Analyze Network Utilization Rate

What is network utilization rate?

Network utilization rate is the ratio of current network traffic to the maximum traffic that the port can handle. It indicates the bandwidth use in the network.

High network utilization rate indicates the network is busy whereas low utilization rate indicates the network is idle. When network utilization rate exceeds the threshold under normal condition, it will cause low transmission speed, intermittence, request delay and so on. Networks of different types or in different topology have different theoretical peek value under general conditions. However, this doesn't mean that the higher the rate is the better. The key point is whether there is packet loss when utilization rate reaches a certain value.

Currently, the most popular LAN is switched Ethernet. For a switched Ethernet, 50% network utilization rate can be considered as high efficiency. If using hub as core switch device in the network, the utilization rate will be lower for the increasing collision in the network. Through analyzing and monitoring network utilization rate, we will get an idea whether the network is idle, normal or busy. It also helps network administrators to set proper benchmark and troubleshoot network failures with the network utilization rate.

Monitor and analyze network utilization rate

Let's take our network for example. Our network is a 100M Ethernet. Captured data with Colasoft Capsa is shown as Figure 1.


(Figure 1 View Network Utilization Rate in Colasoft Capsa)

As we can see from figure 1, Capsa captures packets in real time and calculates the current utilization rate is 0.029% and the average utilization rate is 0.025%. Utilization rate in Figure 1 indicates the current bandwidth usage, and the average utilization rate indicates that average bandwidth usage from start capturing to the current time. If the network utilization is greater than 50%, the network must be busy or overloaded.

Conclusion

Network utilization rate will directly affect the network performance. In network management, by monitoring and analyzing network utilization rate we can monitor the performance of the entire network, thus learn about whether network is normal, optimal or overloaded. Network utilization rate also plays an important role in benchmark setting and network troubleshooting.