Benchmarking Terminology for LAN Switching Devices
RFC 2285

• Status
• IESG evaluation record
• IESG writeups
• Email expansions
• History

• Versions
• 06

Network Working Group                                      R. Mandeville
Request for Comments: 2285                 European Network Laboratories
Category: Informational                                    February 1998

           Benchmarking Terminology for LAN Switching Devices

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998).  All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   2. Existing definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   3. Term definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
      3.1 Devices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
         3.1.1 Device under test (DUT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
         3.1.2 System under test (SUT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
      3.2 Traffic orientation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
         3.2.1 Unidirectional traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
         3.2.2 Bidirectional traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
      3.3 Traffic distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
         3.3.1 Non-meshed traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
         3.3.2 Partially meshed traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
         3.3.3 Fully meshed traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
      3.4 Bursts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
         3.4.1 Burst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
         3.4.2 Burst size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
         3.4.3 Inter-burst gap (IBG). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
      3.5 Loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
         3.5.1 Intended load (Iload)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
         3.5.2 Offered load (Oload) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
         3.5.3 Maximum offered load (MOL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
         3.5.4 Overloading  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
      3.6 Forwarding rates  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
         3.6.1 Forwarding rate (FR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
         3.6.2 Forwarding rate at maximum offered load (FRMOL). . . . 16
         3.6.3 Maximum forwarding rate (MFR). . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
      3.7 Congestion control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
         3.7.1 Backpressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
         3.7.2 Forward pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Mandeville                   Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 2285                Benchmarking Terminology           February 1998

         3.7.3 Head of line blocking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
      3.8 Address handling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.1 Address caching capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.2 Address learning rate  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.3 Flood count  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
      3.9 Errored frame filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
         3.9.1 Errored frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
      3.10 Broadcasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
         3.10.1 Broadcast forwarding rate at maximum load . . . . . . 22
         3.10.2 Broadcast latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   5. References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   6. Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   7. Author's Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   8. Full Copyright Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1. Introduction

   This document is intended to provide terminology for the benchmarking
   of local area network (LAN) switching devices.  It extends the
   terminology already defined for benchmarking network interconnect
   devices in RFCs 1242 and 1944 to switching devices.

   Although it might be found useful to apply some of the terms defined
   here to a broader range of network interconnect devices, this RFC
   primarily deals with devices which switch frames at the Medium Access
   Control (MAC) layer.  It defines terms in relation to the traffic put
   to use when benchmarking switching devices, forwarding performance,
   congestion control, latency, address handling and filtering.

2.  Existing definitions

   RFC 1242 "Benchmarking Terminology for Network Interconnect Devices"
   should be consulted before attempting to make use of this document.
   RFC 1944 "Benchmarking Methodology for Network Interconnect Devices"
   contains discussions of a number of terms relevant to the
   benchmarking of switching devices and should also be consulted.