The Lab's Test Environment - 01 Dec 1997

The Windows NT Magazine Lab's test environment includes thefollowing hardware and software: The Primary Domain Controller (PDC) is aDigital Prioris HX 5133DP with 64MB of RAM, dual 133MHz Pentiums, and a 1GB harddisk. Bluecurve Dynameasure's Control Client and Control Server agents reside onan IBM PC Server 704 with a quad 200MHz Pentium Pro configuration and 256MB ofRAM, a 500MB hard disk, a 2GB hard disk, and an Adaptec (4-port) PCI adapter.The servers run Windows NT Server 4.0 with Service Pack (SP) 3. A Cisco SystemsCatalyst 5000 configured into four switches provides connectivity.

Thirty clients running NT Workstation 4.0 connect to four separaterepeaters, which in turn connect to the Cisco. A Compaq Netelligent 11108100Base-TX Class II repeater connects to six Compaq Deskpro 5100 workstations. ACogent S-1200 TX 100Base-TX Class II repeater connects to seven Digital VenturisFX 5133 workstations. Ten MicroSys (local vendor) workstations connect toanother Cogent S-1200. A third Cogent S-1200 connects to two HP Vectra LV Series4 workstations and five DTK Computer workstations. All clients have at least a100MHz Pentium and 32MB of RAM.

The Lab uses Dynameasure Enterprise 1.5 from Bluecurve to test SQL Serverand file-sharing performance. Each physical workstation can run from 1 to 25motors; thus, one system can generate the load of 25 clients. In testingenterprise-level technology, 40 systems generate a real-world workload of 1000network users. This capability provides a more realistic enterprise testenvironment and quickly pinpoints a network's strengths and weaknesses.