorithm

A Token Bucket is designed like a bucket that can hold up to tokens. These tokens are generated

at a continuous rate per second. These tokens are then added to the bucket if it is not filled

completely. Each packet transmitted on the network must first get a token attached to it from

the token bucket. If the bucket is empty the packet has to wait for a new token to be generated

else the packet is dropped or given a lower priority. A token bucket is able to shape a bursty

data stream.

Below is a diagram showing how Token Bucket Algorithm works


39/173


Figure 12: Leakey Bucket Algorithm

.

Differences between the two Algorithms are that Leaky bucket only discards packets when its

buffer is full whereas Token bucket algorithm has no or little discard factor. Token Bucket

allows traffic burstiness and Leaky bucket tends to smoothen out the bursty traffic

2.2.2.3 Decision on Algorithm

For this research the developer will use Leaky bucket algorithm this algorithm has been

selected because it ensures a constant flow of packets as long as the bucket is not full to discard


40/173


There is a wide variety of database flavours for the developer to choose from and in this section

the developer will attempt to have a look at a handful of these database systems.

2.2.3.1. MariaDB

“MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL. “ (MariaDB Foundation, 2013). MariaDB is

a community developed database system with roots in MySQL relational database management

system, the motivation being the community preservation of its free status under the GNU GPL.

MariaDB being a side shoot of a well-established open source software system is outstanding

for being headed by the original developers. MariaDB was founded due to concerns over the

acquiring of MySQL by commercial company Oracle.

Limitations of MariaDB

In MariaDB replication executes only through the InnoDB storage engine. Any writes to tables

of other types, tables are not replicated and all tables should have a primary key (MariaDB

Foundation, 2013). Rows in tables without a primary key may appear in a different order on

different nodes.


41/173


2.2.3.2 MySQL

MySQL database is primarily used web applications. MySQL database comes with a Graphical

User Interface called the Workbench which gives developers the power to visualise their

database while still developing and administering it. However it also provides a Command Line

Interface. MySQL has been tested and works on many platforms including Windows though it

was natively developed for Linux based systems

MySQL gives developers the flexibility to be built and installed entirely from its source code

this gives developers and administrators to install only the features that they need for their

system and ignore everything else they do not need

The MySQL is a client/server system made up of multi-threaded SQL server that supports

different back ends, several different client programs and libraries, administrative tools, and a

wide range of application programming interfaces (APIs) (MySQL, 2014)

Advantages of MySQL


42/173


2.2.3.3 SQL Server

SQL Server is a relational Database management system developed and maintained by

Microsoft Corporation. Unlike MySQL and MariaDB, SQL Server is not free. The user has to

pay for an annual license to have rights to use the software.

SQL Server comes with a Graphic User Interface and also has a command line user Interface.

SQL Server is a powerful DBMS that mostly runs on server platforms. The Syntax is readable

and easy to understand. SQL server can support multi-server transactions. The DBMS offers

greater security and stability (David Solomon, 1998)

2.2.3.4 Comparison of DBM Systems

MariaDB MySQL SQL Server

License Required No Yes and No Yes

Works on Windows

Platform

Yes Yes Yes


43/173


this would delay or derail the entire project. Since Using Waterfall Methodology for system

development it would be far more convenient for the developer to use a tried and tested system

without risking failure to deliver the project on schedule

.

2.2.4: System development methodology

A system development methodology is a framework used to design, plan, and control the

process of developing an information system (CMS, 2005). There is a lot of such frameworks

that have been developed and have changed over the years, each System Development

Methodology has its distinguished strengths and weaknesses below the researcher will attempt

to look at a few selected System Development Methodologies

2.2.4.1 Agile Methodology

Agile concentrates on flexibility and reaction time to changing requirements and promotes

development iterations, open collaboration, and process adaptability throughout the life-cycle

of the project (IT Unlock, n.d.) With Agile development is done in small incremental phases,

with little planning, unlike planning at length like in Waterfall Methodology


44/173


Initiation of the Project: Initiation involves setting up the plan, specifying the business needs,

freezing the requirements from the users’ then team a team of developers is setup to work on

the project and preparing initial architecture modelling. Customer participation is the mainstay

of agile methodology, and constant updates and communication with less documentation are

the typical features of agile development environment. In Agile methodology development

teams work in closely together and are most often located in the same geographical location.

With an agile model, all aspects of development that is requirements, design, etc. are

continually revisited throughout the lifecycle of the project. When the development team stops

and re-evaluates the direction of their project every once in a while this ensures that they have

time to steer the project in another direction that the customer wants. This is a repetitive phase

which involves active client participation, demanding and concerted development by

professionals, and addition of new features upon requirement, and investigative testing, and

internal deployment of software. Agile methods are widely used in the software development

industry; however, this approach may not always be appropriate for all products.

Release of the product: This stage involves final system testing, final user acceptance testing,

and deployment of system into production and regular and updated delivery of software which


45/173


With Agile methodology it is difficult to assess the effort required for large software

developments at the beginning of the software development life cycle.

Agile lacks emphasis on designing and documentation.

The projects often go off track if the customer is not clear what final outcome they

want.

Agile is not ideal for newbie programmers, unless pooled with experienced

programmers and enough resources.

2.2.4.2 Waterfall Methodology

The waterfall methodology is one of the earliest approaches that was used for software

development. Software projects followed the waterfall approach because they did not focus on

changing requirements (Choudhury, 2011). However a further study on the methodology

reveals that the rate of change in world has increased dramatically over the last 30 years and

particularly over the past 10 years. Though old the methodology is still very usefully and

effective depending on the project.

Waterfall accepts that it is probable to have a good understanding of all the requirements from

the start of a software development project. However in software development, stakeholders


46/173


Waterfall Methodology is simple and easy to understand and use

Easy to manage due to the rigidity of the model. All phases have specific deliverables

and a review process.

Phases are processed and completed one at a time.

Works well for smaller projects where requirements are very well understood.

Clearly defined stages.

Well understood milestones. Easy to arrange tasks.

Process and results are well documented.

Disadvantages of Waterfall Methodology

No working software is produced until late during the life cycle. High risk and uncertainty.

Not a good model for complex and object-oriented projects.

Poor model for long and ongoing projects.

Not ideal for projects whose requirements are at high risk of changing.


47/173


Figure 15: Prototyping Methodology

(Adi, 2008)

Prototyping is mainly used when the business process is expected to be changed as the project

proceeds or when the project sponsor has little idea of what system to be built. Analysis, Plan,

and Implementation stages are carried out concurrently and each series results in a system

prototype that is presented to the project owner. The cycle repeated frequently based on the

sponsor comments until the prototype successfully meets the requirements (Adi, 2008). The

final prototype to be developed and approved by the project owner is then referred to as the


48/173


specifications or the conversion of limited prototypes into poorly engineered final

projects that are hard to maintain.

Users may think that the prototype, intended to be thrown away, is the final system

that only is left to be finished or polished

Developers may assume that users share their objectives without understanding wider

commercial issues. Users might believe they can demand auditing on every field,

whereas developers might think this is feature creep because they have made

assumptions about the extent of user requirements.

Developers may become attached to prototypes they spent a great deal of effort

developing this can lead to problems like attempting to convert a limited prototype into

a final system when it does not have an appropriate underlying architecture

2.2.4.5 Methodology Decision

As an inexperienced developer the researcher will use the Waterfall methodology in the

development of the Bandwidth Management System with Traffic Shaping for High

Availability Enterprise Networks. The choice of the model is due to the fact that Waterfall

model although old would give the researcher clear and guided steps to fulfil the project at


49/173


customer requirements. At this stage an alternative solution is also considered for the customer

requirements and the cost benefit analysis of the system is drawn up.

2.2.5 Architecture

Figure 16: Architecture

2.3 Conclusion

From the research above it has become apparent to the developer that a lot of bandwidth in


50/173


expectations. One of the strengths of Waterfall methodology that the developer intends to take

advantage of is proper and detailed documentation from project initiation


51/173


Chapter 3: Research methods

The researcher has chosen to use a two pronged approach for research methods and information

gathering. According to Kristie Siegel, in research there is need to get at least one interview

from a person who relates to the research topic. The researcher will first hold interviews with

Experts and Technical people in the area of network management and systems administration.

The researcher believes that these people have better understanding and knowledge with

regards to Bandwidth Management and Traffic Shaping. These technical people and engineers

have a better understanding of the network environment and how Bandwidth wastage affects

business applications. The researcher will also invite ordinary users from all walks of life to

participate in a questionnaire so as to gather a clear view of how users use their internet

connections what sites they visit the most and any other activities they get up to when they are

on the internet

3.1 Interview Questions and Justification

Q1. How many computers and users do you have in your LAN or WAN network?


52/173


Q5. Does your organisation use Skype or any other VOIP service for official business? If

yes how much bandwidth does it consume on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the highest

Objective: To ascertain whether the organisation uses VOIP or IP based video conferencing

as a means of communication this has an effect on bandwidth usage for the particular

organisations

Q6. How does bandwidth wastage impact your business operations?

Objective: To determine the actual effects of bandwidth wastage on the core business

applications and how other users are affected

Q7. How do you deter bandwidth wasting in your LAN or WAN network?

Objective: To find out if the organisation has implemented any form of bandwidth

management system to curb bandwidth wastage


53/173


3.2 Questionnaire

1. What is your Gender?

(i) Male

(ii) Female

Objective: To determine the gender of the participant

2. What is your age?

(i) 15 -20years

(ii) 21 -25years

(iii) 26 - 30years

(iv) 31 - 35years

(v) 35 - 40years

(vi) 41 years and above

Objective: To determine the age of the participant an draw up a demography map

3. If you are a student, how many students are enrolled at your learning institution?

(i) 100 and less


54/173


Objective: To determine the whether the participant is employed and if yes how many people

work at his work place so as to try and draw up the possible size of the network

5. If you are neither employed nor a student how do you access the internet? Check all

that apply?

(i) At Home

(ii) Mobile Data plan (Smart Phones or Tablets)

(iii) Internet cafe or Public Access points

(iv) Friends or relatives home or office

(v) Other:

Objective: To determine how unemployed participants who are also not in school access the

internet

6. If you are neither employed nor a student how do you access the internet? Check all

that apply

(i) at Home

(ii) Mobile Data plan (Smart Phones or Tablets)


55/173


8. How would you rate the network speed at your school campus, work place or whichever

way you access the internet?

(i) Very slow

(ii) Slow

(iii) Neither fast nor slow

(iv) Fast

(v) Very fast

Objective: To determine how fast or slow the participants internet access is which will further

the researcher to gain more insights into the user behaviour

9. Which sites do you often visit on the internet? *Select all that apply

(i) Facebook

(ii) Twitter

(iii) You Tube

(iv) Google

(v) LinkedIn

(vi) Other:


56/173


(ii) 6 - 10 times per week

(iii) More than 11 times every week

Objective: To determine how often participants download content from the internet

13. How much data or content do you download from the internet per week? *

(i) 1 Gigabyte or less

(ii) 1 to 5 Gigabytes

(iii) 5.1 to 10 Gigabytes

(iv) Over 11 Gigabytes

Objective: To determine how much content participants down load from the internet. This will

help the researcher in the analysis phase to draw up conclusions how much downloading

content affects network performance

14. Where do you normally carry out you downloads? *

(i) At home

(iii) At work

(iii) At school


57/173


16. Do you use Skype or any other VOIP service for official business over your network?

(i) Yes

(ii) No

Objective: To determine whether participants use any VOIP or Video Conferencing services

on their network

17. Have you ever failed to carry out any important work due to a slow network or low

bandwidth? *

(i) Yes

(ii) No

Objective: To determine whether participants are affected by low bandwidth due to abuse and

heavy usage. This will help the researcher to get suggestions in next questions from ordinary

users on how bandwidth wastage can be avoided

18. If you answered yes to the previous question how was the issue resolved?

Objective: To find out from users how they normally resolve such kind of problems and to


58/173


(iv) Disagree

(v) Strongly Disagree

Objective: To determine whether ordinary users understand that streaming sites and file

sharing consumes a lot of bandwidth and that this also affects them as users

21. Bandwidth should be managed and important applications given priority over the

network?

(i) Strongly agree

(ii) Agree

(iii) I do not know

(iv) Disagree

(v) Strongly disagree

Objective: To determine whether ordinary users understand why bandwidth should be

managed. This will help the researcher to gain knowledge on what applications users

felt should be blocked on networks

22. Which applications do you think should be restricted and managed on corporate or


59/173


23. How would you rate your I.T. skills? *

1 2 3 4 5

Beginner Expert

Objective: To determine how proficient the user is in understanding Information Technology,

its functions and drawbacks. Some users may not know and need to be educated

24. Any suggestion on Bandwidth management in Enterprise networks?

Objective: To try and get some tips, guidance and suggestions on how the think a network

should perform and how to limit bandwidth wastage on the LAN.


60/173


Chapter 4: Analysis

In this chapter the researcher will? A detailed analysis of the responses received from theInterviewees. The researcher had to send the questions to the interviewees by email and

received back the responses. Because of the lack of face to face interview facility. The

researcher had to wait a couple of days for some of the responses thus some of the questions

received one word answers which the researcher could not further probe to get a more clear

and definite answer.

4.1 Interviews Analysis

Q1. How many computers and users do you have in your LAN or WAN network?

Interviewee

1

200 Computers and 500+ Users

Interviewee

2

1500 pcs and the same for users

Interviewee

3

600 computers and servers and around 480 users.


61/173


The interviewees high light that in their individual organisations they indeed face a lot of

problems when it comes to bandwidth management. Whether it’s a very large organization

or a small school bandwidth wastage indeed affects their operations negatively. In this regard

the interview confirms that bandwidth must be managed.

Q3. What are the most visited websites from you organisations LAN or WAN users?

Interviewee

1

Google, Wikipedia, herald.co.zw, newsday.co.zw, zimbabwesituation.com

Wikipedia,

Interviewee

2

Facebook, Yahoo, App store

Interviewee

3

Business, academic/educational and social sites especially Facebook

Interviewee

4

The most visited websites are www.google.com,

www.bernardmizeki.co.zw, www.facebook.com, www.zimsec.co.zw,

www.gmail.com

For most of the interviewees the most popular sites that are visited in their local area

networks or Wide Area Networks have absolutely nothing to do with their operations. This


62/173


have said that they also worry about how bandwidth wastage affects their clients which are

other departments within their organisations. One Interviewee went on to say that

information and data from their clients is slowed down by lack of bandwidth

Q5. Does your organisation use Skype or any other VOIP service for official

business? If yes how much bandwidth does it consume on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being

the highest

Interviewee

1

No

Interviewee

2

All meeting rooms have video conferencing facilities. This consumes about

2Gbps

Interviewee

3

No

Interviewee

4

No

As revealed by the interviewees most organisations have not yet embraced VOIP which

means that they do not have to worry about Quality of Service (QoS) at the moment but


63/173


interviewee also hinted that based on their industry which is financial services bandwidth

affects them so much that data and information flowing from other financial institutions is

delayed which should not be the case

Q7. How do you deter bandwidth wasting in your LAN or WAN network?

Interviewee

1

Setup of a Linux Gateway Proxy running Squid and Dan guardian Content

Filter, we cannot afford a turnkey bandwidth monitoring solution

Interviewee

2

We block sites which are causing bandwidth problems using Web sense.

Interviewee

3

At first we had restrictions on internet access by users and latter blocked

social sites but users circumvented that and so we started an educational

campaign to explain what we are facing and the results thereof.

Interviewee

4

As of now we limiting internet access but very soon we will be installing

some security software which will bar access to some sites

Some of the organisations represented by interviewees have expressed that they cannot

afford off the shelf solutions for bandwidth management systems. While some who have the

financial capacity have also indicated that they are looking for a solution to implement within


64/173


bandwidth as long as there is no other network traffic hogging the connection consuming all

the available bandwidth

Q9. Are you satisfied with your current bandwidth management or monitoring

system?

Interviewee

1

No

Interviewee

2

Yes

Interviewee

3

No. we are actually looking for an effective one.

Interviewee

4

No

The majority of interviewees pointed out that they are not satisfied with the performance of

the current bandwidth management systems. Only one interview expressed satisfaction at

their solution for bandwidth management. Some indicated earlier that they cannot afford an

off the shelf system. This means that there are not enough systems developed to cater for the


65/173


4.2 Questionnaire Analysis

1. What is your Gender?

The figure above shows that about 41 males responded to the questionnaire and 24females

participated too. The researcher would have wanted a scenario where both sexes where equal

to give a balanced and clear view of the respondents views

2. What is your age?

Male 41 63%

Female 24 37%


66/173


Question 3 mainly targeted students to determine how many pupils were enrolled at their

learning institution majority of the students responded that there is more than 5001 students

enrolled at their schools which would translate to huge IT infrastructure investments at their

campuses

If you are employed, how many people work at your organisation?

100 and less 14 22%

101 to 500 3 5%

501 to 1000 4 6%

1001 to 5000 8 12%

over 5001 17 26%

100 and less 22 34%

101 to 500 7 11%

501 to 1000 4 6%

1001 to 5000 6 9%


67/173


4. If you are neither employed nor a student how do you access the internet?

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages

may add up to more than 100%.

In question 5, 18 of the unemployed respondents said that they access the internet at

home and while 53% percent also have access to the internet through mobile data plan.

It must be noted that for this question respondents could pick more than one choice

hence the figures exceeded 100%

5. How would you rate the network speed at your school campus, work place or

whichever way you access the internet?

at Home 18 56%

Mobile Data plan (Smart Phones

or Tablets)

17 53%

Internet cafe or Public

Access points

6 19%

Friends or relatives home

or office

6 19%

Other 4 13%


68/173


6. Which sites do you often visit on the internet?

As shown in the figure above the search engine Google followed by Facebook are the most

visited sites in all spheres whether by students, employees and the unemployed. YouTube

comes third.

7. How often do you visit streaming sites like You Tube, Spotify, and Sound Cloud

etc.?

Facebook 47 72%

Twitter 9 14%

You Tube 41 63%

Google 52 80%

LinkedIn 13 20%

Other 13 20%


69/173


In the figure above we can see that a staggering 94% of the respondents reported that they

download content from the internet

9. If you answered yes to previous question, how often?

Question 10 continues from the previous question and the numbers are further broken

down to reveal that 43% download some content between one and five days per week.

We also note that the heavy users who download over eleven times a week slightly

outnumber the medium users by about 2%

1 - 5 times per week 28 43%

6 - 10 times per

Week

14 22%

More than 11 times

every week

16 25%


70/173


11. Where do you normally carry out you downloads?

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

This question confirmed the researcher that quite a significant number of respondents do

carryout downloads in school networks and work LANs even though the most downloads

are done at home. Surprisingly fewer people reported to using public access point or

Internet cafes for downloads

12. What kind of content do you often download from the internet?

at home 41 63%

At work 28 43%

At school 13 20%

Public access points

or internet cafe

8 12%

Other 0 0%


71/173


13. Do you use Skype or any other VOIP service for official business over your

network?

As shown in the diagram above 65% of the respondents use skype regularly this has an

effect on the network which the researcher is trying to address in this research

14. Have you ever failed to carry out any important work due to a slow network or

low bandwidth?

Yes 42 65%

No 23 35%


72/173


hours to send 1 email.

A few respondents reported how they resolved a network or low bandwidth problem. A

number of them said they would restart the router to try and kill download processes going

on.

16. Streaming sites like You Tube and Peer to Peer file sharing affects the network

speed and performance, they disadvantage other users

In question 17 a number of respondents 49% agreed while 25% strongly agreed with the

researcher that streaming and peer to peer file sharing slows down the internet and affects

other users.

Strongly agree 16 25%

Agree 32 49%

I do not know 13 20%

Disagree 4 6%

Strongly Disagree 0 0%

d id h i h ffi Sh i f i h A il bili


73/173


18. Bandwidth should be managed and important applications given priority over

the network?

41% of respondents strongly agreed that bandwidth is scarce and expensive that it should

be managed. 3% disagreed to this possibly because they have never been affected by

bandwidth wastage

19. Which applications do you think should be restricted and managed on corporate

or school Networks?

Strongly agree 27 42%

Agree 23 35%

I do not know 7 11%

Disagree 5 8%

Strongly disagree 2 3%

Peer to Peer traffic

(e.g. torrents file sharing)

37 57%

B d id h M i h T ffi Sh i f Hi h A il bili


74/173


20. How would you rate your I.T. skills?

In this question respondents highlighted

their IT skills and proficiency in the field or just general knowledge 37% reported that

their IT skills were just average and by looking at the diagram it shows a normal

distribution curve slightly skewed towards the right possibly because most respondents

have a bit more IT knowledge than the researcher anticipated.

21. Any suggestion on Bandwidth management in Enterprise networks?

i) identify bandwidth usage by IP address and port number

1

-

Beginner 3 5%

2 11 17%

3 24 37%

4 18 28%5

-

Expert 9 14%

B d idth M t ith T ffi Sh i f Hi h A il bilit


75/173


sometimes do not have some features which would help the systems administrators to

effectively manage bandwidth use in their organisations

4.3.2 Questionnaire

Respondents to the questionnaire were mostly students who majority of them alluded to the

fact that they do download or use some applications that use a lot of bandwidth on the networks

whether at home or at School. Some of the respondents were working class who also indicated

the same patterns of network usage. The questionnaire provided the researcher with

information on the most use social network sites and content that is downloaded from the

internet. Most of the downloads are done through peer to peer networks and this indicates that

the researcher has to also focus on limiting peer to peer file sharing as these are the most

common used platform which is well known and documented to waste bandwidth. A number

of the respondents expressed that they have some knowledge of how bandwidth wastage affects

the normal operation of critical systems especially in large organisations whose operations rely

on reliable exchange of data.

B d idth M t ith T ffi Sh i f Hi h A il bilit


76/173


Chapter 5: Design

In system design the developer visualizes the complete system using some techniques and toolsdeveloped for systems development. The most used tool for system development is Unified

Modeling Language (UML).

UML was adopted as a standard by the object management group in 1997 and is ISO approved

5.1: System design5.1.1 Use Case Diagram

The use case diagram below shows the interaction between actors and the system, there are two

actors in the system. The administrator can login, register users, add and edit servers and client

machines, set bandwidth use limit, capture packets, view logs, initiate network monitoring and

view reports. The other actor which is the user can only login into the system. Ordinary users

do not have any other specific role in this systems as it is built to monitor their network usage

activities especially bandwidth usage

Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High Availability


77/173




78/173


All TCP, ARP, UDP and ICMP, traffic will be captured and executed thus transformed into

understandable language which will be displayed on the capture window. If the number of

packets to a given destination exceeds the set value they will be dropped .this is done by

blocking the destination name from communicating with the local hosts this is done using

AnyWebLock.



79/173




80/173


5.1.3 Data Flow Diagram

Data flow diagram illustrates the different process and how data flows from one process to

another.



81/173


mode (a network device is able to intercept and read each network packet that arrives in its

entirety.).Now the host machine is able to capture all network traffic on that particular interface.

Than the administrator is able to determine the network traffic flow and the different protocols

used at that particular time since the host machine or device is able to capture all traffic from

and to the entire hosts on the network.

The Administrator now is able to determine the different irrelevant destinations by matching

the different Internet Protocols captured and those stored in the database after which all packets

to that given destination can be blocked hence improving the efficiency of the network. After

all the captures the administrator is able to save the captures for further analysis.

5.1.4 Sequence Diagrams



82/173


Figure 21: Bandwidth management sequence diagram



83/173


or modified in the future. To achieve a good database design the developer follows the stages

detailed below in coming up with a comprehensive database for the bandwidth management

system

5.2.1 Database Tables

The tables below shows the attributes of each table that will be in the database

Administrator Table

Primary Key

Foreign Key Foreign Key

administrator_iduser_namelast_namefirst_nameemailPasswordaddress

client_idserver_idtimestamp

User Table

Primary Key user_id



84/173

g p g g yEnterprise Networks

Foreign KeyForeign Key

client_nameclient_statususer_idadministrator_idtimestamp

Bandwidth Table

Primary Key

Foreign KeyForeign Key

event_idlog_id

mac_addressip_addressmachine_namestatustotal_uploadtotal_downloadtime_stamp

Reports Table

Primary KeyForeign KeyForeign Key

report_idevent_idmac_addressip_addressuser name



85/173


Figure 23: Entity Relationship Diagram for Bandwidth Manager Database



86/173


User Table Data Dictionary

Documents

Bandwidth Management with Traffic Shaping for High Availability Enterprise Networks