Networking
Author
Discussion

stevieb

Original Poster:

5,252 posts

284 months

Wednesday 14th January 2004
quotequote all
Hello,

Bit of a prob at the office, im upgrading the systems at work in a few months. But in the mean time as i am getting bottlenecks server end can i put a second network card in to double the network capacity to the server.

1) can i do this
2) will this give me 2000mbit/second (its got 1 1000mbit card in at the mo.
3)I have got 2 1000mbit uplinks on the switch so should this work as i want it??

server running win2000 server

cheers

steve

dontlift

9,396 posts

275 months

Wednesday 14th January 2004
quotequote all
are you 100% sure that the bottle neck is the network at the server and not some other aspect of the servers config etc

You need to look at this very carefully as the correct answer may be to add a second server and split the load

>> Edited by dontlift on Wednesday 14th January 23:23

stevieb

Original Poster:

5,252 posts

284 months

Wednesday 14th January 2004
quotequote all
dontlift said:
are you 100% sure that the bottle neck is the network at the server and not some other aspect of the servers config etc

You need to look at this very carefully as the correct answer may be to add a second server and split the load

>> Edited by dontlift on Wednesday 14th January 23:23


Im sure its the server bottleneck and not the config, Network through server is running at 97% all day long but slow considerably when doing some of my work.

I have now got 2 CAD Machines and several other machines running through this File server, Mail server, Intranet server, Backup, CCTV server, You name it it does it..

I have got planned after i finish my next project to give the systems/network a complete overhaul. Ive seen a few nice dell machines to take over this one duties but that wont be till MArch/April

Steve

dontlift

9,396 posts

275 months

Thursday 15th January 2004
quotequote all
stevieb said:
I have now got 2 CAD Machines and several other machines running through this File server, Mail server, Intranet server, Backup, CCTV server, You name it it does it..



And here is where your problem lies, i would seriously think of offloading this box a little (mail/intranet and backup on one) and file service and your cctv on the other or some other combination.

Would be good idea to try and guage how much of the traffic is for what in sorting out the split.

>> Edited by dontlift on Thursday 15th January 00:06

stevieb

Original Poster:

5,252 posts

284 months

Thursday 15th January 2004
quotequote all
My other box went pop just before xmas so all duties were transfered over.

Just need this to work for 6 - 8 weeks then this server will be retired..

steve

_DJ_

5,024 posts

271 months

Thursday 15th January 2004
quotequote all
Have you checked how much you're taxing the disks on that machine? Obviously there's little point double the network capacity then finding you were previously at 90% disk I/O anyway.
To answer your question, yes, you can increase throughput by using additional network cards. There are a few ways to do it:

1) Use NIC Teaming (Compaq term I think). i.e Install software which will balance the load across 2 NICs. This obviously depends on the NIC's you use etc

2) Add an additional network card with another IP address. Either tell clients to use the other IP for certain applications or use DNS roundrobin (which doesn't traditionally work too well because of caching of DNS on clients).

stevieb

Original Poster:

5,252 posts

284 months

Thursday 15th January 2004
quotequote all
I checked the access to the disks etc the problem appears to be the network access..

AS it was all got on a adhoc basis when sales expanded there was no structure to the network.

I working on a plan for the network where it will have a better structure and a few more servers for redundancy. I just need to have a tem fix for the coming weeks

steve

_DJ_

5,024 posts

271 months

Thursday 15th January 2004
quotequote all
Steve,

I realise the network could be the problem at the moment, but doubling the network capacity is likely to result in you finding another bottleneck. If that bottleneck is hit at say another 20% network usage then you may need to consider additional upgrades to get the performance you need.
But, as I said earlier, there are ways of increasing network bandwidth for that server.