Troubleshooting methodology
There are two fundamental reasons why you might be doing packet analysis:
- Troubleshooting a connectivity or functionality problem (a user can't connect, an application doesn't work, or doesn't work right), which we'll just call troubleshooting
- Analyzing a performance problem (the application works but is slow), which we'll call performance analysis
A third gray area is an application that basically works but is slow and occasionally times out, which could involve an underlying functional problem that causes the performance issue, or just simply be a really poor performance.
Troubleshooting a connectivity or functional issue is just a matter of comparing what normally works with what is going on, in the case you're working on.
A performance problem, on the other hand, requires determining where the majority of the time for a particular transaction to complete is being spent, measuring the delay and comparing that delay to what is normal...
