Documenting Application Usage Patterns
The first step in documenting application-usage patterns is to identify user communities, the number of users in the communities, and the applications the users employ. This step, which was already covered earlier in this chapter, can help you identify the total number of users for each application.
In addition to identifying the total number of users for each application, you should also document the following information:
• The frequency of application sessions (number of sessions per day, week, month or whatever time period is appropriate)
• The length of an average application session
• The number of simultaneous users of an application
Armed with information on the frequency and length of sessions, and the number of simultaneous sessions, you can more accurately predict the aggregate bandwidth requirement for all users of an application. If it is not practical to research these details, you can make some assumptions:
• You can assume that the number of users of an application equals the number of simultaneous users.
• You can assume that all applications are used all the time so that your bandwidth calculation is a worst-case (peak) estimate.
• You can assume that each user opens just one session and that a session lasts all day until the user shuts down the application at the end of the day.
Continue reading here: Estimating Traffic Overhead for Various Protocols
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