RE: Debian Server Efficiency
On 26-Aug-2001 JakeCatfox@aol.com wrote:
> Which is more efficient:
>
> Using two ethernet cards, each with their own IP address, and each running a
> DIFFERENT server application, or ONE card running both?
>
Hard to answer this. What you are really asking here is if adding a second card
will enable you to read and write more packets on the network.
>From the hardware side, is one card generating lots of interupts more or less
efficient than 2 cards generating the same number of interupts total. Does the
fact that in the two card case the PCI bus will be handling data from two
places versus the one card case. Several other considerations too. Best thing
would be to setup a test box and see.
At my last job we found that it was packet routing that helped more. We had
two ethernet cards in each box, one card on the network that talks to the
outside and one on the inside. This way internal admin traffic, updates, and
office access did not affect the bandwidth available to outside people.
In the end networking is all about how the network is being used. Latency v.
bandwidth utilization. CPU work v. I/O work. etc.
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