Network Instrastructure - Recommended Reading?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Dempsey
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J

John Dempsey

Need a technical book on load balancing on a 60 user network. Covering
things like future proofing, SQL Server loading, file server, working
out network traffic, reducing bottle necks, security. One or many
books would be fine. Anyone recommend anything? I have bought Mark
Minasi's Mastering Windows 2003 Server. Want more detail on the
networking side really.

Thanks in advance.

John
 
Need a technical book on load balancing on a 60 user network. Covering
things like future proofing, SQL Server loading, file server, working
out network traffic, reducing bottle necks, security. One or many
books would be fine. Anyone recommend anything? I have bought Mark
Minasi's Mastering Windows 2003 Server. Want more detail on the
networking side really.
Click to expand...

Load balancing and 60 users don't normally go together... :)

There used to be some networking books put out by the varioous network
device manufacturers that would cover this type of stuff, but closest
now available may be some of the Cisco certification books.

Jeff
 
Why don't 60 users and Load balancing on a sql server box go together?
Is it because it should handle 60 users happily? I am fairly new to
the networking environment and just want to understand how to work out
specifications of servers switches etc future proofing etc....

Cheers John
 
John Dempsey said:
Why don't 60 users and Load balancing on a sql server box go together?
Is it because it should handle 60 users happily? I am fairly new to
the networking environment and just want to understand how to work out
specifications of servers switches etc future proofing etc....
Click to expand...

It will go up to 250 to 300 uses on a single subnet very easily and possibly
more depending on what kind of actions take place on the system. A lot of
large file transfers and Applications the do broadcasts will reduce that.
You could get into the thousands of users by breaking the system into
subnets and still not need an load balancing.

Load balancing is used to help when something like a particular server is
required by a lot of people (thousands) from everywhere (all subnets). If
you get to that point then you need to also consider clustering servers
because you start having the CPU, RAM, and Hard Drive "seek time" becomming
the bottleneck rather than the network link.
 
hi Phil, thanks for this that last message did go over my head a
little. My situation is i have a SQL Server box which is also a file
server which is used the most throughout the day with the 60 users
accessing it and opening Word docs etc..... as well as the SQL access.
I have a bigger server that does user authentication through AD and
ISA Server and Exchange which hardly does any work whatsoever. Now I
know 60 users isnt much but I would like to know when its time to get
a new SQL Server box? So I am trying to find out the load currently on
the SQL/File Server box to see if upgrading the server is worth it or
just a waste of time and money at this point in time.

I think its worth seperating the two out getting a new server just to
do SQL and use the old one a just a fileserver.

I hope this makes sense.

Regards John
 
For SQL specifics about monitoring SQL performance and such should be asked
in a group devoted to SQL. These are not really networking questions. They
would also not be solved by network load balancing either.
 
Thanks Phil. I will try over in SQL. Thanks for all your help though.

Regards

John

Phillip Windell said:
For SQL specifics about monitoring SQL performance and such should be asked
in a group devoted to SQL. These are not really networking questions. They
would also not be solved by network load balancing either.

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com



John Dempsey said:
hi Phil, thanks for this that last message did go over my head a
little. My situation is i have a SQL Server box which is also a file
server which is used the most throughout the day with the 60 users
accessing it and opening Word docs etc..... as well as the SQL access.
I have a bigger server that does user authentication through AD and
ISA Server and Exchange which hardly does any work whatsoever. Now I
know 60 users isnt much but I would like to know when its time to get
a new SQL Server box? So I am trying to find out the load currently on
the SQL/File Server box to see if upgrading the server is worth it or
just a waste of time and money at this point in time.

I think its worth seperating the two out getting a new server just to
do SQL and use the old one a just a fileserver.

I hope this makes sense.

Regards John

"Phillip Windell" <@.> wrote in message
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