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Internet sharing over a WAN

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by darrenw

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Our company recently upgraded from a shared ISDN connection to DSL. The DSL line comes through our headquarters and into a cisco 1600 series router, then a hardware firewall and finally a network hub. Our remote stores connect to us via slowish 56k Frame Relay lines. Rather than routers we use FRAD's as the gateway devices at the remote stores. The headquarters uses a Fractional T1 running at 256k incoming. Here's the problem: since the upgrade the remote stores have noticed a DECREASE in internet performance (eg mail server time-outs sending larger attachments) Has the increased traffic from the DSL congested our pipes? Any suggestions? Perhaps replacing the hub(s) at headquarters with switches would help?

8 replies

by slacker

I had the same sitch a few years ago. Putting the whole thing on switches made all the difference in the world. They are relatively cheap these days and will solve your problem without question.

by curtisinterruptus

Yes, I agree. I just replaced a TON of stacked hubs with switches and gained quite a few benefits. For one thing, hubs just route info EVERYWHERE to EVERY PC on the LAN. Switches are intelligent enough to route the info just where it needs to go,PLUS, our switches are full duplex, unlike our old hubs...

Curt

by curtisinterruptus

Can your FRADs throttle back traffic (to the CIR with FECN or BECN bits set)? Some do and some don't. If the traffic DID increase due to the DSL, then this could be the problem. I have very little experience with FRADs, so maybe someone with more experience could lend us a hand here?

Curt

by darrenw

I ran a speed test from headquarters on broadband reports and found that the upload speed was 12K (ACK!) A call to our ISP and some router tweaking and we actually had our upload speed beating our download speed! This alleviated the problem. However, network congestion is an issue anyway with the Frame Lines to remotes. I'm gonna put in a request for a couple of managed switches. Any suggestions on the best bang for the buck on switches?

by indomidable

Best bang for buck.
If your going for it the Most common of the two are Cisco and Nortel
Nortel normaly has the best bang for the buck; Cisco has the better advertizing, public view, etc.
Nortel has similar to better features at usually a lower cost.
Check all your options find out what you need now and what your future needs and get the best. Always check features before the almighty $$

by darrenw

Thanks for the input, but to save some research time does anyone have a specific suggestion. We need 48 ports and run windows NT domain, AS400, Internet.

by tomsal

I agree with Indomidable.

I would also say the two best are Nortel and Cisco.

Though 95% of my experience and training has been on Cisco Switches and Routers, we are actually getting a few Nortel Layer 4 switches for our new digital phone installation and I have to say...after researching Nortel's product offerings they are pretty impressive for the dollar, they clearly stack up well against Cisco.

by andrew_raff

I use Nortel's BayStack 450-24T. I've found them to be very reliable. I have about 30 of then in stack ranging for two to eight. They have been running for a little over two years without a hitch.

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