SCALABILITY EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT IN IP-BASED CAMPUS NETWORKS: A CASE STUDY OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA NETWORK
SCALABILITY EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT IN IP-BASED CAMPUS NETWORKS: A CASE STUDY OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA NETWORK
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2016-11
Authors
SANI, BASHIR HALLIRU
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This research presents the design and configuration of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)
technology to address scalability issues on a large and complex campus network such as Ahmadu
Bello University campus network that is currently designed, configured and implemented with
Open Shortest Path First Protocol (OSPF) network. Graphical Network Simulator (GNS3) was used
to model and emulate the campus network to identify areas most vulnerable to scalability issues.
The network was redesigned and configured with MPLS technology, which showed significant
improvement in the speed of CPU, RAM, and link utilizations of the routers and switches as the
network resources were accessed. The network was also modeled in OPNET modeler with OSPF
and then with MPLS to verify the results obtained using GNS3. The models were configured with
network services such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Web, e-mail, voice and video traffic.
Traffics were generated at peak hours and data was collected for performance metrics; throughput,
delay (end-to-end and queuing), and jitter. The results obtained during the simulation showed that
MPLS-Based network have higher throughput from 4,000 (bps) to 81,000 (bps) compared with
OSPF network from 3,000 (bps) to 41,000 bps, lower end-to-end delay from 0.0000019 to
0.0000050s compared with 0.000002s to 0.0000092s, lower queuing delay from 0.00002s to
0.000074s compared with 0.000045s to 0.000084s, lower jitter from 0.00005s to 0.0004s compared
with 0.00005s to 0.00080s, lower server load of 250,000,000 (bits/sec) compared with 790,000,000
(bits/sec). The validation, based on the developed and simulated configuration was carried out
using live routers and switches and the results showed an average reduction of Central Processing
Unit (CPU) utilization from about 97.5% for OSPF-based network to about 37% for MPLS-based
network, and reduction of Random Access Memory (RAM) utilization from 97% for OSPF-based
network to 32% for MPLS-network, there was also reduction in link utilization from 80% for
OSPF-based network to 19% for MPLS-based network. The results obtained using MPLS-based
network design showed that MPLS network provided more scalable and efficient solution than
conventional OSPF network even with the addition of more network services, network devices or
end users.
Description
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES,
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF A
MASTER OF SCIENCE (MSc) DEGREE IN COMPUTER ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
NIGERIA
Keywords
SCALABILITY,, EVALUATION,, IMPROVEMENT,, IP-BASED CAMPUS NETWORKS,, CASE STUDY