How to really quash "the network is slow" issues - suggestions please

[Canaan]

Good Afternoon Edugeekers!

 

There appears to be an increasing trend in a lot of the clients I maintain reporting "slow networks". On deeper questioning I think its really the schools broadband connection (supposedly 10mb) thats at fault.

 

Almost all of the networks are running with Gigabit switches (there may be the rare 100 speed switch as a n/w extender dotted about), and all are on Win 7, Server2012R2. Wifi on a couple of sites is provided by Ruckus but the majority are powered by Unifi (love it).

 

What I had in mind was to go from room to room with a laptop and running a PING to the DC as well as Google for example as well as running an online Speedtest - but not sure though if that would really help as technically thats between the router and an external server(s). I'd also check the NICs are indeed connecting at 1000mbps from the wall socket as they aught to be.

 

I want to run tests that will prove that the internal network is running at full speed and that it is definitely the broadband thats the fault.

 

What I'd like to ask to ask you is what other software or tools would you have to hand for thorough top-down infrastructure testing. For example is there a more advanced Ping software that can delve deeper into the cabling for example?

 

I look forward to your suggestions and learning some new tools,

 

Many thanks in advance

Canaan

Edited November 17, 2015 by Canaan

[Steve21]

First question would be "what's slow"

 

No use focusing on (for example internet) if it's a Word doc opening, and vice versa

 

Without knowing what/where etc the problem is you're kind of shooting in the wind, could be local DNS issue, GPO issue, blah blah

 

Steve

[fairm010]

I would be asking the clients what EXACTLY is "running slow"? Do they mean file uploads? Do they mean downloads? Do they mean logins? it could be a million things and its all too easy to blame the wrong thing.

 

HTH

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Ninjad

[dry]

Have you configured VLANS on the networks? If not, you've probably got a whole load of broadcast traffic kicking about that doesn't help with network speed.

 

You can rent some seriously expensive network diagnostic kit- cable verifiers etc from the likes of Fluke. What is the state of the cabling? is it CCA? does it run parallel to power in a lot of places? UTP or STP? Cat5, Cat6? Long runs? Fibre? PoE?

[JoHimself]

I agree that you need to diagnose what the users perceive as slow before running round trying to fix something that isn't faulty. If it's a user perception issue I would ask them what frame of reference they are using. Is it slower than it was 6 months ago? Is it slower than their i7, SSD equipped gaming machine at home?

 

After that, gather baseline data so that you can present a nice graph or chart to show people.

 

Please be prepared that, no matter how fast you make it, people may still complain.

[fairm010]

I had a staff member complain her laptop wasn't as fast as her iPad. Then I explained that when she logged in it had to: Map users drives, map printers, create desktop short cuts, redirect the start menu, apply dozens of GPO's and so on. She shut up then.

[JoHimself]

I had a load of users say that my environment was slow and rubbish because the thin clients had an outdated user interface. Login times were <20 seconds and RAM caching (using Citrix PVS) was enabled so applications loaded faster than I have seen before or since.

 

User perceptions are hard to change and don't necessarily correlate to the real world.

[Michael]

If you have a managed service from your LA, they should be able to give you usage levels. This will illustrate your WAN is being used to full capacity slowing everything up.

[truebluesteve]

I had a load of users say that my environment was slow and rubbish because the thin clients had an outdated user interface. Login times were <20 seconds and RAM caching (using Citrix PVS) was enabled so applications loaded faster than I have seen before or since.

 

User perceptions are hard to change and don't necessarily correlate to the real world.

 

Absolutely - it is really hard to get people to appreciate that you can't compare a standalone home PC with a networked one and all the different things it has to do just to log on! I like to remind people that even the largest organisations have system breakdowns and yet they have huge budgets and teams of experts to support them - not just a NM and a couple of technicians :-) How many times have you phoned a call centre and been told by the person at the other end "I'm sorry, the system is running slowly today"?

[Canaan]

Good Evening!

 

Thanks for the replies. Good point on the user perception factor. I think they're pointing the finger at web based things e.g. Purple Mash, Mathletics and their educational ilk.

 

They've got a new suite of i3 4gb lovelies to replace some archaic RMOnes (1.6Ghz (s/c) 1GB) so that resolved that dire situation though I did jest that "they'd certainly got their value's worth!".

 

It's a mix of Cat 5 and 6 . There is POE to the Unifi APs and its entirely likely theres data running alongside power cables because that's where the wall holes have already been drilled back in the day.

 

As for VLANS I've not done them because they're dark and scarey and I don't know what I'd do with them. I thinkthe Unifi APs are on one but also are on the same IP range - is that possible? #noidea

 

Hiring hardware I didn't know you could do. I've heard of Fluke and their price tags so hiring is the better option at this point if we get that far.

 

Re: ISP usage IIRC I think they have been flatlining at the 8mb mark which isn't hard when you got a class of 30+ (or even just 5+) kids trying to Youtube frogspawn in HD.

 

In closing, thank you all again for the ideas. I'll digest these and knock up a little survey asking when/where/how is slow during school - or something to get a clearer image of what exactly is slow.

 

Thank you and good night!

[witch]

If it is internet based, then it is definitely the broadband that is the issue. I noticed a lot more complaints about the network being slow in recent months and realised that it was because most people have a much faster connection at home these days. A 10mb connection at school that never really got there, and in times of traffic was crawling, was the problem. Since we have changed supplier and now have a lot faster connection, there have been many fewer complaints.

[Sheridan]

We're getting these sort of complaints from our primaries as well. Its hard to explain to them that in the last few years they've probably quadrupled the amount of devices they have hitting the internet.

 

For example one primary 2-3 years ago had a barely used ICT suite of 20 computers and maybe a dozen classroom laptops. Now, they have a well used suite of 30 PCs, at least 30 ipads, laptops, the classroom pcs as before and every member of staff has their phone attached to the school wifi (not my idea!) to get their 'essential email' (i.e facebook updates)

 

Factor in that teachers cannot design a lesson plan that doesn't involve the internet and you have a much increased amount of traffic!

[CyberNerd]

For anyone who does capacity planning, Neilsens law is essential reading:

Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth

[mikeyd101]

look at iperf for testing internal link speeds, it can saturate the connection so use it wisely. It also requires pc at each end of the cable one running as host the other as client.

 

The other thing todo is monitor the amount of traffic at the weakest point (sounds like the internet connection) and see how much traffic your actually using. I use "the dude" here as its free and pretty easy to get up and running and gives me historic data about all my major interconnections.

 

One of the things I discovered after first starting to monitor is quite how much constant bandwidth was being taken up by our ip camera system.

Edited November 19, 2015 by mikeyd101