A question for all you network gurus.

I don't really understand all this modern network stuff ( - ah SNA - there was a 
technology I could grok :) )  So apologies if I make any obvious mistakes.

Our main data centre has just growed over the years.  Currently each application has 
more or less its own switch, subnet and VLAN set up.

Currently TSM backs up clients on two of these subnets and the server has gigabit 
interfaces into each.  We are how expanding our reach and need to address *all* 
subnets.

The issue is that for clients outside of the two directly addressed subnets,  traffic 
appears to run through the core router of the network ( this is where my understanding 
gets hazy), but in any case we can only get about 3MB/sec throughput this way (tsm, 
ftp, whatever).  This is unacceptable, but obviously we can't just keep adding network 
interfaces.  Even if it was acceptable, I'm sure the network people would complain 
about the load on a key piece of equipment.

So ideally, I want the  TSM server to be on *every* subnet.  As I understand it, if I 
get the server port configured to see all traffic on all vlans, and then provide an IP 
alias on  that adapter on each subnet, then after the switches have resolved the 
adapter mac address, the switching is done direct at a lower level and the bottleneck 
is removed.

Questions.

1. Is my understanding of the cause of the bottleneck correct?  If not, what else 
could it be?
2. Is it possible to set up a switch port to see all vlans?  
3. Is it necessary to set up an alias on every subnet? Some of them don't have spare 
addresses.

Thanks for your help

Steve.

Steve Harris
AIX and TSM Admin
Queensland Health, Brisbane Australia.






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