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Status: KPI Figures Explained

Background

The Monash network is monitored by the Statscout Network Performance Monitor (NPM), which incorporates WAN statistical monitoring technology, with a high performance LAN Traffic Monitor (LTM) to provide a comprehensive view of the Monash data communications infrastructure. The NPM collects SNMP statistics from all network infrastructure devices - hubs, routers, switches over a 24 x 7 period and produces real-time and historical reports on bandwidth utilization, network delay and error conditions.

The Network Performance Monitor's (NPM) is used because of its ability to deliver blanket network monitoring. The NPM monitors every physical and logical interface on every SNMP compliant infrastructure device (hub, switch and router) on the entire Monash network. This blanket monitoring is used to create a performance baseline of the entire network. This information is currently available to all Monash faculty IT departments via the Network Services Technical web pages.

Availability Calculation

From the information gathered by the Statscout NPM, availability figures are calculated on the basis of successful and unsuccessful responses to network management requests. The availability is calculated for both 'business hours' (08:00 hrs to 18:00 hrs) and also on a 24-hour basis.
An averaged figure is generated from all infrastructure devices (hub, switch and router) on the entire Monash network, to give an overall availability indication for the Monash Data network.

Notes

  1. Unavailability due to new equipment installs, equipment hardware and firmware upgrades, is included in the figures produced. A majority of this activity is scheduled outside 'business hours' and complies with Monash ITS change management procedures.
     
  2. There are a considerable number of resilient paths within the Monash data network. Although all links on the network are monitored, they are not included in the KPI calculation, as higher level services (including application services) can be accessed by more than one path. This supplies a more realistic availability figure.
     
  3. There are a considerable number of resilient switches/routers within the Monash data network. All these resilient switches/routers in the network are monitored, and included in the KPI calculation. This may tend to give a slightly lower availability KPI figure than that actually encountered by network users.

Data Network Sub-Services KPI

For each of the Data Network Sub-Services:

  • Wireless
  • Remote Access
  • Internet

A KPI availability figure is published. Each of these KPI availability figures is calculated by use of the Statscout monitoring information of the major infrastructure components upon which the particular Sub-Service depends.

Network Response times

The response time across the network is measured as a snapshot and reported for each calendar month. The return transmission time is calculated between Clayton building 28 and a selected location at each of the following sites:

  • Alfred Hospital
  • Berwick campus
  • Boxhill hospital
  • Caulfield campus
  • Clayton campus (bld 6)
  • Collins St location
  • Gippsland campus
  • MMCC
  • Victorian College of Pharmacy.

The measurement is from a central device to a local end user switch or hub. The 64 byte packet sent, traverses across the central 100Mb Ethernet connection, the central gigabit network, the LANE/ATM inter-campus network to the local Ethernet campus switch. The response returns in a similar manner.

Note: Because there are resilient and alternate network links, the actual path traveled over the network may vary.

 

  
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