How can I know if the network slows down my application?, in the Network Performance / WAN Optimization forum on BrianMadden.com

Hi All

I am running a script on my Windows XP. The script should call local API (client side) and communicating with the remote process on a Linux server. The server has plenty of CPU and memory left. I believe the network is slowing down my process. How can I find out? Can you please give me a step-by-step procedure, for I have no knowledge in network stuffs.

Thanks
Jirong

Jirong:

You don't explain what there is between the XP client PC and the Linux server. Is it (a) just LAN; (b) a point-to-point WAN link? (c) an internet link (eg with VPN); (d) something else?

If you want to find out how much the "link" is slowing things down, then you need to get a baseline, by connecting the client directly to the server (local switch only), then see how much slower it is when it is where it is now.

There are many reasons that client-server comms can be slow.... CIFS (microsoft file sharing) is a good example of what NOT to do... it is a very "chatty" protocol... to do something simple there are many "interchanges" between server & client, and a link with any latency on it will slow such things down greatly, as the latency gets multiplied by the number of "chats" happening.

So, please explain your setup a bit more, tell us what your API does, and define "slowing down" (1 second? 10 seconds?)

Paul B