Server Networking

[Helgrind]

I am in the process of overhauling the network to a server and its workstations in an office. I am here because I am a few question in regards to Mini-GBIC. I am replacing the offices two 8 port Netgear switches with a cisco SG102-24NA. This should help remove some bottlenecks the workstations are having when it comes to communicating with the server. Now the server needs to have its network card upgraded and I am thinking of moving it over to a Mini-GBIC since I have read this connector has a larger bandwidth. I am just wondering if it is worth it. The cost is not an issue but I need to eliminate this bottleneck that they are having. If this is the best option, what connectors/cable and PCI expansion card would be the best to go with? The server is running windows server 2012 and is used for the DNS log in transferring data like photo and stuff of that nature. The server will only be a few feet from the switch as well. If this is not the best option what would be?

[SenorDonut]

Mini-GBIC only has higher bandwidth if it's a SFP+ port. The switch you are looking at appears to be regular SFP. SFP is no faster than Gigabit Ethernet, SFP+ can handle 10 Gigabit speeds. What speed is the network running at now?

[Helgrind]

The current network is only working at 1gbps across everything so if more than one person is accessing anything it just stops working or will take 3 min to load the person files.

[SenorDonut]

Ok, do you want to upgrade to 10Gb or team existing 1Gb connections?

[Helgrind]

Well to be fair I am not 100% sure I just know they need to have at least 3-4 people accessing at the same time. I would have to get a new networking card for the server to have more ethernet ports on the server to connect to the switch to bind the connections. I also thought there can be a few issues with binding connections together. 

[KuJoe]

51 minutes ago, Helgrind said:

Well to be fair I am not 100% sure I just know they need to have at least 3-4 people accessing at the same time. I would have to get a new networking card for the server to have more ethernet ports on the server to connect to the switch to bind the connections. I also thought there can be a few issues with binding connections together. 

It doesn't look like that switch supports 802.3ad (LACP) so I would suggest looking for another switch if you want to start bonding ports which is probably your best bet. A good 1Gbps switch with 2 or 4 ports bonded on the server should be all you need. Just make sure it's a decent switch with a backplane that has a switching capacity of more than 4Gbps or else it's pointless.

 

EDIT: You can bond ports without using 802.3ad but if you're already replacing the switch and want improved performance and not just redundancy I recommend getting one that supports it.

Edited February 14, 2017 by KuJoe
Added more.

[Blake]

3 hours ago, Helgrind said:

Well to be fair I am not 100% sure I just know they need to have at least 3-4 people accessing at the same time. I would have to get a new networking card for the server to have more ethernet ports on the server to connect to the switch to bind the connections. I also thought there can be a few issues with binding connections together. 

gigabit should be fine for 3-4 people... what exactly are they loading? and what exactly are they loading it from?

2 hours ago, KuJoe said:

It doesn't look like that switch supports 802.3ad (LACP) so I would suggest looking for another switch if you want to start bonding ports which is probably your best bet. A good 1Gbps switch with 2 or 4 ports bonded on the server should be all you need. Just make sure it's a decent switch with a backplane that has a switching capacity of more than 4Gbps or else it's pointless.

 

EDIT: You can bond ports without using 802.3ad but if you're already replacing the switch and want improved performance and not just redundancy I recommend getting one that supports it.

Really depends if they even need it. While yes etherchannel is great, the bottle neck could very well be the server, which would mean upgrading to a LACP compatible switch would be pointless (or only start to pay for itself after then next round of server upgrades).

[Helgrind]

So they are a dentist so this server has all the medical records including x-ray images insurance claims and so on. It should not need a lot, but it is taking forever to open anything from the server I have been narrowing down what the issue could be. So far all I know is it is an issue with their very bad networking setup. I just want to do this right, I know a decent amount about networking but I am not working in the field so figured I would ask here. All the computers even the server currently have 1gbps Ethernet adapters. This server is also used for the windows local domain login services they use. I think binding the ethernets might be the right way to go I just need to read up on how to go about doing it. I remember watching the video on it that Linus made. 

[KuJoe]

20 minutes ago, Helgrind said:

So they are a dentist so this server has all the medical records including x-ray images insurance claims and so on. It should not need a lot, but it is taking forever to open anything from the server I have been narrowing down what the issue could be. So far all I know is it is an issue with their very bad networking setup. I just want to do this right, I know a decent amount about networking but I am not working in the field so figured I would ask here. All the computers even the server currently have 1gbps Ethernet adapters. This server is also used for the windows local domain login services they use. I think binding the ethernets might be the right way to go I just need to read up on how to go about doing it. I remember watching the video on it that Linus made. 

How big are the files they are opening? I can't imagine them being gigabytes in size so the 1Gbps link should be plenty. I would check the server resources first like what @Blake was saying.

 

Here's what I would do:

 

Open up the resource monitor for the server and the PC, have them open a file on the server and check the CPU, disk IO, and network usage for both and see which one spikes. If network utilization is fine then upgrading the network is pointless. Most server RAID setups should be able to saturate a 1Gbps link so the network might be the bottleneck, but with this new information I would definitely do some troubleshooting to determine where the issue is before spending any money.

[Helgrind]

I know it is not in the gigabytes at most it should be a few MB my field of work is in software more than networking. I have a feeling it is the software that they are using for this. The company keeps telling them that the issue is their hardware so I am trying to remove that as an issue so they have to actually look into the issue at hand. They have 8 drives in raid. I will check tomorrow when I go in tomorrow to see if it is the array is having an issue, but they do need to redo their network and that is being redone no matter what. I would like to help give them a set-up that will work for a while. The hardware and raid I understand more than the networking. 

[leadeater]

What is the server/hardware?

 

I would suggest going a bit more up market with the switch that the server connects to, a Cisco SG200 or SG300 will do the job. However if you want 10Gb (I don't think you need it) you'll need a Cisco SG350X or Ubiquiti US‑16‑XG (limited copper ports though), or other options from the likes of Netgear (I don't trust them though).

 

The issue could actually be the server, most likely the RAID array/card or lack of even. When the issue is happening use perfmon or resource monitor and look at the disk queue, if it's consistently high (above 20) that'll warrant further investigation.

[Helgrind]

I just checked the server it is running a raid 10 with only 4 drives but it's read is 240 mb on average. Which should be enough for what they are doing. When you load off the server it is instant to load the images off the drive through the software they are using. The servers specs are an 8 core Xeon processor running at 2.2 Ghz 16 go of error correcting ddr3 memory and 4 1tb 7200 rpm drives from seagate. 

[Blake]

2 hours ago, Helgrind said:

I just checked the server it is running a raid 10 with only 4 drives but it's read is 240 mb on average. Which should be enough for what they are doing. When you load off the server it is instant to load the images off the drive through the software they are using. The servers specs are an 8 core Xeon processor running at 2.2 Ghz 16 go of error correcting ddr3 memory and 4 1tb 7200 rpm drives from seagate. 

What happens if you map the drive (SMB/iSCI) and load it there?

 

To be honest it sounds like the clients are either under-powered or the software sucks. Attempt to load a file locally and see if that has the same issues, if it does, the issue has nothing to do with network/server. That's 2/3 of possible issues sorted. you can then choose to 'play dumb' if there old network infastucture is actually old (i.e. outside of your 3/4/5/[insert year] hardware rotation).

[Helgrind]

Well I just did that it does not look to be the software. On the server it does not take to long to load. The work stations are all quad core i5 with an intel network card they are all hardliners in and have 256 go ssd and an navia Mobil 960 cards. So they should not be the problem. The network is 8 years old. The server is now 4 but still over kill for what they are doing. At this point I think it has to be something wrong with their server bar card or with the network itself. 

[leadeater]

23 minutes ago, Helgrind said:

Well I just did that it does not look to be the software. On the server it does not take to long to load. The work stations are all quad core i5 with an intel network card they are all hardliners in and have 256 go ssd and an navia Mobil 960 cards. So they should not be the problem. The network is 8 years old. The server is now 4 but still over kill for what they are doing. At this point I think it has to be something wrong with their server bar card or with the network itself. 

If there is a free network port on the server directly connect a computer to that and configure static IPs then do the test again, that'll show if it's a network issue or if the software is just bad over the network.

[Helgrind]

So when I directly connect a workstation it is significantly faster, I think I will go with just aggregating 2-4 ethernet connections together to the server. 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Helgrind said:

So when I directly connect a workstation it is significantly faster, I think I will go with just aggregating 2-4 ethernet connections together to the server. 

Yep, that sounds like it was a network problem then.

[Helgrind]

So I do have a question if I used windows server 2012 to bind the ports using the nicteam software built in do I need to have a switch that supports this or will it just work on it own?

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, Helgrind said:

So I do have a question if I used windows server 2012 to bind the ports using the nicteam software built in do I need to have a switch that supports this or will it just work on it own?

Depends on the mode you pick when teaming, there is Switch Dependent and Switch Independent. You'll get better results with Switch Dependent but as it implies you need a switch that supports Link Aggregation, either Static or LACP.

[Helgrind]

Ok thank you for the information everyone. It was a lot of help now comes the fun part.