I guess the most important question is, do you have any need to set these computers up in VLAN's?
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher L Merrill Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 2:24 PM To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list Subject: [TriLUG] OT - gigabit switches We would like to upgrade our testlab to a gigabit switch. I'm not an expert in this area (I spend most of my time at level 7). Maybe some of you network gurus can set me straight. In our lab we'll have 10-25 machines (some with dual NICs) mostly fast ethernet but we're moving machines to GigE. We currently have a Dell 2324 with 2 GigE ports. Performance between the machines connected directly to the switch is the only real goal. Management functions are not important, beyond the desire for simple plug-n-play management that we have today (in other words...no management - just plug them in). Note that we do load-testing in the lab, so for a network with only a handful of machines, they run a LOT of traffic between them - frequently to the CPU/NIC limit of each machine. I've read a little on layer-2 and layer-3 switches and think I grasp the differences, but it is not clear to me if there would be any performance benefit for US with a layer-3 switch. Budget is obviously a concern so a $2000 switch will take some selling. Under what kind of situations would we see a difference in the total throughput rates on, for example, a Dell 2724 (layer 2, <$300), a Dell 5324 (layer 2/3, $750) and a 6024 (layer 3, $2000)??? What about an older Dell 5224 (layer2/3, ebay $300)? What does "layer 2/3" mean? Any recommendations or pointers for some good reading would be much appreciated. p.s. We have lots of Linux boxes in the lab :> TIA, C -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Chris Merrill | Web Performance, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://webperformance.com 919-433-1762 | 919-845-7601 Website Load Testing and Stress Testing Software & Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
