3Com Switch 8800 Advanced Software V5 Configuration Guide

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NQA CONFIGURATION
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The term router and the icon router in this document refer to a router in a generic
sense or an Ethernet switch running routing protocols.
When configuring NQA, go to these sections for information you are interested in:
■ “NQA Overview” on page 1089
■ “Configuring NQA Tests” on page 1090
■ “Configuring Optional Parameters for NQA Tests” on page 1109
■ “Displaying and Maintaining NQA” on page 1112
NQA Overview This section covers these topics:
■ “Introduction to NQA” on page 1089
■ “NQA Server and NQA Client” on page 1089
■ “NQA Test Operation” on page 1090
Introduction to NQA Ping can use only the Internet control message protocol (ICMP) to test the
reachability of the destination host and the roundtrip time of a packet to the
destination. NQA (network quality analyzer) is an enhanced Ping tool used for
testing the performance of protocols running on networks. Besides the Ping
functions, NQA can provide the following functions:
■ Detecting the availability and the response time of DHCP, FTP, HTTP, and SNMP
services.
■ Testing the delay jitter of the network.
■ Verifying the availability of TCP, UDP, and DLSw packets.
Different from Ping, NQA does not display the roundtrip time or time-out time of
each packet on the console terminal in a realtime way. In this case, you have to
execute the display nqa results command to view NQA test results. In addition,
NQA can help you to set parameters for various tests and start these tests through
the network management system (NMS).
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For the detailed description on TCP, UDP, Jitter, ICMP, HTTP, FTP, DHCP, DLSw and
SNMP, refer to the corresponding manuals.
NQA Server and NQA
Client
In most NQA test systems, you only need to configure an NQA client. However,
when you perform a TCP, UDP, or jitter test, you need to configure an NQA server.
Figure 321 shows the relationship between an NQA client and an NQA server.