network saturation complaint

We did find that we had problems with the server software when the server PC was CPU-bound. Maybe he was playing a game on the PC, and thought it was network-bound, rather than CPU-bound.

Ibiza installation

We went to some lengths to avoid network saturation. The server machine has four network cards (3 Intel eepro100, plus onboard LAN). We only used the Intel boards, each of which runs independently to a 3x10/100 hub/switch.

Each hub was (IIRC) actually three 10/100 hubs in a box, switched between the three.

So, the network was effectively partitioned into 9 pieces, with (an average) 7 Receivers on each segment.

This kind of load can be driven easily by a single network card, which is why we partitioned it up like that.

As for CPU-usage, the box was something by Asus, with (IIRC) a dual-processor Pentium 3 -- the server software is multi-threaded. The disk is a single 9Gb (might be 18Gb, can't remember) U2W SCSI disk plugged into the onboard controller.

It didn't break a sweat, even with all of the units up and running at the same time.

Trivia:

The white box that you can see on top of the rack (under the Receiver) in this picture is a wireless box. This allowed me to do the necessary server management by the pool -- using a laptop, with a great view of San Antonio bay .