Topic: CobraNet Tool
Below is a link to a little tool I cooked up to help with CobraNet network designs. I needed something a little more sophisticated than CobraCAD, so this is what I came up with.
1. It is fully VLAN aware. You can create as many VLANs as you desire in addition to precisely describing what part of the physical network each VLAN occupies. In other words VLANs need not be globally assigned to the entire network, you can confine each VLAN to individual switches and uplinks as required.
2. Spanning tree protocol, aka STP, is implemented correctly. CobraCAD had a very simplistic and non-configurable STP implementation, so I aimed to provide a fully configurable, per VLAN STP simulation. STP bridge priorities, port cost, port priorities can all be configured independently for each VLAN. The program will simulate the resulting loop resolution based on the user provided STP parameters. The simulated traffic will then take into account the changes in the LAN because of the actions of STP.
3. 48k and 96k sampling rates are supported, as are 1.33mS, 2.66mS and 5.33mS latency settings. 16, 20 and 24 bit resolutions are also fully configurable down to the subchannel level. All of these various audio parameters can be configured on a per-node or per-transmitter basis.
4. In addition to analyzing the network as entered by the user, the program will also automatically analyze additional topologies that result from single point failures stemming from switch and link failures. The result of each topology is reported separately as are the peak LAN utilizations that were found across all topologies that were tested.
I plan on adding more stuff such as Dual Link simulation, the use of unmanaged switches and CM1 processing load predictions(thanks to some help from Cirrus). Of course I'm also open to suggestions.
