NECESSARY INFORMATION

Identifying the necessary information and its adequate treatment is a critical part of the analysis process. The necessary information to execute the analysis can be divided into three groups:

• Information specific to the structure analyzed;
• Information specific to the environment where the organization is located;
• Non specific information.

:: Information, which is specific to the analyzed structure:

It usually includes the population served by the WAN, the points of presence, the number and location of the sources and destinations of traffic, the traffic profiles, the location of the servers and information about the current infrastructure.

:: Information, which is specific to the environment where the organization is located:

It includes the interconnection costs, hardware costs, the interconnection possibilities, personnel costs and tariff system.

:: The non-specific information:

This information covers typical traffic pattern for some kinds of applications, typical interconnection costs and everything that can be deployed as valid inference/generalization in the absence of specific data.

Typically the group performing this analysis should follow the described sequence: Verify with the organization (usually the client) and with the environmental data sources (PTT, Carriers and vendors) in order to identify which data are available. After verifying what is missing we have to consider the effort involved to get these data and compare it with the non-specific information available.
Discussing with the client we identify which data would be worth researching /measuring and which ones would be acceptable to be achieved through inference based in non-specific information. Here is worth mentioning that factors such as time available are decisive when choosing what strategy to follow. In any case all non-specific information and inferences are discussed with and approved by the client.

:: The information necessary are organized in four basic databases:

• Applications and/or services (including traffic volumes and profiles);
• Sources and destinations of traffic (Usually the organization own sites);
• Possible aggregation points (Public COs, organization own sites);
• Interconnection costs - (Usually tariffs).

These files are what we call primary information.