Monitoring RAS Performance - Page 2

Measuring the Impact of RAS Services

In the case of a typical RAS server, the impact that RAS services have on overall network performance is insignificant. To see why this is the case, imagine that you have a 56Kbps modem attached to each of a machine's four COM ports. In such a situation, the most bandwidth that all four modems could simultaneously consume would be 224Kbps, or roughly one quarter of one megabit. When you consider that even a slow Ethernet connection runs at 10 megabits, you can see just how insignificant that a RAS server's impact on the overall system really is.

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Of course, that's just one example. Many factors can contribute to an RAS server's impact on a network. For example, if an RAS server uses more ports or a faster type of connection than I used in my example, the overall impact will be significantly higher. At any rate, it's important to know just how much of an impact your RAS services have on the rest of your network. I'll discuss this and other aspects that you need to measure in Part 2 of this series. //

Brien M. Posey is an MCSE who works as a freelance writer. His past experience includes working as the director of information systems for a national chain of health care facilities and as a network engineer for the Department of Defense. Because of the extremely high volume of e-mail that Brien receives, it's impossible for him to respond to every message, although he does read them all.