network thruput

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya

- i suppose some of this can be flamebait, but lets
  see what others think ...

- goal: i'm looking for ways to increase network thruput ( 2x - 5x )
	  with the same (switch, nic, cat-5e wires ) hardware

- current upper management premise ...
	- keep windoze and backup machines on the same lan
	because it doesn't clutter the wire
	even thou 80% of the packets is udp and netbios :-) duuhhh...

- i claim, think, prefer, that, in order to maximize network performance,
  i would:
	- put all windoze machines on its own WindowLAN ( 192.168.x.y )

	- i would put all cluster machines on its own 192.168.clusterIP

	- i would put all daily backup traffic on its own 192.18.backupIP

	- i'd increase wsize and rsize for mount

	- we're stuck with the intel gigE nics and nortel switches
	and cat-5e but the stacked nortels is stacked as a single switch,
	which i think is a bad thing

		- they're getting a measly/pultry 5-10MByte/sec at best
		on a gigE system .. which is why i'm "arguing" with
		those that have the power to say "bi-bi" to me :-)

		- i think its a fun problem to solve.. but..
		and i already have scripts that show we can go
		4x or 5x faster with simple separate LANs
		but sometimes, i think the itty-bitty dual-2.x CPUs 
		just run out of memory that the private network not 
		always faster

	- average traffic load is about 200GB - 500GB per day
	within the gigE nortel switches

- at the switch end ...

	- i'd have a top-level switch from each of the private LAN
	going into the "top level" switch to connect all the individual
	lans

	- if there is an expert nortel switch config
	guru reading this... please gimme a howler offline
	and you can do the convincing to upper management for a fee

c ya
alvin