Commissioning measurements for Probis GmbH, Walsrode
Our customer
Probis GmbH provides professional services for all of its customers in the Walsrode Industrial Park and beyond. Along with many other companies, it was established in 2001 via a strategic restructuring of Wolff Walsrode AG, a member of the Bayer Group.
Across ten Business Centres, Probis GmbH provides services in the fields of personnel, finance, logistics, communications, engineering, technical services, medical services, environment/quality/security and information systems.
Probis currently operates the information systems for eight separate companies in the chemical and plastics processing industry in the Walsrode Industrial Park. In the field of cellulose chemistry, Wolf Walsrode AG (with its subsidiary Wolff Cellulosics) is a leading player and centre of competence within the Bayer Group.
Project aims
The aim of this project was to carry out commissioning measurements for a data network of the customer that had been recently set up. After tests, the new network was to be linked with the existing network and integrated in the production process. The measurements tested the following scenarios:
- Performance measurements of individual pieces of equipment and typical transmission routes,
- Tests of configurations and their interactions in the network set-up,
- Measurements of the scalability of the network
- Redundancy tests
Description of the unique network
The network consisted of a core sector, supplying the individual locations or buildings via Gigabit-Ethernet connections. These are distributed through high-performance switching components to Fast-Ethernet connections of the individual clients. Other clients have connections from the distribution areas via access switches.
The clients are assigned VLANs, which in turn reflect the company structure. The central servers are in their own server VLANs, which is situated in a central server location. The communication between the VLANs is via a central router that is based in the core area. For the communication with the router via the backbone, load-balancing is carried out on the basis of the VLAN-assignation of the clients.
The "old" network with a token-ring structure was to be linked via so-called border-routers with the core of the new network.
Description of test scenarios and EANTC's mission
Tests were carried out in respect of the various communication scenarios of the expected production operations. The anticipated traffic flows were then simulated by the use of special performance analysers. During the simulated load situations, the behaviour of the entire network and the individual components were thoroughly analysed. The following measurements were carried out:
- Intra-VLAN performance measurements
In this scenario, measurements were made between simulated clients and servers within a VLAN. The VLAN could be limited locally to one access switch or distributed via various access and distribution switches and thus the backbone. For different packet sizes, and traffic and load scenarios, the flow rates and packet times were measured, evaluated and interpreted. - Inter-VLAN performance measurements
In this scenario measurements were made between simulated clients/servers from different VLANs. The traffic flows were then directed via the routing modules of the core switches. - Flow measurements between Token Ring and Ethernet
These measurements facilitated the coupling together of the new and existing networks. The goal was to make sure that the performance of the border-routers would be adequate for network coupling to occur. - Redundancy tests
These tests confirmed the functionality of the redundancy mechanisms of the network. By manual intervention in the existing test network structure, the automatic switching processes could be verified and their stability tested accordingly.
