Performance analysis and traffic characterization of an Ethernet campus network to identify and develop possible SMDS applications and scenarios

Research is being conducted to investigate the roles and issues in using switched multi-megabit data services (SMDS) for metropolitan area networks (MANs). The authors introduce some of the work already done on network measurement and load modeling. They present a performance analysis of the University of Florida Campus Network, and identify some possible candidates for SMDS. Some of the questions addressed include general traffic characteristics, such as volume of day-to-day traffic, distinct packet load traffic during a typical day, volume of traffic on a protocol-type basis, and seasonal traffic characteristics, average load, and packet size distributions