Network Performance Optimization: A Case Study of Enterprise Network Simulated in OPNET

Abstract

Designing an efficient network to achieve desirable performance is a challenging task and it becomes more demanding if the network to be optimized for performance is already deployed and operational. In this paper, a case study of a campus network which is operational has been considered to enhance the network performance. Campus network of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Islamabad, Pakistan has been analyzed which provides local and internet connectivity to approximately 1200 nodes, the problems in the existing network has been identified with the aim to enhance network performance without incorporating additional hardware cost. OPNET Modeler 14.5 simulator has been used to first implement the entire network infrastructure and then a new design for CIIT network has been proposed which provides better performance. The simulation results of both the existing and proposed networks have been compared, it could be observed that the proposed design significantly performs better especially in terms of aggregated throughput of Wireless Local Area Network. The proposed network design also outperforms the existing approach in different parameters such as Ethernet delay and WLAN load by approximately 26% and 19% respectively.