Networking may be the most important aspect of our computer installations. Recently, when some sanitation workers cut my home service lines, I didn't hear many complaints that the cable TV was out for a couple of days. But there were quite a few gripes the internet was inaccessible for 20 hours.

 

Today's machines are network-ready, and the actual network equipment costs a fraction of what it did a few years ago. The expertise necessary to set everything up may be hard to come by. By picking the right equipment and setting it up carefully, you can maximize the performance of your computers.

 

Let's go over a few definitions:

 

Hub - A networking Hub provides the electrical interconnection between networking ports.  Hubs do not separate network traffic - a message sent on one port is retransmitted on all of the other ports.  Once common, Hubs are less popular today due to the rise of low-cost Switches.

Switch - A networking Switch interconnects ports like a Hub, but allows some isolation of traffic between ports. Switches use rudimentary knowledge of the networking protocols to prevent retransmissions except on required ports. Many switches allow two different pairs of ports to communicate simultaneously, as if they were temporarily the only ports connected. Switches can also translate networking speeds.

Router - A network Router provides higher-level network isolation than a Switch. Routers allow networks to operate independently of one another, only interconnecting as needed. Routers can provide services such as Network Address Transaction (NAT), which allows a number of computers to share a single internet connection, or firewalling, which prevents network connections from being made from certain parts of the network.

Network Segment - All ports connected to a Hub (or a Switch) can be considered on the same segment of a network. Ports on a Router can be thought of as belonging to separate segments, since the router allows them to operate independently

Each network connection resembles a highway - each connection has a speed limit, and the actual speed from a connection may be even lower than the limit, if there's lots of traffic. To maximize performance, you want to use the highest speed connection you can, and stay away from as much traffic as possible.

 

Wireless networking is very popular today. It's great to be able to sit in the easy chair and be connected to all your computing resources. Those wireless connections use shared radio frequencies, which everyone can hear.  Even if the connections are secure, having many wireless signals can cause significant congestion. Separating wireless signals with different channels can help reduce congestion, but there are only a small number of channels which do not overlap.

 

Wireless networking should consider speed. 802.11b is the slowest, offering 11 million bits per second. 802.11a and g networking offer 54 million bits per second. The latest, 802.11n, will allow a few hundred million bits per second. Since the radio frequencies of 802.11b, g and n are shared, as well as 802.11a and n, you might be able to improve performance by disallowing slower-speed connections. Provided, of course, that everyone has the higher-speed networking capability.

 

For wired networking, most computers today come ready to plug into 10 or 100BaseT. The 10, 100 (or sometimes 1000) indicates the speed - 10, 100 or 1000 million bits per second, respectively. BaseT refers to the twisted-pair, or RJ-45 connection. Older computers may only support 10BaseT, while some high-end computers sport ports capable of 1000BaseT. Obviously, you want to use the highest speed you can without breaking your budget. Consider upgrading the computers that only support 10BaseT. Use the Network Connections control panel in Windows to determine the connection speed used by each computer.

 

When connecting wired networks, watch out for cases that can change the networking speed. Networking Hubs must electrically interconnect all ports, so all ports will run at the speed of the slowest connection (i.e. Connecting that 10BaseT printer to a Hub causes all ports to run at 10 million bits per second all the time). You may want to consider replacing your Hubs with Switches to avoid this.

 

1000BaseT computer network connections can only run at that speed if they are connected directly to Hubs, Switches or Routers that are capable of 1000 million bits per second connections. You may want to segregate your connections by speed, and interconnect these groups with Switches or Routers - which will shift the speeds appropriately.

 

Performance can also be improved by isolating busy sections of your network. This is especially true if you have more than two or three computers. If you have multiple servers, for example, you might want to divide your network according to which computers most frequently access each server. Then connect the servers either on the same network segment, or a nearby segment to those computers that access them. To ensure full access to the network, you can then connect those network segments with a Router or Switch. The whole idea is to have most computer conversations traversing the fewest network "boxes". The Routers or Switches between the segments isolate the traffic.

 

As an example, let's say you have a server for Peachtree, and three computers in your Finance department. Plus you also have a file server and half-dozen computers in your front office. You also want everyone to be able to access the Internet for e-mail. You can connect the Finance department machines and Peachtree server to one Hub or Switch, the front office computers and server to another Hub or Switch, and then have a Switch/Router joining the two groups, and connecting to the outside Internet.

 

Network traffic from the front office doesn't clog up the Finance department network this way, yet the CEO can log in to Peachtree from the front office when needed.

 

Your needs and configuration will vary, but I hope this article has given you some useful information on setting up your network.

 

Some popular network equipment vendors: 

http://www.belkin.com/

http://www.cisco.com/ 

http://www.dlink.com/

http://www.linksys.com/

http://www.netgear.com/

http://www.trendnet.com/

 

Configuration Tutorials:

http://www.web-articles.info/e/a/title/Configuring-Windows-XP--for-Your-Network/

http://www.web-articles.info/e/a/title/How-to-setup-a-local-network-in-Windows-XP/

http://articles.networktechs.com/25-p1.php