106 108 110 112 and 114 and between data generator 210 and clients 106 108 110 112 and 114 and records the necessary statistics for calculating the throughput of nic 202 throughput calculator 208 calculates the throughput for each individual client and the overall throughput for nic 202 0031 fig3 illustrates client 110 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention note that client 110 is representative of clients 106 108 112 and 114 client 110 includes connection mechanism 302 wait mechanism 304 timer 306 data generator 308 and receiver 310 connection mechanism 302 establishes connections with server 102 through switch 104 after establishing these connections wait mechanism 304 keeps client 110 in a wait state until receiving a multicast message from control computer 116 keeping the servers in a wait state until receiving a multicast message from control computer 116 provides a means to start communication traffic between the clients and the server simultaneously and a means to prevent serialization of communications between the clients and the server this ensures that each connection has been properly established and that measurements taken during a test are valid upon receiving the multicast message timer 306 is started and data generator 308 starts traffic with server 102 receiver 310 receives data traffic from server 102 providing bi directional data traffic the traffic continues until timer 306 reaches a specified value upon reaching this specified value timer 306 causes data generator 308 to stop sending data to server 102 and to terminate the connection between client 110 and server 102 0035 fig4 illustrates control computer 116 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention control computer 116 includes client monitor 402 and message multicaster 404 note that control computer 116 may be a separate computer or a process running.