Lab 1: Switch vs Hub

Objective
This lab teaches the differences between using a Hub or a switch in a LAN using Riverbed Modeler 17.5.
In this lab, the student will create a LAN with a hub and then replace the hub with the switch. The student will then
examine the change in throughput and delay in the LAN when upgrading from a hub to a switch.

Overview
Ethernet hubs work at the physical layer, simply repeating any frames they receive on one port onto all other ports. For
this reason, they are also called multiport repeaters. Hubs are layer 1 devices. All the nodes connected to a hub are
considered to be part of the same broadcast domain. In other words, any frame transmitted by one of the nodes will be
received by all the rest. This configuration can limit throughput, as all nodes must share the capacity of the LAN.
On the other hand, switches are layer 2 devices and hence forward frames only to the port that is connected to the
ethernet frames destination. Since switches forward frames only on a single line, they create multiple broadcast domains,
leading to great gains in throughput. The throughput of a switch is restricted, however, by its processing speed, the speed
at which it can forward frames onto the correct outgoing link.
NOTE 1: Remember to save your models in you P Drive. You do not have access to save in the C drive. To load your
saved models, you need to add your P drive in the models directory.
NOTE 2: Do not go and change anything in the process model. Your models will stop compiling

Lab Instructions
Step 1: LAN using Hubs
Create your LAN using the hub and the ethernet workstations.
1. Click Start Riverbed modeler academic edition 17.5 Riverbed modeler 17.5
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.
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 LAB1 and change scenario name to only
hubs
7. From the next dialog box, select Create empty scenario and press Next
8. From the next dialog box, select Campus and press Next
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 now be able to see the object palette and the Project workspace
Now you will learn a quick way to create a LAN topology which all computers are connected using a Hub.
13. Select the Topology Tab in the menu Rapid Configuration.
14. Set the Configuration to Star, and click on Next.

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15. Set the Center Node Model to ethernet32_hub.

16. Set the Periphery Node Model to ethernet_wkstn.
17. Set the Link Model to 10BaseT, and set the Number to 12.
18. Click OK to create the LAN.

19. You shold now see the following LAN created.

20. Now add an Ethernet server from the object palette and connect it to the hub using a 10BaseT link.
21. Now add an application configuration and a profile configuration objects from the object palette.
a. Configure the web application to heavy browsing. Change the object size to 10000bytes and change the
image to large image

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b. Create a profile for this application and apply it to each workstation. Right-click on any of the station and
choose Select Similar Nodes. Next, right click on one of the stations and choose Edit Attributes. Put a
check in the checkbox next to Apply Changes to Selected Objects. And now add the profile.
22. You network should look like this.

23. Now select the statistics you want to collect.

a. Select the Simulation tab Choose Individual Statistics
b. Expand the Node Statistics item and select: Client http, Server http and Ethernet
c.

Expand the Global Statistics item and the Ethernet item, and select the Delay

d. Click on OK to close the window.

24. Now run the simulation for 10 minutes.
25. Check your results.

Step 2: LAN using a Switch

1. Duplicate the Scenario
a. Choose Scenarios Duplicate Scenario, and name the new scenario Only Switch.
b. Click on OK to create the scenario.
2. Right-click on the hub and choose Edit Attributes. Left click on the model attribute and choose
enthernet16_switch_adv from the pull-down menu.
3. Also, change the name to be Switch.
4. Click on OK to make the change.
5. Now you should get the scenario like the following:

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6. Run Simulation and Compare Results

a. Select the Scenarios tab Manage Scenarios
b. Edit the Results field in both rows and set the values to <collect> or <recollect>
c.

Click on OK to run both scenarios. When the simulation is completed, click on Close to close the window.

7. To compare the result, select the Result tab Compare Results

8. Expand the Traffic Sink and select the Traffic Received statistics. View the statistics in As Is mode. Click on
Show for a more detailed graph. This statistics shows the total of traffic received by all stations in the LAN. From
the result, we can see that the switch can almost handle twice traffic as much as the hub.

Lab Questions:
Question Lab1.1: Compare the average HTTP Object Response Time and HTTP Page Response Time for any
workstation for the two scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.2: Compare the average Collision Count and the average Transmission Attempts for any workstation for
the two scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.3: Compare the average traffic processing time and the average load on the web server for the two
scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.4: Compare the Global Ethernet delay for the two scenarios. Explain your results.
The results graphs and explanations for these questions need to be submitted in the lab report.

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Step 3: switch and hubs in the LAN

Now create a new scenario for the following network

Run the simulation and compare the results with the previous scenarios.

Lab Questions:
Question Lab1.5: Compare the average HTTP Object response time and the average HTTP page response for node_1
for the three scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.6: Compare the average Collision count and the average transmission attempts for node_7 for the three
scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.7: Compare the average Ethernet delay and for node_6 for the three scenarios. Explain your results.
Question Lab1.8: Compare the average load and the average traffic processing time for the web server for the three
scenarios. Explain your results.
The results graphs and explanations for these questions need to be submitted in the lab report.

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Step 4: Heavy application

1. For the three scearnios defined before, update the application

a. Configure the web application to heavy browsing. Change the object size to 150000 bytes and change
the image to large image (with minimum outcome set to 20000 and maximum outcome to 100000)

2. Run the simulation and compare the results with the previous scenarios.

Lab Questions:
Question Lab1.9: Compare the Global HTTP Object response time and the HTTP page response for the three scenarios.
Explain your results.
Question Lab1.10: Compare the Global Ethernet delay for the three scenarios. Explain your results.
The results graphs and explanations for these questions need to be submitted in the lab report.

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