Performance Modeling of Ahmadu Bello University Data Network Using a Storage Area Network (SAN) Design Concept

Abstract

In Ahmadu Bello University, students’ portal are not stored in the University data Centre but is hosted by the company hosting the University, in this research, a core/edge SAN was modeled into the current data network, thus allowing the students’ portal to be hosted directly on a dedicated secondary network in the University. This work was limited to just the storage of students’ portal, but gives us a good initial understanding of the viability of this approach. The main components of the network were modeled modularly as Arena Submodels. It involves building a model of a switch and explicitly including this in a discrete event simulation of a SAN in evaluating how the SAN design will perform in its stochastic environment. For every host-device pair in the core/edge SAN two links was utilized for redundancy. The Performance of the proposed core-edge SAN Design model was tested under two component failure scenarios, the failure of an edge link and a core switch. Effective measurement of storage system activity, such as throughput was checked. The results from the simulation shows that the actual mean through-times for the ABU_I.C.T network was seconds, and seconds for the proposed SAN design (a reduction on a 95% confidence since p-value was 0.01) and with (at max. power) the there was a reduction. The mean through time for the failure of an edge link (scenario 1) in the SAN design was % reduction). The mean through time for the failure of core switch (scenario 2) in the SAN design was(a % reduction) showing that the SAN design is of a higher performance measure.