TWI472239B - Method and device for testing broadband network performance - Google Patents

Description

Method and device for testing broadband network performance

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for testing network performance, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for testing the performance of a broadband network.

In recent years, broadband networks have become more and more popular. Various broadband technologies, such as FTTx (Fiber To The x) using optical fiber, or xDSL (x Digital Subscriber Line) using copper twisted pair, support various broadband services. The installation rate of broadband networks has exceeded 80%. Although broadband technology has made great progress and hardware deployment has gradually become popular, the bandwidth used by broadband network users is still affected by factors such as the network quality and number of users provided by broadband operators. At different times, there will be different experience for the same broadband service; therefore, for a broadband user, you can understand the performance of the broadband service (such as the actual upload rate and download rate), and the broadband It will be very important for the service provided by the industry to make an objective evaluation.

There are a number of test software that can test broadband performance for different network services and protocols; for example, Iperf developed by DLAN (Distributed Application Support Team) of NLANR (National Laboratory for Applied Network Research) is based on the TCP protocol ( Transmission Control Protocol) is used to estimate network performance. In addition, Wireshark, a network packet analysis software developed by Wireshark Team, has the same function.

Although the above software is quite popular, it still measures the measurement of broadband efficiency. The reason for this limitation is that the software is installed only on individual hosts. At present, the bandwidth of broadband services provided by the industry is quite large. The average user (whether enterprise users or home users) will share the same user number and the bandwidth of the same dedicated line in different ways, such as enterprise users. The internal area network (LAN) will be built, or the home user will use the bandwidth sharer; no matter what method is adopted, there may be multiple hosts sharing the bandwidth of the same line at the same time. When the broadband test software installed on an individual host performs the test, the best performance of the broadband service is measured, and the available bandwidth is occupied as much as possible, but the software does not necessarily occupy most of the bandwidth ( Depending on the condition of other hosts sharing the same line bandwidth, the implementation of the broadband test software often results in incorrect test results and affects other users of the same line during test execution. In summary, in order to obtain the correct test results, when performing the above broadband test software, it must be confirmed that no other host is occupying the bandwidth of the same dedicated line (or the occupancy rate is extremely low), so such test methods are still quite satisfactory in use. Limited, the goal of automated testing is also difficult to achieve.

In order to solve the above problems, in order to achieve correct, efficient, and automated testing of broadband network performance, the present invention provides a method for testing broadband network performance, including: regularly monitoring packet traffic of a broadband data machine, wherein the broadband data system Connected to a broadband router through a wideband router (WAN port), the packet traffic of the broadband data system is calculated by the packet traffic flowing into or out of the wide area network; and when the packet traffic of the broadband data machine is lower than a threshold value to perform broadband network performance test.

The invention provides a broadband router with broadband network performance testing function, comprising: a processor; and a storage device; wherein the storage device stores a broadband network performance test program, the processor executes a broadband network performance test program, and the broadband network The performance test program includes the following procedures: regularly monitoring the packet traffic of the broadband data machine, wherein the broadband data system is connected to the broadband router through the wide area network of the broadband router, and the packet traffic of the broadband data system is transmitted through the packet flowing into or out of the wide area network. Flow calculation; and when the packet traffic of the broadband data machine is below a threshold, the broadband network performance test is performed.

In the method for testing the performance of a broadband network provided by the present invention, the broadband data system is connected to a broadband router, and the broadband resource (bandwidth) is shared by the broadband router to a different host, wherein the broadband router is a wired The router, or a wireless router, may also switch to a simple wireless access point access mode. Under the connection architecture, the packet traffic flowing into or out of the broadband router WAN can monitor the usage of the broadband resource, and the packet traffic is much lower than the attainable rate of the broadband data machine. It is suitable for performing broadband performance test. The reason is that on the one hand, the correct test result can be obtained, and on the other hand, the user of the broadband is not affected; the program at a certain time can be executed at a specific time, or can be fixed at intervals. Time interval, executed periodically.

Since some broadband data machines have the function of a wireless bandwidth sharing device, the broadband data machine includes a wireless module, which can be connected to the host through the wireless module, so that the host directly shares the broadband resource. Under the framework, users of broadband resources are not only connected to the host through a broadband router. The host includes a host directly connected to the broadband data machine; to properly monitor the usage of the broadband resource, the packet traffic further includes packet traffic received or transmitted through the wireless module.

As described above, in the case where the packet flow rate is much lower than the bandwidth of the broadband data machine, it is suitable to perform a broadband performance test, and the threshold value of the packet flow rate can be set according to actual requirements, for example, a lower critical value, which will bring A more accurate test result, and a higher critical value, will make the test more frequent and the result less accurate; in general, the threshold is 1% to 15% of the bandwidth of the broadband data machine.

In the method provided by the present invention, broadband testing can be evaluated in a variety of tests, including but not limited to: File Transfer Protocol (FTP) upload rate test, FTP download rate test, Hyper File Transfer Protocol (HTTP). ) upload rate test, HTTP download rate test, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) packet flow test, web page open rate test, and Packet Latency.

At present, most of the broadband services, upload and download are configured in different frequency bands, and the bandwidth of uploading and downloading is asymmetric (the download bandwidth is much larger than the uploaded bandwidth). In this case, the usage status of the broadband resource is monitored. Should be divided into the usage status of the upload bandwidth and the usage status of the download bandwidth; when the test to be performed is related to the upload bandwidth of the broadband resource, the packet flowing out of the wide area network and the broadband data machine through the above-mentioned broadband data machine The sum of the packet traffic received by the wireless module evaluates the usage rate of the bandwidth of the broadband resource. When the usage rate is lower than a predetermined value, the test is performed. When the test to be performed is related to the download bandwidth of the broadband resource, the packet is transmitted into the wide area network and transmitted through the wireless module of the broadband data machine. The sum of the packet traffic, the usage rate of the broadband resource download bandwidth is evaluated, and when the usage rate is lower than a predetermined value, the test is performed. The present invention also does not exclude that before performing any test, it is necessary to confirm that the bandwidth usage rate and the download bandwidth usage rate of the broadband resource are respectively lower than a preset threshold.

In order to facilitate the user to install a broadband router with broadband network performance test function, and to facilitate updating the broadband router, the operating parameters of the broadband router can be set through a server on the Internet. Select from the following groups: time schedule for performing the broadband network performance test, service set identification (SSID) of the monitored wireless network device, upload and download rate of the broadband router, and broadband network performance Test time interval setting, packet traffic threshold, a file server setting, and a website web address (URL) setting; and to enable broadband users to query the performance of the broadband service they use through the Internet, Broadband routers automatically upload broadband network performance test results to servers on the Internet.

The method and device for testing the performance of the broadband network provided by the present invention, the result of which is correct and does not affect the broadband network performance test of the broadband user, can be automatically executed to help the broadband user to provide the service provided by the broadband provider. objective comment.

The exemplary embodiments will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. However, the embodiments may be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limiting the invention. The disclosure of these embodiments is intended to be complete and complete, and those skilled in the art will be able to Domain.

The method for testing the performance of the broadband network in the first embodiment of the present invention is as shown in the first figure. The system architecture diagram of the present embodiment is as shown in the second figure. One of the broadband operators provides a broadband data machine 201. The broadband service enables the broadband user to connect to the Internet 202. The broadband subscriber uses a broadband router 200 to share the broadband resource to the host 210 and the host 220. The broadband router 200 connects to the host 210 by wire or wirelessly. And the host 220, the broadband router 200 is connected to the broadband data machine 201 through the wide area network. In the system architecture of the second figure, the main function of the broadband router is the third layer delivery packet in the Open System Interconnection Reference Model (OSI), and the broadband router 200 still has the network address. The function of NAT (Network Address Translation) can give the host 210 and the host 220 a virtual local network address; and the main function of the broadband data machine 201 is to transfer packets between the local network and the wide area network. In another embodiment of the present invention, the broadband router 200 can switch to an operation mode of a simple wireless network bandwidth sharer, and can also achieve the function of sharing bandwidth.

In this embodiment, the broadband router 200 has the function of broadband network performance test; according to the architecture diagram shown in the second figure, the usage status of the broadband resource (frequency bandwidth) can be reflected by the packet traffic of the broadband data machine 201. Since the broadband data machine 201 and the broadband router 200 are connected through the wide area network of the broadband router 200, the packet traffic can be monitored by the broadband router 200; the broadband router 200 can perform monitoring at a fixed time point, and can also perform monitoring periodically. Monitoring results show the bandwidth usage of the broadband resource When the rate (the above packet traffic) is less than 10%, the broadband router 200 performs a broadband network performance test; the broadband router 200 can perform a variety of different tests for different network services and different network protocols to evaluate the broadband. Network performance.

In one aspect of the embodiment, the TCP packet flow test is used to evaluate a broadband line with a download bandwidth of 100 Mbps. When the download bandwidth usage rate of the broadband resource is less than 10%, the broadband router 200 performs one. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) packet traffic test, in which the broadband router 200 downloads one or more files of size 10 Mbytes, and calculates the TCP packet traffic by the number of TCP packets received by the broadband router 200, and the traffic reflects the The bandwidth of the broadband line download. The third figure (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), and (f) download one, two, three, four, five, and ten of the above files respectively. As a result of the TCP packet flow test, the experimental results show that, regardless of downloading one or more files, the maximum rate of downloading files via the broadband line is about 90 Mbps, which is 90% of the bandwidth of the broadband line download; in this aspect The Iperf and Wireshark softwares were also implemented to verify the correctness of the above results, and both test software showed similar test results.

In other aspects of the embodiment, the file transfer protocol (FTP) upload rate test, the FTP download rate test, the Hyper File Transfer Protocol (HTTP) upload rate test, the HTTP download rate test, and the web page open rate test are used to evaluate the pass. The bandwidth is 120 Mbps, and the upload bandwidth is one of 10 Mbps wideband lines; the fourth picture (A) is the FTP download rate test, and the result of the broadband line is evaluated for a long time; the fourth picture (B) is uploaded by FTP. Rate test, long-term evaluation of the results of the broadband line; fifth picture (A) is HTTP The download rate test, long-term evaluation of the results of the broadband line; the fifth picture (B) is the HTTP upload rate test, long-term evaluation of the results of the broadband line; the test is by uploading a file size of 30Mb, or download a A 360Mb file is used to calculate the performance of the broadband line. The sixth picture (A) and the sixth picture (B) respectively evaluate the results of the broadband line for a long time at the speed of opening the well-known websites YAHOO and YOUTUBE.

In this embodiment, the test result is automatically uploaded by the broadband router 200 to the server 203 on an internet network for reference by the broadband user. To facilitate the user to install the broadband router 200 and facilitate the updating of the settings of the broadband router 200, a server 204 on an internet network can be used to set the operating parameters of the broadband router 200, for example, when to perform the broadband network performance. Test, periodically execute the time interval of the broadband network performance test, the upload and download rate of the broadband router 200, the threshold value of the packet flow for executing the test, the file server setting for downloading the file, or a website for performing the web page open rate test The address of the web page (URL) can be updated by the server 204. In the specific embodiment of the embodiment, the location of the server 204 is stored in the pre-configured settings of the broadband router 200. When the broadband router 200 is connected to the network or when the test is started, it is connected with the server 204 to obtain the required parameters.

The broadband router 200 in this embodiment includes at least one processor and a storage device in addition to the network module having the connection function. The storage device may be a hard disk, a flash memory or the like. The method for testing the performance of the broadband network disclosed in this embodiment is implemented by a code stored in the storage device and executed by the processor, and the operating parameters of the broadband router 200 are also stored in the storage device. And updated operations The parameters can be written to the broadband router 200 via the server 204. In another embodiment of the present embodiment, the broadband router 200 is developed by an embedded development platform Openwrt.

The system architecture diagram of the second embodiment of the present invention, as shown in the seventh figure, includes a broadband router 700, a broadband data machine 701, an internetwork 702, a server 703 for storing test results on the Internet, and an operation router 700 on the Internet. The server 704 of parameters and the hosts 710, 720 and 730 using broadband resources; the connection relationship of each device is the same as that of the first embodiment, except that the host 730 is directly connected to the broadband data machine 701 in a wireless manner, and does not pass through the broadband router. In this embodiment, the broadband data machine 701 includes a wireless module, so that the broadband data machine 701 has the function of a wireless network sharer, so that the host 730 can directly connect to the broadband data machine 701 to share the Broadband resources.

In this embodiment, the broadband router 700 has all the functions of the broadband router 200 in the first embodiment, but since the host 730 is directly connected to the broadband data machine 701 in a wireless manner, the broadband resource occupied by the host 730 does not respond. Broadband router 700 wide area network packet traffic; in order to accurately monitor the packet traffic of the broadband data machine 701, the broadband router 700 still needs to monitor the packet traffic transmitted and received through the broadband data system 701 wireless module, in this embodiment The hardware for performing the wireless monitoring function is an independent wireless monitoring module located in the broadband router 700, including an antenna and a receiver. In another aspect of the embodiment, the wireless monitoring function is performed. The wireless monitoring function is not the same as the other wireless monitoring module in the broadband router 700. The wireless monitoring function shares the same hardware as the other functions of the broadband router 700. In a specific aspect, the broadband router 700 An antenna system is included to establish a physical connection with the host 720 and simultaneously monitor packet traffic between the host 730 and the wireless broadband modem 701. In addition, regarding the above wireless monitoring function, there is still a technical problem to be overcome. The technical problem is that in the actual environment, there may be multiple wireless signals at the same time, and the broadband router 700 needs to determine the object of establishing a wireless connection before starting to monitor the wireless packet traffic. In this embodiment, the technical means for solving the problem is to write the service setting identification code (SSID) of the wireless module on the wireless broadband data machine 701 to the broadband router 700 through the server 704, so that the broadband router 700 is provided. The ability to establish a correct wireless connection and achieve the function of monitoring the wireless packet traffic, according to the sum of the wireless packet traffic and the outgoing and incoming broadband router 700 wide area network packet traffic, the broadband router 700 can be determined according to the process as shown in the first figure. Whether the broadband network performance test is performed and completed to ensure the correctness of the test and does not affect the broadband users 710, 720 and 730.

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200‧‧‧Broadband Router

201‧‧‧Broadband data machine

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203, 204‧‧‧ server

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701‧‧‧Broadband data machine

702‧‧‧Internet

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710, 720, 730‧‧‧ host

The first figure is a flow chart of a method for testing the performance of a broadband network according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

The second figure illustrates the system architecture diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention. The broadband user is connected to the broadband data machine through the broadband router having the broadband network performance test function of the present invention.

The third figure is the result of evaluating the performance of the broadband network by the TCP packet traffic according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

The fourth graph (A) is tested at an FTP download rate to evaluate the results of a broadband line over a long period of time.

The fourth picture (B) is tested at an FTP upload rate to evaluate the results of a broadband line over a long period of time.

The fifth graph (A) is tested at an HTTP download rate to evaluate the results of a wideband line over a long period of time.

The fifth graph (B) is tested at an HTTP upload rate to evaluate the results of a broadband line over a long period of time.

The sixth picture (A) is a long-term evaluation of the results of a broadband line by testing the rate of the well-known website YAHOO home page.

The sixth picture (B) is a long-term evaluation of the results of a broadband line by testing the rate of the popular website YOUTUBE home page.

The seventh figure illustrates a system architecture diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention. The broadband user is connected to the broadband data machine having the bandwidth sharing function by the wideband router having the broadband network performance test function of the present invention.

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Claims (12)

A method for testing the performance of a broadband network, comprising: periodically monitoring packet traffic of a broadband data machine, wherein the broadband data system is connected to the broadband router through a wide area network (WAN port) of a broadband router. The packet traffic of the broadband data machine is calculated by the packet traffic flowing into or out of the wide area network; and when the packet traffic of the broadband data machine is below a threshold, performing a broadband network performance test, wherein the threshold value visual test The method of broadband network performance is dynamically adjusted. The method for testing the performance of a broadband network as described in claim 1, wherein the broadband data machine comprises a wireless module, and the packet traffic of the broadband data machine further includes packet traffic transmitted or received by the wireless module. The method for testing broadband network performance as described in claim 1 or 2, wherein the broadband network performance test can be a file transfer protocol (FTP) upload rate test, an FTP download rate test, a hyper-file transfer protocol ( HTTP) upload rate test, HTTP download rate test, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) packet traffic test, web page open rate test, and Packet Latency. The method for testing the performance of the broadband network as described in claim 1 or 2, further comprising: setting at least one operating parameter of the broadband router through a first server on the Internet, the at least one operating parameter Can be selected from the following groups: timed execution of the broadband network performance test time schedule, a monitored wireless The service set identification code (SSID) of the network device, the upload and download rate of the broadband router, the setting of the bandwidth network performance test time interval, the packet traffic threshold, a file server setting, and a Website page address (URL) settings. The method for testing the performance of the broadband network as described in claim 1 or 2 of the patent application includes: uploading the broadband network performance test result to a second server on the Internet. The method for testing broadband network performance as described in claim 1 or 2, wherein the broadband router can be switched to an operation mode of a wireless bandwidth access point. A broadband router having a broadband network performance test function, comprising: a processor; and a storage device; wherein the storage device stores a broadband network performance test program, the processor executes the broadband network performance test program, The broadband network performance test program includes the following program: periodically monitoring the packet traffic of a broadband data machine, wherein the broadband data system is connected to the broadband router through a wide area network of the broadband router, and the packet traffic of the broadband data system is transmitted through The packet flow calculation into or out of the wide area network; and when the packet traffic of the broadband data machine is below a threshold, performing a broadband network performance test, wherein the threshold can be dynamically adjusted by the method of testing the performance of the broadband network. The broadband router of claim 7, wherein the broadband data machine comprises a wireless module, and the packet traffic of the broadband data machine further includes packet traffic transmitted or received by the wireless module. For example, the broadband router described in claim 7 or 8, wherein the broadband network performance test can be an FTP upload rate test, an FTP download rate test, an HTTP upload rate test, an HTTP download rate test, and a TCP packet flow test. , web page open rate test and network latency test (Packet Latency). The broadband router of claim 7 or 8, wherein at least one operating parameter of the broadband router is set by a first server on the Internet, the at least one operating parameter being selected from the following group Timely execution of the time schedule of the broadband network performance test, Service Set Identification (SSID) of a monitored wireless network device, upload and download rate of the broadband router, and test time of the broadband network performance The setting of the interval, the threshold value of the packet flow, a file server setting, and a website web address (URL) setting. For example, the broadband router described in claim 7 or 8, wherein the broadband network performance test program further includes the following procedure: uploading the broadband network performance test result to a second server on the Internet. A broadband router as claimed in claim 7 or 8, wherein the broadband router is switchable to an operation mode of a wireless bandwidth access point.