[Server-devel] Fwd: Network Provisioning

[John Watlington]

On Apr 24, 2008, at 10:57 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 2:38 PM, John Watlington  
> <wad at media.mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>  Proposed change to the hardware spec:
>>
>>  From one to four access points may use an simpler switch,
>>  connected to the server over a 100 Mb/s link.   From five to seven
>>  access points will need a better switch, which provides a 1 GB/s
>>  link to the server.
>>
>>  This means that a 1 GB/s interface should be specified for the  
>> servers.
>
> Theoretically, yes... but perhaps this is a bit over the top. For the
> space we are aiming...
>
>  - the XS services will bottleneck well before saturating 1Gb/s  
> traffic
>  - 'upstream' services that the XS is routing will bottleneck well  
> before 1Gb/s
>
> if we see a 7-AP setup, it will be there to support either a large
> number of laptops or a location with obstacles that needs many
> antennaes. In any case, it will support laptops mostly peering w
> each other.

Wrong.   Right now all collaboration moves through the ejabberd server.
We hope to change that, but it won't happen for roughly a year.

> If we are designing for a "client base" of laptops that we actually
> expect to saturate 1Gb, then... we need to start recommending a
> mid-range server cluster, perhaps a SAN, all costing a few megabucks
> ;-)

But a school of 250 students will need at least five access points.
It only takes two laptops to saturate a channel (OK, maybe one).
So you are saying that squid or apache can't keep up with feeding
ten streams at 11+ Mb/s each ?

wad