Real-World Scripting: Test Copy Throughput With a Script

As the administrator of a resource domain that services several thousand users, management has asked you to determine benchmarks for the transfer rate of files (i.e., copy throughput) between the domain servers and the lab computers. You've noticed a decrease in performance but haven't been able to diagnose conclusively which servers, hard disk arrays, and network links are having problems. You decide to develop a script that measures and logs copy throughput. Specifically, you want the script to

• Capture the length of time it takes to copy a 100MB test file from a source computer (i.e., the server or workstation from which you're sending the test file) to a destination computer (i.e., the server or workstation to which you're sending the test file)
• Calculate the copy throughput in megabytes per minute
• Have a configurable test-file size
• Display the current results onscreen, and append the results to a log file
• Make all the files needed to perform the test small enough to fit on a 3.5" disk

Meeting the Script Requirements
Although you could write the FileCopyTest script in Windows NT shell scripting, using Perl is better because Perl provides more accurate math functions than NT shell scripting. However, to use Perl, you must overcome two hurdles. . . .