[TriLUG] Tuning WAN links

[Greg Brown]

If your company is dropping that kind of coin you might want to look into
clustering servers behind something like a Big IP F5 load balancer on the
far end.  For tuning the WAN link itself I have had great success using
Packeteer devices.

http://www.f5.com/
http://www.packeteer.com/

On 10/30/07, Shawn Hood <shawnlhood at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey guys...
>
> I've recently had a dedicated gigabit fiber WAN link that runs between
> Rackspace in Dallas and an office in Bethesda, MD dropped in my lap.  It's
> not often (read: ever) that I'm given a high-bandwidth high-latency link
> to
> tune.
>
> Here are the basics:
>
> Office in Bethesda
> Catalyst 3560
>     |
> AboveNet POP - Vienna, VA
> Catalyst 6509
>     |
> AboveNet IP/MPLS Backbone
>     |
> AboveNet POP - Dallas, TX
> Catalyst 6509
>     |
> Rackspace - Dallas, TX
> Catalyst 3560
>
>
> I've run iperf between two RHEL4 boxes connected to the 3560s.  The most
> throughput I've been able to get is ~45mbit by increasing the buffer sizes
> in /etc/sysctl and using massive window sizes on iperf.  I was hoping you
> guys could point me in the right direction.  I need to do some reading
> about
> how to get the most out of this link, and any reference would be greatly
> appreciated.  Will this be a matter of create a Linux router on each end
> to
> shape the traffic destined for this link?  Is this something better suited
> for proprietary technology that claims to 'auto-tune' this kinds of links.
> I'm fairly fluent when it comes to talking about this stuff 'in theory,'
> but
> have yet to get any hands on experience.
>
> Questions, comments, suggestions?
>
> Shawn
> --
> TriLUG mailing list        : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG Organizational FAQ  : http://trilug.org/faq/
> TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
>