Network / Router Setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Randy Whitehead
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Randy Whitehead

I am reviewing our network in our corporate location, and I am trying to
figure out if I can boost performance. At present we have about 35 pc's
all connected into several network hubs. I was looking into segmenting
the network into smaller groups to try and enhance performance, but I
am not sure where to start. My thought was to seperate each segment by
placing a router inbetween those pc's and a backbone network for our
servers. Does that sound like a good idea given the number of pc's or
should it not matter that much with only 35 pcs? I had tried to place a
linksys router between my computer and the current network as a test,
and almost everything worked fine with the unit in gateway mode ( I
could not browse the network, the only visible pc was mine), but when I
switched it to router mode, I lost connection with the rest of the
network. Are those routers not setup to handle this type of use?


Thanks for the help,


Randy
 
Randy Whitehead said:
I am reviewing our network in our corporate location, and I am trying to
figure out if I can boost performance. At present we have about 35 pc's
all connected into several network hubs. I was looking into segmenting
Click to expand...

35 machines doesn't really justify subnetting. The most common subnet size
by spliting a class C netowkr is 30 hosts to start with. Ditching the Hubs
and replacing them with Switches will probably give you the best
improvement.
should it not matter that much with only 35 pcs? I had tried to place a
linksys router between my computer and the current network as a test,
and almost everything worked fine with the unit in gateway mode
Click to expand...

If you really want to subnet, what you need is a LAN Router. Unless you want
to get into VLANS, you need a router that has enough ethernet ports for each
subnet. Some of the larger Switches also have built in Router fuctions and
are typically called "Layer3 Switches". But wth only 35 machines I don't
think you need to worry about subnetting. Exact number varies, but you can
get up to around 300 host on a segment depending on what you are doing with
it. A standard class C "full network" is 254 hosts.

I recommend replacing the Hubs with Switches and see what it does from
there. Also be sure not to blame the network for slowness problems that
really aren't the netwoworks fault, make sure you are blaming the right
thing.
 
I am reviewing our network in our corporate location, and I am trying to
figure out if I can boost performance. At present we have about 35 pc's
all connected into several network hubs. I was looking into segmenting
the network into smaller groups to try and enhance performance, but I
am not sure where to start.
Click to expand...

Start by stopping. 35 PC's shouldn't ever need to be segmented for
performance increases, unless you're running some serious network
traffic such as a rendering farm. Not in normal office use. Replace
the hubs with 100 MB switches and you've gone as far as you need to
there.

Jeff
 
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