Benchmarking Your Home or Company Network With XMark 7.0

You can use XMark 7.0 Network Edition to benchmark your entire network from one convenient location. This article outlines the steps required to do this, and possible problems that may be encountered along the way.

Before You Begin

First, you need to set up your network and XMark for network benchmarking. You'll need to do the following:

1. Make sure that you have purchased XMark Network Edition (for testing multiple systems) and that you've installed, run, and activated XMark on the client system, using the Standalone Workstation configuration. See XMark documentation on how to activate. This system and XMark installation will be referred to as "XMark client".
2. Next, you must install XMark on all the systems that need to be tested. You also need to run XMark once on each of the systems and set it up as Networked Client/Server configuration. You do not need to be running XMark (client) on the systems to be tested. You only need to run the XMark service (which shows an icon in the system tray). By setting up each of the systems as Networked Client/Server, you will be setting them up so that the XMark service starts at system startup and does not close when the XMark client is closed. These systems and their XMark installations will be referred to as "XMark servers".
3. Now you need to clear the way for the XMark client to interact with all the XMark servers. To do this, make sure that you are not running a firewall on any of the systems with XMark installed. If you must run a firewall, make sure that it is set to allow all traffic for TCP port 7072. You should also make sure that all the systems are accessible from the client (i.e. visible in Explorer), and that you can ping each one successfully (by IP address).

Now you are ready to begin benchmarking. But first, you should look at the diagram below to understand how network benchmarking works.

Concept Diagram

This diagram is also available in the XMark documentation.

Ready, Set, Benchmark!

Before continuing, make sure that you've started the XMark client on the client computer (the one you'll be using to benchmark all the other computers), and that the XMark service is running on all the remote computers.

1. Start the benchmarking wizard, by choosing File -> System Performance... from the main menu.
2. Click Find Computer... and enter the name or IP address of one of the remote systems, and click OK. Repeat this step for all the remote computers you will be testing.
3. Place a checkmark next to each system in the list.
4. For each system in the list, select it and click Configure. Perform the necessary configuration for each system.
5. Click Next. You are now ready to start benchmarking.

Benchmarking, Continued

Before you benchmark, you can browse the systems and the benchmark tests selected for each one to make sure you've selected the correct options.

Go back to each of the individual remote systems and check to make sure that there are no screensavers running, and that a user is logged on and the desktop is visible (i.e. there's no welcome screen). If there is a screensaver, move the mouse to deactivate it and then disable it from Display Properties. If there's no user logged on or the desktop is not visible, log on or choose a user from the list on the welcome screen and make sure that the desktop is visible (with the desktop icons, wallpaper, and start menu). Then, go back to the client system, and click Begin Testing.

The benchmarking will begin. Do not perform any activity on the systems being benchmarked. Wait at least 3 minutes for each test to complete. If a test runs for more than 3 minutes, it's likely that the benchmarking process has frozen. You may see a red X appear next to some tests. This just means that the tests could not be run (there was an error). You can view the errors once testing has completed.

Once the benchmarking is complete, you can now view which tests did not run. Each test that could not be completed has a red X icon next to it. You can select it and click View Errors to view the errors that caused the test not to run.

When you're ready to browse the test results, click Finish.

Browsing and Comparing Results

Go to the Result Browser tab page. By default, the XMark client will show you the results for all the systems you just tested. If you would like to compare results with some external (online) systems, or if you'd like to choose which systems you wish to show in the result browser, you can do so by choosing Select Systems... from the task pane. All external (online) systems are shown with a little globe icon in the background.

You can also manage the test results for each of the systems you tested by clicking Manage Results... from the task pane. This allows you to delete any test results that are inaccurate or meaningless. It also allows you to edit systems and their configurations as well as export and import systems. If you wish to have the results available for importing into another installation of XMark, you can click Export... to export the systems and their results as XML files to a folder.

Finally, you can get a report of the test results by clicking Generate Report... from the task pane. You can build an XML report which will consist of three versions: Formatted, Printable, and Raw XML, or you can build a CSV report for importing into a spreadsheet.

Tweaking

If you want to improve the performance of the systems you tested, you can do so by upgrading hardware, or by changing system settings, known as tweaking. In XMark, you can tweak system settings on the Tune Up tab page. To tweak a remote system, simply click Connect To... in the task pane.

Follow the instructions in XMark's documentation to learn how to tweak. Also, stay tuned for the upcoming article: "How to boost your Internet connection speed," to learn how to use the most complicated of XMark's tweaks: the Internet and Network tweak.

Conclusion

This article has given you a step-by-step guide to benchmarking your network using XMark's client/server benchmarking capabilities. If you would like further clarification or are experiencing difficulties, contact us and we will revise this article to include your suggestions.