Network testing and fault-finding

Target audience:

This PTT online course is aimed at those responsible for the installation and maintenance of local and wide area networks.

 

Course prerequisites:

An understanding of the operation of, and protocols employed by, Ethernet local area networks. It is recommended that the PTT course "Ethernet networks" is studied before attempting this course.

 

Course objectives:
By the end of this course you will be able to:

• describe the role of testing in installing, commissioning and fault-finding a network.
• define the various key performance indicators that together express the performance of a communications network.
• describe the role of a service level agreement with reference to quality of service indicators.
• describe the causes of frame loss, delay and jitter and their effects on multimedia services such as video streaming, telephony and video conferencing.
• describe the various factors that influence the achievable data transfer rate over a network.
• explain the effect of the TCP protocol on throughput with reference to the TCP window size.
• describe the benefits of a structured approach to fault-finding and the roles of information gathering, analysis, and testing hypotheses.
• explain that testing at the different protocol layers in a certain sequence can assist in isolating a fault, giving examples of such an approach.
• describe the role of various software utilities in taking a structured approach to fault-finding, giving examples of their use.
• describe the use of protocol analysers to monitor and analyse network traffic.
• describe and compare the role of the various standards applicable to the measurement of network performance.
• describe the use of specialised test equipment to assess the performance of, and find faults in, a network.
• explain how future functional failure of a network can be predicted.
• describe, and compare the benefits of, various types of maintenance strategy.

 

Approximate study time: 6 hours 

 

Delivery platform requirements:
To access the course, a computer/tablet running a browser such as Chrome, Safari, Edge etc. is required. The device should have an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024x768.