On Thu, 12 Jan 2006, Pat Barber wrote:
I don't recall seeing a book on the subject, but what are the
practical limits to a single ethernet adapter supporting more
than one remote location ?
In the event of more than one ethernet adapter, do you use more than
one DSL line or do you use a "smart switch" and bring all traffic
through a single line ?
I have a customer that wants to start using DSL at remote locations
and I'm getting concerned about how much traffic a single adapter
can handle.
A typical site would be 1-4 terminals and 1-2 printers(2380)
A single 100Mbit ethernet card can handle somewhere under 100 megabits of
data per second (the maximum is 100 megabits per second, but that limit is
not always easily reachable). Few DSL connections exceed 1 mebagit per
second, most are somewhere just less than that. But assuming all the
remote locations had 1 megabit DSL connections are your internet
connection was the equal of your ethernet card (i.e. 100 megabit - very
unlikely and very expensive) then you could support 100 remote locations
with each location totally saturating their DSL connection. This is the
maximum and very, very unlikely situation.
We support 17 remote locations with an average of 10 printers+terminals in
each location. We connect to the internet with a partial T1, giving us
768 megabits of bandwidth in each direction. All the remote locations
have DSL. We are nowhere close to hitting the limits of our hardware.
James Rich
It's not the software that's free; it's you.
- billyskank on Groklaw
