The network is up

The network is up

After reviewing the Network World article on ``Biggest enterprise lie: The network is down,’’ I realized that Hartford Hospital's work to keep the network “clean” should set standards for other companies.

We have a 14,000-plus node network spanning much of the Connecticut area.

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The network is up

After reviewing the Network World article on ``Biggest enterprise lie: The network is down,’’ I realized that Hartford Hospital's work to keep the network “clean” should set standards for other companies.

We have a 14,000-plus node network spanning much of the Connecticut area.

Our network team is only eight people who are responsible for the infrastructure, not servers or desktops. When I first started, we were migrating from FDDI to ATM, and our main 'Clinical ELAN' was 4,500-plus nodes. We run 350-plus NetWare, Unix and Windows servers, with Windows desktops. Our broadcast rate before we rolled out Windows Domain Services for this large virtual LAN was under 100 broadcasts per second. After we rolled out the domain, we were hitting almost 300 broadcasts per second.

A review of the desktop configurations via captures revealed problems with both server and workstation configurations. When our team was done analyzing the problem, we gave the solution to our server/desktop teams, who used Novell's Zen to drop our broadcast rate to an average 40 frames per second, with IPX still enabled.

We now have a Multi-Gig Nortel backbone, and our largest user segment is approximately 1,600 devices. We are running NetWare in PureIP mode, so IPX is long gone. Our average broadcast rate on our largest user segment is eight frames per second. Even printers get adjusted to these standards.

Applications: All applications go through our team for analysis. If we see unacceptable behavior, the application is NOT allowed to go on the network without the vendor fixing the problem. If they do not fix their application, it is not allowed onto our network. By running this so clean, our desktops are still connected at 10-half, with modalities and workstations connected at 100-Full or Gig. All user ports are locked to the respective speed/duplex settings to prevent negotiation issues. All ports are disabled unless activated (with required paperwork), and port recoveries are conducted on a regular basis.

We monitor our network with Plixer's WebNM, which has Ipswitch's WhatsUp embedded in it. This is visible to the [network operating system], and the senior IS management has access to it. So, if someone says “the network is down', we say “check WebNM.” It usually is an authentication server that is the culprit, and WebNM will show that server on its exception page.

While I appreciate Bernie Lubitz' article in spirit, I can't help but note how easy it is to use tools such as W&G's LinkView Classic to show management the broadcast rates in nice, pretty graphs, use WhatsUp to show what's down, various capture programs to analyze application, and basic MS skills such as turning off Computer Browser on all clients.

Using a desktop support tool like Zen helps make these changes globally, including at remote sites.

Throwing bandwidth at the problem is only masking it, not fixing it.

Some time and research can do wonders to cure the problem.

David Rosicke

Hartford, Conn.

Gibbs raises the alarm

Mark Gibbs is right to be alarmed about the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy and the thinking that goes with it. But, unfortunately, it is part of the whole direction the United States rapidly moving in, toward criminalization as our major growth area.

Can it happen to a whole country? Yes, it can, witness the Gulag that operated in the Soviet Union, how it reached out and touched the whole country and how the Soviet economy came to rely on it. Now, the Soviets relied on free labor for major projects, mining gold, etc., while the economic benefits in the USA are in prison jobs, building prisons, and the whole legal apparatus that is associated with chasing criminals, prosecuting them, supervising them, etc. I wonder if some economist has actually calculated the multiplier effect for this, how every 100 people in prison/detention/jail translates into some number of jobs?

And, coming back to copyrights, you are probably well aware of how the big copyright owners have perverted the original system by extending the term of copyright almost endlessly. Very depressing.

James W. Cerny

Durham, N.H.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.