Hi,
Hi, let's go through these areas one at a time here.
1)Here my first question is, is this correct or should they be
pointing to the server? The 10 computers all run an application off
the server which I want to speed up, so the less load on the server,
the better.
Having the computers pointed at the router is fine, and it takes some
of the burden of the server as well, for most tasks dealing with
Internet access, email and the like. This is really a routers job,
that being to take network traffic off the server when it is not
necessary for the server to see the requests.
2) Right now I disabled the dhcp in the router and have an ip manually
assigned to each computer. Would it be better to enable dhcp in the
router and assign fixed Ip's based on the Mac address? Or is it better
to do it through the server (if so how?).
This setup is fine. For a small network like this, each having its own
static IP address is preferable. Though, with your router doing the
DHCP and not the server, changing it won?t make any difference really
in the grand scheme of things. DHCP was designed to take some of the
burden off the system administrator, for larger networks, assigning
and reassigning static IP addresses gets to be a real time consumer,
so having something to do that for you is a blessing when you start
having to keep track of 100 to 200 IP addresses.
3) The network (using the server application through the clients) is
pretty slow and I assume that its set up wrong by whoever did it. What
are the things I need to check and how can I speed it up. Do I need a
faster server, or more ram, or do I need to switch to Gigabit
Ethernet? Or is there something wrong with the cables? How can I find
out where the problem is? We also get quite a few network error
messages - odbc, connection etc.. which are hard to track down. How
can I find out where the problems are...
As far as it being setup wrong, not necessarily. Shared programs on a
network are normally very intensive on the server. There is a great
deal of network chatter going back and forth between the clients and
the server, and generally a bit of database activity, as well as
sending screens and info back and forth. If your server is also
hosting services such as the printer server, or the email server,
or... gasp, a fax server, things can get really slow very quickly.
RAM is always a good idea. You can't have too much RAM in a server
that is running a hosted software package for Windows clients. Max it
out. Honestly, you can't have too much in there. So, what ever is in
the budget, spend it on RAM first.
ODBC connection errors normally happen when the network has gotten
jammed up for a moment, and the ODBC request didn't get through and
dealt with instantly. I've seen this happen most of the time when a
print job is going through, or someone has just started downloading
their emails, or getting large files of the network drives. A RAM
boost will usually clear this up.
The best thing to start with is to stop any service on the server
which you don't absolutely need running. For example, you aren't using
DHCP, so make sure that the DHCP service doesn't start up. It is
probably to set the services to Manual, rather than turning them off
completely, and then check which services are started at the end of
the day (from the set you set to Manual), and then find out, what
started them. 'Manual' means that the service will not start until a
process is run, which requires that service; then the service is
started and remains active until the server is rebooted. Here is a
list of Services which might be set to manual via the MMC.EXE console
in the Administrative Tools folder
Alerter
Com+
Diskeeper (if not running, no point in enabling it)
Application Management
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Fax Service (if not faxing, why run it?)
Indexing Service
Internet Connection Sharing
Logical Disk Manager
Administrative Service
Messenger Net Logon
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing Service
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
NT LM Security Support Provider
Performance Logs & Alerts
Print Spooler (unless printing or faxing)
QoS RSVP Service
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure call RPC Locator
Remote Registry Service
Routing & Remote Access (if not doing RAS)
Server
SmartCard
SmartCardHelper
System Event Notification Service
Task Scheduler (if not running any batch processes)
Telnet
Uninterruptible Power Supply (if you don't have a battery backup)
Utility Manager
Windows Installer
Windows Time
It is best to do these in sets and see how things go, don't do all of
them at once. If something is obviously needed (I've marked some of
the obvious ones) then don't set them, as the server will take a
performance hit when it has to start up the service.
When running high use shared/distributed programs from a server, it is
really best to have the shared program running on one server and,
everything else running on another server. This can be rather costly
with Win2k ADV server license. But if all you have is a print server
running on there, then a non-expensive Linux box can step in and run
the print and file sharing aspects of your office, allowing the
Win2kADV to run the software with no other worries.
Once you have worked through this list, then you might want to look at
gigabit network cards. Gigabit networking is expensive, as in
thousands of dollars for your 10 client network. I doubt seriously if
such a large hammer is needed for your system. I would highly
recommend going with the second server before going with a gigabit
upgrade. A good review of these systems is here:
Gigabit Network Combo Review
http://www.dansdata.com/gigabit.htm
Some other links on getting Win2k to work faster are :
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/operating_system_tuning_w2k.asp
Optimizing Windows 2000 - Part 1 - The Server
http://windows.about.com/library/weekly/aa001008a.htm
Windows 2000 Performance Tuning
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/performance/reports/perftune.asp
I've used the terms, 'might' and 'probably' quite a bit in this
answer, and there is reason for that. I'm not sitting in front of your
server looking at the system monitors and watching the print jobs come
in. Tuning is a test and re-test process. What can you do with out?
What do you have to live with? What you have here is a place to start.
Take notes, watch your logs, and make sure you can back out of
anything you do.
If you have a specific question regarding this answer, please don't
hesitate to ask.
thanks,
webadept-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
03 Dec 2004 12:05 PST
Hi,
wow, you are right, these have come way down since the last time I looked at them.
"Features: 1000 Mbps performance, 10x faster than Fast Ethernet.
10/100/1000 Mbps auto-sensing. Smart Wizard install assistant to make
setup quick and easy. Smart Wizard performance dashboard to monitor
your throughput. Supports all major operating systems.
Specifications: Standards Compliance 10 Mbps 10BASE-T; 20 Mbps
full-duplex 10BASE-T; 100 Mbps 100BASE-TX; 200 Mbps full-duplex
100BASE-TX; 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet. Interface PC PCI ver. 2.2;
Network RJ-45. Network Port 10/100/1000 Mbps twisted-pair RJ-45.
Status LEDs 1000Mbps, 100 Mbps, 10 Mbps, Data. Supported Operating
Systems Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98SE (Second Edition), NT 4.0 and NDIS
2.0 drivers. Physical Specifications Dimensions 14 x 6 cm (3.3 x 2.3
in.). Weight 60 g (2.2 oz).
System Requirments A computer with a Pentium? 300 MHz or higher
compatible processor. One open 32-bit or 64-bit PCI slot. A CD-ROM
drive. 64 MB of memory. Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional,
2000, Me, 98SE (2nd edition), Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 5 or
above), Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows
2000 Advanced Server."
http://www.directron.com/ga311.html
Twisted-pair RJ-45 is just another way of saying CAT5 cable, so again,
yes, that would work. If I didn't just go fully wireless, I might
have to consider doing this for my network :-)
Sorry for the mislead there..
webadept-ga
|
