The Importance of Network Testing

Table of Content

• Understanding Network Testing
• Use Cases for Network Testing
• Getting Started with Network Testing
• The Benefits of a Distributed Network Testing Solution

Network testing is a crucial step in the network implementation process. This involves investigating and validating how the network configuration works as designed. Network testing is similar to software testing but is often performed in a production environment after a configuration change is made. It is essential to identify and address potential issues before they become major problems.

Understanding Network Testing:

Network testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test. It offers an objective and independent view of the network, allowing businesses to appreciate and understand the risks of network implementation.

Use Cases for Network Testing:

Network testing should run ad-hoc after a configuration change to validate that everything went well, as well as permanently via active network monitoring to detect network problems as soon as they occur. Here are some use cases for network testing:

• Circuit or site turn-up: Verify that the bandwidth requested by your carrier has been received and there is no packet loss. Use tools like iPerf or Ping to test the maximum MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) allowed.
• Routing policy change: Validate in real-time that a routing policy change is modifying your routing table as expected by relying on distributed monitoring agents that run continuous ping and traceroute tests in a full-mesh fashion.
• Firewall rule updates: Use a port scanner like Nmap or perform a TCP-based ping test from the unprotected to the protected network to verify a successful update of a firewall ruleset.
• Quality of Service (QoS): Testing is extremely important to verify that the network is classifying, marking, and queuing traffic as designed.
• Network speed tests: Measure throughput, such as download and upload speed to the Internet, to estimate the end-user experience. Use open-source utilities like iperf or commercial ones.

Getting Started with Network Testing:

The command line interface (CLI) provides many utilities that can be used to perform network validation, including ping and traceroute. However, this method doesn’t scale and doesn’t provide historical data. Therefore, it’s important to use a distributed, GUI-driven testing solution that runs network testing commands on many hosts simultaneously and stores their results for historical review. NetBeez is a network monitoring solution that provides these features in a browser-based interface. You can run ad-hoc or permanent commands like ping, traceroute, and iPerf.

Benefits of a Distributed Network Testing Solution:

Using a distributed network testing solution, like GeekofBlog, provides several benefits, including:

• Scalability: Can run network testing commands on many hosts simultaneously, making it easier to manage a large network.
• Historical data: Stores the results of network testing commands for historical review, making it easier to identify trends and recurring issues.
• Automation: Can automatically run network testing commands on a schedule, freeing up network engineers to focus on other tasks.
• Faster issue resolution: Can quickly identify and address network issues before they become major problems, improving network uptime and user experience.

In conclusion, network testing is a must-have step in the network implementation process. It helps identify and address potential issues before they become major problems, improving network uptime and user experience. By using distributed network testing solutions like GeekofBlog, businesses can ensure the scalability, historical data, automation, and faster issue resolution necessary to maintain a high-performing network.