Cisco How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP

Cisco How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP

Table of Contents
How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP ..................................................................................1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................................1 Solution....................................................................................................................................................1 Related Information.................................................................................................................................3

How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP

Introduction
This document describes how to calculate bandwidth utilization using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

Solution
Calculating utilization depends on how data is presented for the particular thing you want to measure. Interface utilization is the primary measure used for network utilization. The following formulas should be used, based on whether the connection you measure is halfduplex or fullduplex. Shared LAN connections tend to be halfduplex, mainly because contention detection requires that a device listen before transmitting. WAN connections typically are fullduplex because the connection is pointtopoint; both devices can transmit and receive at the same time because they know there is only one other device sharing the connection. Because MIBII variables are stored as counters, you must take two poll cycles and figure the difference between the two (hence, the delta used in the equation). The following explains the variables used in the formulas:

Note: ifSpeed may not accurately reflect the speed of a WAN interface. For halfduplex media, use the following formula for interface utilization:

For fullduplex media, calculating the utilization is trickier. For example, with a full T1 serial connection, the line speed is 1.544 Mbps. What this means is that a T1 interface can both receive and transmit 1.544 Mbps for a combined possible bandwidth of 3.088 Mbps! When calculating interface bandwidth for fullduplex connections, you could use the following formula, in which you take the larger of the in and out values and generate a utilization percentage:

Cisco How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP

However, this method hides the utilization of the direction that has the lesser value and provides less accurate results. A more accurate method is to measure the input utilization and output utilization separately, using the following formulae:

These formulas are somewhat simplified because they do not take into consideration any overhead associated with the particular protocol. As an example, refer to RFC 1757 Ethernetutilization formulas that take into consideration packet overhead. All of the MIB attributes listed above are found in RFC1213 MIB. Details of the MIB variables used in these formulas are as follows: .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.10 ifInOctets OBJECTTYPE FROM RFC1213MIB, IFMIB SYNTAX Counter MAXACCESS readonly STATUS Mandatory DESCRIPTION "The total number of octets received on the interface, including framing characters." ::= { iso(1) org(3) dod(6) internet(1) mgmt(2) mib2(1) interfaces(2) ifTable(2) ifEntry(1) 10 } .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.16 ifOutOctets OBJECTTYPE FROM RFC1213MIB, IFMIB SYNTAX Counter MAXACCESS readonly STATUS Mandatory DESCRIPTION "The total number of octets transmitted out of the interface, including framing characters." ::= { ISO(1) org(3) DOD(6) Internet(1) mgmt(2) mib2(1) interfaces(2) ifTable(2) ifEntry(1) 16 } .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.5 ifSpeed OBJECTTYPE FROM RFC1213MIB, IFMIB SYNTAX Gauge Cisco How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP

MAXACCESS readonly STATUS Mandatory DESCRIPTION "An estimate of the interface's current bandwidth in bits per second. For interfaces which do not vary in bandwidth or for those where no accurate estimation can be made, this object should contain the nominal bandwidth." ::= { ISO(1) org(3) DOD(6) Internet(1) mgmt(2) mib2(1) interfaces(2) ifTable(2) ifEntry(1) 5}

Related Information
More Simple Network Management Protocol Technical Tips Performance Management: Best Practices White Paper

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Updated: Oct 31, 2002

Document ID: 8141

Cisco How To Calculate Bandwidth Utilization Using SNMP