Cisco WS-C2960-24TC-S Software Guide - Page 45

Chapter 1 Overview Network Configuration Examples Table 1-1 describes what can cause network performance to degrade and how you can configure your network to increase the bandwidth available to your network users. Table 1-1 Increasing Network Performance Network Demands Suggested Design Methods Too many users on a single network segment and a growing number of users accessing the Internet • Create smaller network segments so that fewer users share the bandwidth, and use VLANs and IP subnets to place the network resources in the same logical network as the users who access those resources most. • Use full-duplex operation between the switch and its connected workstations. • Increased power of new PCs, workstations, and servers • High bandwidth demand from networked applications (such as e-mail with large attached files) and from bandwidth-intensive applications (such as multimedia) • Connect global resources-such as servers and routers to which the network users require equal access-directly to the high-speed switch ports so that they have their own high-speed segment. • Use the EtherChannel feature between the switch and its connected servers and routers. Bandwidth alone is not the only consideration when designing your network. As your network traffic profiles evolve, consider providing network services that can support applications for voice and data integration, multimedia integration, application prioritization, and security. Table 1-2 describes some network demands and how you can meet them. Table 1-2 Providing Network Services Network Demands Suggested Design Methods Efficient bandwidth usage for multimedia applications and guaranteed bandwidth for critical applications • Use IGMP snooping to efficiently forward multimedia and multicast traffic. • Use other QoS mechanisms such as packet classification, marking, scheduling, and congestion avoidance to classify traffic with the appropriate priority level, thereby providing maximum flexibility and support for mission-critical, unicast, and multicast and multimedia applications. • Use MVR to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN but to isolate the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons. High demand on network redundancy • Use VLAN trunks and BackboneFast for traffic-load balancing on the uplink ports and availability to provide always on so that the uplink port with a lower relative port cost is selected to carry the VLAN mission-critical applications traffic. OL-8603-04 Catalyst 2960 Switch Software Configuration Guide 1-13