Now that we have discussed the importance of network speed (latency) and all the factors that affect speed, we need a plan to test the speed of your network connection from your organization to the nearest Office 365 data center.
Figure 2-7. Office 365 data centers located along the Internet backbone.
The simplest approach for testing network speed is to use an online tool such as the tool available at http://www.speedtest.net. The problem with some online speed test tools is that they might not accurately represent your true speed, especially if these tools are provided by your ISP. For example, if your ISP developed and provided an online speed test tool, it might invariably yield a higher performance than what you are truly experiencing because the tool might be measuring your network location to another location owned and operated by the same ISP. This is akin to measuring an internal network, and of course we hope that any reputable ISP would at the very least have a snappy internal network!
The pairing of an IP address to a geographical location is known as geolocation. Therefore, the first step for a more valid test is to determine the geolocation between you and a point on the Internet backbone that is closest to an Office 365 data center. Next, you can use a tool that allows you to custom select a point closest to the geolocation of that data center and run the test. Here are the steps:
1. First, you need to determine the Office 365 data center that will respond to you. Open a command-prompt window and type ping outlook.com, as shown in Figure 2-8. Outlook.com will not respond, so you will get a Request timed out error message. However, simply take note of the IP address, which is 157.56.237.251 in this example.
Figure 2-8. Pinging outlook.com
2. Open a browser and go to http://www.iplocation.net.
Your IP address should be detected, but what you need to enter is the IP address of outlook.com, which was served from a data center that responded to you. That address is the one you noted from Step 1, which is 157.56.237.251 in our example. Type your address from Step 1 and click Query, as shown in Figure 2-9.
Figure 2-9. Geolocation information for outlook.com.
3. Iplocation.net will consult up to three lookup sources to determine the location from which an IP address is being served. Take note of this location. In the example shown in Figure 2-9, the geolocation information for outlook.com is in Redmond, Washington.
4. Go to http://www.speedtest.net. Notice that speedtest.net automatically detected your IP address, and you have the option to begin the test. Without any configuration, speedtest.net will use your IP address and pair it with the geolocation of the closest speedtest.net server to conduct the test.
However, we would like to select a server whose geolocation is the closest to the Office 365 data center that we were directed to. In this example, it is Redmond, WA. So instead of clicking Begin Test, click Settings, as shown in Figure 2-10.
Figure 2-10. Configure speedtest.net by clicking Settings.
5. At the lower right of the Settings page, as shown in Figure 2-11, click the Preferred Server drop-down box and select a location of a speedtest.net server that is closest to the Office 365 data center location revealed by iplocation.net. In our example, we selected Seattle, WA., which is very close to Redmond, WA.
Figure 2-11. Select the preferred server closest to the Office 365 data center.
6. After you have selected your preferred server, click Save at the bottom of the screen, then click the Take A Speed Test button at the top of the screen, as shown in Figure 2-12.
Figure 2-12. Save Settings.
7. You will return to a screen similar to the one you began with, except that you now have the option to click Begin Test with either the recommended server or your preferred server, as shown in
Figure 2-13. Click Begin Test with your preferred server.
Figure 2-13. Begin Test with Your Preferred Server.
8. The results of your speed test will be available shortly and will be similar to Figure 2-14.
Figure 2-14. Results from speedtest.net.
In summary, this exercise helped you determine the performance of Office 365 with respect to network speed through the following actions:
Determining the Office 365 data center that likely will serve your organization by pinging outlook.com.
Using iplocation.net to identify the geolocation of the Office 365 data center.
Customizing the settings of speedtest.net so you can run a speed test between your location and a geolocation that is closest to the Office 365 data center.
In this example, our speed test results reveal that we have 20.86 Mbps available in download speed and 3.74 Mbps available in upload speed. The 10 ms ping result is the latency of the network. In the next section, where we calculate the network demands of Office 365 services, we can determine whether you have adequate network performance to support a good experience for your users when you migrate them to Office 365. If not, we might need to remediate our network performance by increasing bandwidth or reducing network latency.
INSIDE OUT: COLLECT ING NET WORK STAT IST ICS
Network performance varies throughout the day for a variety of reasons. For example, if many users log in at 9:00 A.M. in the morning to start their workday, the network is more congested at that time. It might taper off significantly at lunch time and around quitting time at 5:00 P.M. If your organization is using commercial broadband, other ISP customers also might contribute to network congestion at different times of the day. Therefore, it is a good idea to conduct your speed test exercise during different times of the day, especially during known peak times, so that you can get an average of your network performance as well as the level of peak demand. If you have intelligent network gear in your organization, most of this information can be collected automatically as part of the network gear’s capabilities, or you might use tools like a Fluke meter to collect network statistics. The extra effort and time you put in to diligently baseline your network utilization will help you be more accurate in predicting the experience with Office 365 and thus help you determine whether network remediation is required.