Introduction to the netWorks Application

Application Interface

Your interaction with the netWorks application is typically through the computer mouse. Using a drag-and-drop user interface, you create a graphical depiction of your network by dragging icons representing models of various network equipment from equipment palettes and then dropping them in netWorks drawing panel. You then draw arcs between the equipment models to represent a logical connection of the equipment. Pop-up menus and control dialog boxes are available on every model for examining and modifying attributes or other characteristics to better approximate the network you want to model.

If your primary purpose is to document an existing network, you can save your model network in a SAS data set for later use. If, however, you are interested in simulating traffic on your model network, you can set up traffic generators in your model network to reflect the traffic patterns you want to examine. After creating your traffic generators, you can invoke the netWorks simulation routines to start simulated traffic flowing over your model network.

While the telecom and LAN environments of the netWorks application are treated separately, there are naturally many similarities between them -particularly with regards to the user interface. Chapter 2, "User Interface Features," discusses the features and functionality common to both subsystems. Chapter 3, "Telecom Environment," and Chapter 4, "LAN Environment," detail the specifics of the respective subsystems. Chapter 5, "Example Models," provides examples of model networks that you can build with this application.

Chapter Contents
Previous
Next
Top