Slow network / internet is fine

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farmerblue

New Member
I own a large green house type facility. Over the last few months we have been adding data loggers to do a few studies. Getting ready to start a granted study. We need the data loggers to upload to our database server, but as we set them up to log, everything behind the switch slows down. Our internet speeds are fine.

Cable modem is what our isp was selling
Router Cisco Linksys EA 3500
Switch netgrear 16 port 10/100 unmanaged (about 2 years old not sure on the model)

5 laptops - wireless
7 workers on guest network with phones
8 – 16 channel data loggers (water and air temp, water meters, ext)
Database servers
Nas
Security camera system
network printers
network copier
2 desktops
Possibility of adding 2 more data loggers.

The switch, both desktops, and security camera system are wired to the router. Everything else is wired to the switch.

Would this be an issue of needing more bandwidth (upgrade) on the switch?
Would it be better to use a switch for just the data loggers and put them on the second server LAN?
- If I did this how would I set it up to where I could access the data loggers software form the laptops?
What would you suggest?
 
farmerblue said:
I own a large green house type facility. Over the last few months we have been adding data loggers to do a few studies. Getting ready to start a granted study. We need the data loggers to upload to our database server, but as we set them up to log, everything behind the switch slows down. Our internet speeds are fine.

Cable modem is what our isp was selling
Router Cisco Linksys EA 3500
Switch netgrear 16 port 10/100 unmanaged (about 2 years old not sure on the model)

5 laptops - wireless
7 workers on guest network with phones
8 – 16 channel data loggers (water and air temp, water meters, ext)
Database servers
Nas
Security camera system
network printers
network copier
2 desktops
Possibility of adding 2 more data loggers.

The switch, both desktops, and security camera system are wired to the router. Everything else is wired to the switch.

Would this be an issue of needing more bandwidth (upgrade) on the switch?
Would it be better to use a switch for just the data loggers and put them on the second server LAN?
- If I did this how would I set it up to where I could access the data loggers software form the laptops?
What would you suggest?
Click to expand...

I know nothing about this but it is obvious that the logger is taking up most of the bandwidth. If there was a way to somehow create a second line, that the loggers did not use, and then connect it back up after the loggers, so create a loop around it, you might see better results.
 
It does sound like the loggers are flooding the network.

Swapping out the 10/100 switch for a gigabit switch would be my first suggestion.

Also, if the router is also only 100mb I would be connecting the database servers to the new gigabit switch as the majority of traffic will be between loggers and database servers
 
Also, if budget allows for a new switch I would try for a higher density switch ie 24 port or higher to allow for the additional data loggers you mentioned.

A layer 2(or 3 if routing is required) switch with VLAN ability might also be desirable. So if it still does flood the network you can VLAN the loggers off with a NIC on the database server.
 
Yes I know the data loggers are slowing down the switch.

I have thought about a gigabyte switch but, with the data loggers being 10/100 will it still run in 1000? I might be confused with old info.

I ended up moving everything around a few times to get s much of the traffic off the router and kept the stuff on the router that I did not want to lag when needed.


Budget is what ever is needed with in reason to make it all work, but want to keep it some what simple.

Never thought about a VLAN, I did a search on it and something to think about.


Is there a way to use a second switch and feed it into the second server NIC and still be able to access the data loggers from other computers? I would think I would need a cross over cable, setup a bridge, level 3 switches, or something like that. I would think it would free up a lot of bandwidth from the main network and would make it simple to grow the network.
 
Does the database server have a gigabit NIC? I would assume it would, however better check before purchasing any gigabit switches.

Also, is the database server running a server operating system? If it is only running say windows xp or windows 7 it will have a 10 TCP connection limit imposed on it which could also cause problems running as many data loggers simultaneous as you are.

The dataloggers will only connect at 100mbps on the gigabit switch. However the bottleneck is currently the 100mbps connection at the database server end. If you can get this to connect at gigabit it will handle the multiple simultaneous 100mbps connections from the dataloggers better.

If the database server has two NIC's then this is an option for separating the two networks. Have a switch that connects to all data loggers and one port on the server. The other port on the server goes to the rest of the network.
 
I just re-read your last post.

If you want the other workstations to be able to directly access the dataloggers and not via the server than no a 2nd switch is not going to work. Unless you connect the other workstations directly to the datalogger network when needed. Probably not practical.

If you want to seperate the datalogger network and yet still be able to access it you would need a layer 3 switch than supports VLAN routing. This is probably complicating the setup somewhat.

Are you able to borrow a unmanaged gigabit switch from somewhere just to see if that helps the situation?
 
Yes the server has gigabyte NIC.

Running windows server 2008.

Good to know about using both NIC's on the motherboard. I was unable to find info on that when searching the net.

So my 3 options are.
Unmanaged gigabyte switch. Get a 24 port with higher bandwidth.
Managed gigabyte switch and passably set up VLAN.
Get 2 – 16 port gigabyte switches. 1 for the data loggers / server and one for everything else.

I think I like the last option and should leave me room some upgrades without having to use managed switches.

I did find someone with a 8 port gigabyte switch that is going to let me use it for a few hours on Sunday to see if it helps.
 
farmerblue said:
Yes I know the data loggers are slowing down the switch.

I have thought about a gigabyte switch but, with the data loggers being 10/100 will it still run in 1000? I might be confused with old info.

I ended up moving everything around a few times to get s much of the traffic off the router and kept the stuff on the router that I did not want to lag when needed.


Budget is what ever is needed with in reason to make it all work, but want to keep it some what simple.

Never thought about a VLAN, I did a search on it and something to think about.


Is there a way to use a second switch and feed it into the second server NIC and still be able to access the data loggers from other computers? I would think I would need a cross over cable, setup a bridge, level 3 switches, or something like that. I would think it would free up a lot of bandwidth from the main network and would make it simple to grow the network.
Click to expand...

Im not good with this sort of thing but cant you run the loggers on a different port?
 
I like the dual 16 port switch idea also (as long as the workstations do not need to directly talk to the datalogger). Completely seperates the network and traffic. I don't know how your IP's are currently assigned. If they are being handed out by the router or the server it is fine to continue that way on the 'workstation' network. The datalogger network will either need a DHCP server or set all the devices to static IP addresses. The server 2008 box can be configured with DHCP to hand out IP addresses on the datalogger NIC

Good to hear you have a gigabit switch to test with.

I guess the best way to check the performance would be to disconnect all dataloggers. Connect the new switch to the router, connect the server into the new switch and then fill all the remaining ports with data loggers and see how it goes. If that helps then you can decide whether you need to seperate the two networks or just get a gigabit switch to handle the entire lot.

I am still a little unsure why the dataloggers are flooding the network so much. Most dataloggers I have seen are fairly light on bandwidth usage and not normally enough to flood the network. Just a thought, make sure there is only one network cable connecting the switch to the router. I have seen packet floods when there have been more than one uplink between switches.
 
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I'm thinking 2 switches connected to the router. By putting all the high usage stuff on 1 switch it will keep it off the rest of the network, but will still be able to access it. I guess I did not say that in my last post. I have the loaned switch set like that now and it looks like this will be the way to go.

The info on the data loggers I'm getting from the manufacture is that logging to a server was a last minute addition to the software and not fully tested. They were made to log to a flash card, be able search the logs through the network, and to be able to log in to set up a monitor to show updated info. The manufacture of the data loggers are working on updating there software to where logging to a server will work better.

For the first 16 months would walk around 12 days and switch out the flash drives and transfer the info into Access. This was fine for my research. At the same time I was doing research a university was researching the same thing, but they over looked a few variables that made huge differences in the out come. I have been given a grant to redo there research, but the university is going to over see it.

For the grant I had to set up the loggers to updating the database every 30 seconds and switch Access out to SQL to handle the amount of info they want tracked.

To upgrade the data loggers to something that will do what I need would cost $10,000 to $30,000 depending on how much needed to be changed out with them.
Upgrading / fixing the network will be under $500 to make it work with the crappy data loggers.

Thanks for your help cjmarsh81.
 
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