Re: Max Devices on ethernet adapters -- MIDRANGE-L

Pat,

First off ya gotta 'do the math'. A printer that's 1,100 lpm even if 198 columns wide is still only nibbling a tiny 29Kb/sec of the LAN speed. So for local networks this is nothing. Over a WAN especially Frame with a small CIR this could hurt, especially if the printer is busy for significant durations Remember that Twinax for all it's benefits (Cables not being one of them) is only 1Mb/sec and that's shared by all the devices on a brick. (except for PCI type twinax controllers where you can get to 2 whole Mb/sec and only 4 ports share the bandwidth)

In all my time watching networks, especially iSeries I have almost never seen an overloaded 100Mb ethernet card. 10Mb sure, especially that FC #2617 abomination for SPD systems. What appears as overloaded nearly always is mis-configured.

We deal primarly with small shops. The 'typical LAN' for these shops is 100Mb switches with 1Gb uplinks between switches. Most don't have mangement, most DO place UPSs or at the very least Surge supressors on each Switch. About 1/3 have redundant power for their switches. This sort of configuration can typically support a couple hundred average users with little trouble. Most of my customers have virtually zero problems with their networks and those are usually UTS errors.

We haven't sold or installed any new Twinax in years. Several shops I work in still have it, primarily for shop terminals and printers. Many of those don't actually have Twinax either, they use Baluns to run it over Cat5.

Hope this helps.

- Larry

Pat Barber wrote:

I'm talking just a run of the mill 200-300 page report during
peak periods to a remote location.(That's pretty typical)

or

Let's say an accounting department that has a 1100lpm in
their department and that hammer it "all day long" on a
local LAN. (I know what happens on twinax)

I bring these question to the table cause I don't ever see
them mentioned and many medium sized shops are not set up
to "balance/play with/screw around" with ethernet and all
it's associated problems.

What are most folks in a mythical shop running 50 pc's
doing for "network control" ???? What is a typical lan
these days ???

Has everybody thrown in the towel on twinax since it's
soooo "outdated" ???(I have not)

Yes... I have seen the 8,000 page report sent to a remote
location and poooooooof...

-- Larry Bolhuis IBM eServer Certified Systems Expert: Vice President iSeries Technical Solutions V5R2 Arbor Solutions, Inc. iSeries LPAR Technical Solutions V5R2 1345 Monroe NW Suite 259 iSeries Linux Technical Solutions V5R2 Grand Rapids, MI 49505 iSeries Windows Integration Technical Solutions V5R2 IBM eServer Certified Systems Specialist (616) 451-2500 iSeries System Administrator for OS/400 V5R2 (616) 451-2571 - Fax AS/400 RPG IV Developer (616) 260-4746 - Cell iSeries System Command Operations V5R2