Network testing and fault-finding

What you will learn:

You'll learn how to define and measure the key performance indicators that matter for network quality and understand how service level agreements translate these into real obligations. You'll finish the course knowing how to work through protocol layers systematically, gathering and analysing information before testing hypotheses, and selecting the right test equipment and software utilities for each situation.

 

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• describe the role of testing in installing, commissioning and fault-finding a network.
• define the various key performance indicators that together express the performance of a communications network.
• describe the role of a service level agreement with reference to quality of service indicators.
• describe the causes of frame loss, delay and jitter and their effects on multimedia services such as video streaming, telephony and video conferencing.
• describe the various factors that influence the achievable data transfer rate over a network.
• explain the effect of the TCP protocol on throughput with reference to the TCP window size.
• describe the benefits of a structured approach to fault-finding and the roles of information gathering, analysis, and testing hypotheses.
• explain that testing at the different protocol layers in a certain sequence can assist in isolating a fault, giving examples of such an approach.
• describe the role of various software utilities in taking a structured approach to fault-finding, giving examples of their use.
• describe the use of protocol analysers to monitor and analyse network traffic.
• describe and compare the role of the various standards applicable to the measurement of network performance.
• describe the use of specialised test equipment to assess the performance of, and find faults in, a network.
• explain how future functional failure of a network can be predicted.
• describe, and compare the benefits of, various types of maintenance strategy.

 

Course prerequisites:

An understanding of the operation of, and protocols employed by, Ethernet local area networks. It is recommended that the PTT course "Ethernet networks" is studied before attempting this course.

 

Approximate study time: 6 hours 

 

Delivery platform requirements:
To access the course, a computer/tablet running a browser such as Chrome, Safari, Edge etc. is required. The device should have an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024x768.