I’m sure everyone has performed a speed test of some kind of another. One of the goals of performing a speed test is to determine how long something takes traversing a network. Sounds simpler than it actually is.
I see many people start with the best of intentions only to make a bunch of changes and conclude the test was a success or failure.
One of the fundamental points I teach is to be consistent and document your methodology.
For example;
What is the goal of the testing?
What tool or software did you use?
Where are your test points?
What protocol did you use?
Was the disk involved?
Version of test tools, software and test points
What time of day and day of week were your tests?
Where they automated or scripted?
What is the conclusion?
If there are many more points that you thought of along the way, jot them down. Some examples of what you might to test is; WiFi performance, server performance or in this case equipment performance.
I was asked to determine if a client needed to buy new equipment or can they get by with what they currently have after their internet was upgraded. In this video I walk you through the methodology and findings.
If I had not performed these tests and used the existing router, we would never have known the source of the performance bottle neck.