Slightley more complicated networking question

[Wilier]

Righto, Ive asked a similar question in the past, but Im going to try again.

The equipment I have is:

• 1 off 3com SuperStack II switch 1100. 24port.
• 1 off 3com SuperStack II switch 1100. 12port
• 1 off 3com SuperStack II switch 1000. 24port.
• 3 off game servers, all running XP Pro
• Approx 45 users running a variety of OS's (Win98, XP, Win2k)

Whats the best way to configure this little lot to provide the best gaming experience available with the equipment Ive got.

Go for it...........

 

[Panda On Smack]

plug them together

 

[Wilier]

Thats the easy way, but not necessarily the best

 

[Sibanac]

keep as many of the 100 mbit guys on the 1100 mbit switches
And put a server on every hub and try to keep ppl on the server that is conected to their hub so the uplinks dont get flooded

 

[Will]

I was just about to post that...the bottle neck will be the connections between the switches, and the connection to the servers. It won't be too much of an issue, you could just join them all up and go, but try to get people on the same switch as the server they will be doing most of their gaming on.

 

[Ulysses777]

I've looked up on the specs of those switches, and they use 10Base-T for the normal ports only, with 2 additional 100Base-TX ports on the Superstack 1100 units and and 1 additional 100Base-TX port on the Superstack 1000 unit.

I suggest you use your 24 port 1100 as the central switch, as it has the most ports and two 100Base-TX uplinks, and connect the 24 port 1000 and the 12 port 1100 to the two uplinks.

 

[Lester]

In bandwidth terms you will always get a bottleneck. It depends on how hungry your games are too.

For maximum bandwidth you will need to seperate the 24 port 1x100 from the others as any feed from the other 2 servers will have to go through the base 10 ports - not good.

The best alternative is to get an extra piece of kit between the servers and the switches to provide base100 ports to all 6 units.


IMO

 

[Lester]

probably

 

[Any]

Trade em in with 3Com and get a couple of sparkly new 48 port 100base-tx switches.
As 3Com dont actually want the old switches you can sell them to someone else, just remove the serial no's before you sell em so that 3Com dont find out and try to take your first born.

Or if i remember correctly the SuperStack II switch 1100 have 2 100mb ports(?) and the SuperStack II switch 1000 has 1 100mb port(unless you have the extra plug-in module in the back). Just go 12 port 1100 --> 24 port 110 --> 24 port 1000 using the uplinks. As has allready been said.

Edit: And check to see if the firmware is up to date on all the switches, it can sometimes make a big difference.

 

[Lester]

Excuse me. I don't understand how you get 3 servers into one switch at 100base.

 

[Any]

Originally posted by Lester
Excuse me. I don't understand how you get 3 servers into one switch at 100base.

Ermmm, you dont? They will have to run at 10, but the connections between the switches will be 100.

 

[Lester]

But if the links to the servers are restricted to 10, even if the nodes were evenly spread that would mean 15 nodes per server thru a 10mbit connection. If they weren't evenly split you could get a 32 player game of cs thru a single 10mb conn. I suppose it depends on the game but it sounds like a bottleneck to me.

What is the point of having 100 between switches if you only have 10 from the server?

 

[Any]

The 100 between switches is so that you dont get a bottleneck between the swtches. Say 3 people on switch 1 are getting stuff from 3 different people on switch 2 then they can all run at 10 instead of sharing a 10base-t connection.

Not the best explanation but itll do.

 

[Lester]

But they are playing games. All the data will be between servers and clients, not clients and clients.

 

[Insane]

i'd honestly ditch those three switches and go buy yourself new ones, 16port switches does fine because you can also balance the power load out to the benches, this helps reduce power trips (unless your the server admin)

but if you want to run on these, its a bit more advisable to run them like this.

pick one as the head switch, normally the fastest and most efficient switch, or in this case the 12port with the 2 100-TX ports.

uplink the two other switches directly to the 12 ports 100-TX ports so the uplinks running at 100-TX. the rest of the network will stay 10 base-T and you shouldn't swamp the uplink.

just make sure nobody decides to leech during your gaming session or a lot of people would be peeved off

 

[Wilier]

Thanks ever so much for the advice guys. I think I know what Im doing now.

Handily, it turns out that one of the guys who is coming to the LAN may be able to bring 3 24pt 10/100 switches, which will help with this event, but Im going to contact 3com about trading the old ones in.

Thanks again chaps, I really appreciate all that.

 

[Wilier]

OK, a bit of advice is required here.

Im planning to junk the old stuff and replace, but, do I go for 3-4 16 port switches , 2 24 pt switches and maybe a 16, or go the whole hog and get a 48 pt switch and then probably use an 8pt too.

Bear in mind that cost is a factor, but performance is also to be considered. Im guessing that the 48pt would out perform the other solutions, but at a far greater cost, but by how much would the performance be affected by linking the 16s together?

Cmon guys, I know you can do this............

 

[Testin da Cable]

linking switches together may cause congestion on the uplink ports. to combat this you'll have to think about where you'll be putting your servers and what users will be using what servers.
a single, large switch will not have problems like that but will have other issues (single point of failure, cost, et al) that you will have to manage. there are different ways to combat network congestion, and I expect that different people will advise you different things.
personally I'd go for 2x24port switches with a 16 port switch for servers and "management" (ie yours) workstations. just use the regular uplink to connect the things. I guess that a new switch, with 100MBit or greater capabilities will perform just fine, with high-speed uplinks etc. 100MBit full duplex links will do away with your problems tdc thinks. remember that if you're going to put high-traffic servers like ftp in the network, it's a good idea to have them in the same switch as the users to avoid inter-switch traffic. two different pootas with identical ftp directories, one in each switch, will solve that. remember that something like an ftp server doesn't need to be a battleship class box! a p2 or so with a 100Mbit nic and a fastish drive will suit you just fine

 

[Any]

Id say get a couple of 24 ports and a 16. Itll be easier to connect everything if you ever need to place the switches in different rooms/floors. You will just need to run one cable instead of loads. If thats not a consideration then maybe get a 48port.
If you could you stretch to some with 1000Mbit uplinks that should help prevent bottlenecks.