Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The performance of network management tools for SONET/SDH networks subject to the load conditions is studied and discussed in this thesis. Specifically, a SONET network which consists of four CISCO ONS 15454s, managed by a CISCO Transport Manager, is set up in the Advanced Network Laboratory of the Naval Postgraduate School. To simulate a realistic data transfer environment for the analysis, Smartbits Avalanche software is deployed to simulate multiple client-server scenarios in the SONET network. Traffic from the management channel is then captured using a packet sniffer. Queuing analysis on the captured data is performed with particular emphasis on properties of self-similarity. In particular, the Hurst parameter which determines the captured traffic's degree of self-similarity is estimated using the Variance-Index plot technique. Link utilization is also derived from the computation of first-order statistics of the captured traffic distribution. The study shows that less management data was exchanged when the SONET network was fully loaded. In addition, it is recommended that CTM 4.6 be used to manage not more than 1552 NEs for safe operation. The results presented in this thesis will aid network planners to optimize the management of their SONET/SDH networks. / Civilian, Ministry of Defense, Singapore