Link upgrade/usage?

[joaquimlopes]

Hi, just a few newbie questions...

- two ppp links, one of 2Mbps,another of 512 Kbps, in the link of 2 Mbps I now that my top utilization will be 512 Kbps, this value is only achieved one day a month, the rest of time I’ve 54 Kbps output average ,do I have any advantage of having the 2 Mbps link.

- I’ve 2 Mbps ppp link between two branch offices, when I’m copying files between locations I never occupy the entire link, the maximum that I achieved was about 1.5 Mbps, why can’t I get full link occupation ….

-When should I upgrade a link? , when is 75% occupied?, what are the guide lines /counters that I should take in consideration?

-What Cisco tools can I use to measure bandwidth utilization? and protocol traffic?

Thanks

[rmushtaq]

>What Cisco tools can I use to measure bandwidth utilization? and protocol >traffic?

==> You can use Cisco View which will show you Real Time Graphs of various network stats like Utilization etc. But won't show you protocol level details.

- You can also use MRTG (http://www.mrtg.org) for measuring link usage/utilization. It's a free ware app and works pretty neat. But it also does not show protocol level details.

- Can also use nGenius Real Time Monitor (RTM) or Traffic Director, an RMON based application, which can drill down and show to packet/protocol level details but for routers it requires an extra piece of hardware like a Switch Probe or NAM module.