1. Northern New Mexico College Department of Engineering
Analysis of the Northern New Mexico College Network Data Obtained From the Border Router
Nathan Torrez Mentor: Sadia Ahmed
Northern New Mexico College
Department of Engineering
Abstract
Data Collection and Methods
Data Analysis and Findings
Procedures
The world around us is constantly changing. As time goes on, more and more people are connecting to internet. In order to meet demands, there is more emphasis on building faster networks able to sustain the increasing internet traffic. There are many challenges that face the network here at Northern New Mexico College. There is frequent congestion in the network because of the increasing amount of traffic. Data is currently being analyzed from the border router, which could help Northern plans for the future.
In order to conduct this research and analysis, a connection to the border router is required by obtaining permission.
Software that could assist in the collection of data was installed on the machine. When connected to the border router, this software should work properly.
After the software was installed, data may now able to be collected. When enough data is retrieved it is ready to be graphed so that that it may be analyzed and conclusions may drawn.
One of the major challenges that has been presented during this project is that I was not able to obtain permission to connect to the border router. As a result, I was not able to retrieve data on my machine. The solution to this problem is a Virtual Machine that has been created with a personal account. The VM contains NetFlow and Nfdump which allows me to view all traffic in and out of the border router.
Materials
NNMC network topology
Cisco Catalyst Router
PuTTY SSH Client
Ubuntu OS
NetFlow: A tool that collects data from the border router and and analyzes and monitors network traffic.
Nfsen: A tool that can be utilized in the browser that uses the data collected from NetFlow and allows the user to view graphs based on this data.
Nfdump: A tool that uses the data collected from the border router using NetFlow and converts it into dump files so that the user may view the statistics of the data that was collected.
Windows 10
Microsoft Excel
Goals
The goal of this project is to take downloaded NNMC network traffic from the border router and conduct research to identify traffic patterns on the NNMC network. In order to analyze the data at Northern New Mexico College, a connection to the border router should be established as well as software to collect packets going in and out of the router. By the time this project is finished, there will be many different plots that will exhibit statistics of the network traffic here at Northern New Mexico College. These statistics should provide a clear picture of the peaks and valleys vs the days of the week, time of day, etc. These should also show the frequency of IP Addresses, protocols used, as well as the average bandwidth.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr, Sadia Ahmed for her instruction and assistance while I conducted this project. I would also like to recognize Dr. David Torres for selecting me to conduct this research and for his advisement throughout this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Jorge Circhigno and Mr. Jimi Montoya for getting me set up on the virtual machine and router so that I may collect my data,
For additional information, please contact:
Dr. Sadia Ahmed
Department of Engineering
Northern New Mexico College