Homework 1

Due October 24 (no late submissions accepted)

We will use this homework to get you to use Opnet. There is a whole array of documentation and example models that can help you with this homework.

Use the Client/Server system shown in Figure 5.3 on Pg. 104 in the textbook. Use that environment to conduct a performance study of the C/S system.

• Generate a workload model consisting of traffic from different applications run by the clients on the four different LANs (email, ftp, http requests, DB transactions..)
• Determine appropriate performance metrics (for example, response times for C/S transactions, throughput at the SQL server, utilization of individual servers..)
• Construct the simulation model using Opnet (documentation is available at /cs/opnet/8.0.C/doc/online/)
• Provide an analysis of the simulation results

Homework 2

Due November 28 (no late submissions accepted)

Using Opnet simulate the following environment:
 

• Set up a video server capable of streaming compressed video to a set of clients over an IP based WAN.  Streaming the video requires that the video data be periodically sent to the client (Note: this is different from a one time download of the video file).
• Each client requests a video (say, a seminar lasting a half hour -- you may scale this down to simplify). In response the video server will deliver x minutes (or seconds) worth of data periodically. The key is to make sure that the data gets delivered before it is ready to be played back at the client.
• Use Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ) as the scheduling scheme on the routers and Resource reservation protocol (RSVP) on the WAN.
• Put together a simple topology of three clients receiving video traffic from the same host over an IP-based network.
• Collect global and node statistics.

Consult with the TA for any questions or problems at poonam1@umbc.edu.