Inexpensive Tools for Measuring Ethernet Performance

In the past years Ethernet became the "de facto" standard for communications in office automation. Today it is felt that it can be profitably used also at the cell and field levels in automated factory environments. Being able to evaluate and monitor the actual performance of Ethernet networks when they are used for supporting real-time data exchanges is of paramount importance in the light of their adoption in manufacturing plants. In this paper it is shown that, by means of a careful design, it is possible to develop analysis tools running on a standard non-real-time Linux platform for measuring network parameters, such as transmission latencies, with a more than satisfactory level of accuracy.