Lab 0: Introduction to Riverbed Modeler (formerly called OPNET)

Objective
This lab teaches the basics of using Riverbed Modeler Academic17.5.Riverbeds user-friendly interface with drag-anddrop features enable students to effectively model, manage and troubleshoot real-world network infrastructures.
In this lab, the student will learn to create a new project and get familiar with the project editor. The student will learn to
create different scenarios and learn to simulate and compare results for different scenarios.

Overview
Riverbed provides a Virtual Network Environment that models the behaviour of networks, including its routers, switches,
protocols, servers, and individual applications. The Virtual Network Environment allows IT managers, network and system
planners, and operations staff to more effectively diagnose difficult problems, validate changes before they are
implemented, and plan for future scenarios such as traffic growth and network failures.
You can do what if analyses (called scenarios in Riverbed) on network designs, just as you can on spreadsheets with
financial business models. However, instead of looking at bottom line financial numbers, you will be looking at how
response times, latency (delays) and other network performance measures will change under different network design
approaches.
To create a network simulation (called a project in Riverbed), you specify the nodes (computers, switches, routers, etc.) in
your network, the links between nodes, and the applications that will be running on the nodes.
In this lab you will learn to built a simple network with a few user clients, some swithces and servers. You will learn how to
configure each device and run the simultations. You will also learn how to collect results and ananlyse the obtained
resutls.
NOTE 1: Remember to save your models in you P Drive. You do not have access to save in the C drive.
NOTE 2: Do not go and change anything in the process model. Your models will stop compiling

Lab Instructions
Step 1: Design and Configure the basic network
OPNET consists of projects and scenarios. Scenarios may contain different versions of the same network or models of
different networks. A project consists of one or more network scenarios. In this lab, you will create 2 different scenarios
comparing application performance with different connection speeds.
1. Click Start Riverbed modeler academic edition 17.5 Riverbed modeler academic edition17.5
a. NOTE: it will take some time to load. DO NOT PRESS IT AGAIN
2. You will see the license agreement Accept it
3. You will now see the modeller.

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4. To create a new project click on File New. You will see the following dialog box.

5. Select Project and Press ok.

6. You project editor workspace will open now. Enter project name as LAB0 and change scenario name to
slow_scenario

7. From the next dialog box, select Create empty scenario and press Next

8. From the next dialog box, select Campus and press Next

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9. Dont change the size, just press Next.

10. Dont select any technology, just press Next.

11. The setup is complete. Press Finish

12. You will no be able to see the object palette and the Project workspace
13. Select and Ethernet Workstation for the object palette and put it on the workspace

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14. Now construct the following network. Use 10BaseT links to connect the devices. Set appropriate names for the
devices.

15. Now configure the applications and the profiles.

16. Now add the services to the server and add the profile to the client

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17. Choose the statistics that you want to collect. Right click on the empty workspace and select Choose individual
DES statistics. Choose the client HTTP, Server HTTP, IP from the Node Statistics and the point-to-point statistics
from the Link Statistics

18. Now Run the Simulation. Do not change any simulation parameters. This may take some time. Press Close after
the simulation completes.
Click on this icon to run the simulation:
19. Now check your results. To see you results click on DES Results View Results or you can do Right Click
on the workspace view results.

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Questions:
1. Compare the average Object response time and page response time for Client 1. You should get graph like:

2. Why is the Page response time more than the object response time?

Step 2: Configure the Link to 100BaseT

In the previous scenario, we had use 10BaseT for the links. Now we have to create a new scenario.
1. Click on Scenarios Duplicate Scenarios
2. Add the new name: Fast_Scenario
3. Now change the links to 100BaseT
4. Run the simulation and compare the results with the previous scenario. You can you DES Results
Compare Results

Step 3: Extend the network

Add one more client and one more server. Configure the server as an Email server. Client 2 should access both email and
web services. This will require creating a new profile which supports both services and assiging this profile to Client 2.
Create two scenarios again, for 10Base T and 100Base T. Compare the Web Response times and Email response times
for the two scenarios.

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