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TCP/IP Network using an EPON

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by jim.spring

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Our main office connects to a small remote office using a 10Meg EPON. Our three primary business applications use three different database engines. We are having a serious lag problem with two of the "older" applications. The newer application doesn't seem to have a problem. In a "sterile" test environment, I throttle down workstation NICs to better emulate the EPON (7.4Meg) and I have no problems. When I do a packet capture on our production network, I can see the two datbases I'm having problems with are using (1) UDP and (2) SMB, NBT over TCP/IP respectively. The application I'm not having problems with use strictly TCP/IP. I have been assured by the company that provides our EPON that it is "transparent" and Iperf confirms a 9.7 Meg connection (TCP). Our network topology is basically 10/100 SWITCH <--> ONU <--> provider <--> ONU <--> Gigabit SWITCH. Before I get our EPON provider's engineers on this one, I was hoping for some other suggestions. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

5 replies

by jim.spring

We ran a bandwidth test through the PON connection while using the "problem" application and found that while the program was accessing the database, we were only using a max of 1.8 Meg. The average bandwidth use was about 200 to 500 K. Again, I would appreciate any assistance!

by georgeou

EPON is some kind of 10 mbps Ethernet Internet or WAN service?

Databases don't work well over a wide area network unless it's done VERY carefully to only send the minimum amount of data. An easy way to "thin" out a database application is to use Citrix or Terminal Services. That lets you run the application server close to the database server and it only requires 5 kbps to transmit the desktop/application.

by jim.spring

Thank you for your response!
As per our provider: http://www.knology.com/business/products/pon.cfm
"VLAN (Point-to-Point) Fiber connections - Secure and Dedicated Point-to-Point or Point-to-Multi-Point connections, connecting one or multiple offices together."
(Basically, a "transparent" 10Meg fiber connection from our central office to our remote office.)

The different transfer rates of the databases using UDP and SMB (server message block) and NBT as compared to the database that uses strictly TCP/IP suggests to me that there is some form of TOS intelligent packet forwarding or "Flow Control" going on at the ISP level at the ONUs or OLTs (and unfortunately we don't have access to these).

Your point regarding Citrix and Terminal Services is understood and may be the ultimate (albeit not preferred) solution to this problem.

by georgeou

When I worked in IT, the application guys always came to me and demand to know what was wrong with the network. I'd always tell them nothing; it's what we paid for. If they had a problem with it, take it up with the CIO and demand a faster link though that won't likely help the problem with the 5 minute load times.

When you're talking about a DB application, it usually works decent with some kind of SQL connection that minimizes data transmissions. If you're not willing to tune your app and verify that a single session will work on a 24 kbps modem connection, that means it will NOT scale for many users on a WAN. That's why I say Citrix (2x.com has a cheaper solution) is the way to go.

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