Broadband Problem / Load Balancer

Bolimomo · Dec 12, 2013

Quote from ammo:

dont know a lot ,or if anyone mentioned it but the wireless is limited to 56bps, where the direct connection is faster

I think this concept is outdated by at least 10 years.

The latest wireless standard, wireless N (or IEEE 802.11n) has a net data rate of 54 Mbit/s to 600 Mbit/s, much higher than what you can get from your Internet access provider. DSL 5 Mbps max. Cable modem, 10 to 15 Mbps or more, fiber can be 20 Mbps and up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009

Bernard111 · Dec 13, 2013

Quote from Bolimomo:

Bernard111:

I am very unclear on what you have, and what you want to do. [...]

I have DSL 10/1 Mbit with one all-in-one modem/router box.

Everything derived from the original Winston piece that discussed modem / router /switch relationship when dealing with LAN and wi-fi connections scenarios.
Finally Winston suggested to replace onboard NICs with Intel Pro ones and I quoted the 'PT' or 'CT' models.

So since I don't have or need what you call 'gadgets' either via cable or wi-fi, I asked whether I simply need to change the NICs for optimum performance , since no LAN is involved . Again, no Wi-Fi WEP, WEPA connections...

So in my scenario there is not advantage to use separate router box plus a switch?
Only the new Intel Pro NICs could be useful?

Please ask what it's still not clear. Thank you.

Bolimomo · Dec 13, 2013

Quote from Bernard111:

I have DSL 10/1 Mbit with one all-in-one modem/router box.

Everything derived from the original Winston piece that discussed modem / router /switch relationship when dealing with LAN and wi-fi connections scenarios.
Finally Winston suggested to replace onboard NICs with Intel Pro ones and I quoted the 'PT' or 'CT' models.

So since I don't have or need what you call 'gadgets' either via cable or wi-fi, I asked whether I simply need to change the NICs for optimum performance , since no LAN is involved . Again, no Wi-Fi WEP, WEPA connections...
. . . . .
Only the new Intel Pro NICs could be useful?

It seems that this is a very simple case.

You have DSL service from the provider. They give you this "all-in-one modem/outer". You just plug in a RJ45 (straight through) patch cord from your computer's NIC card to this modem. (They provide at least one RJ45 socket, right?). You are done. There is no wi-fi involved. Since you are not sharing the network with any other device, none of the switch/router functions applies in your case.

Would it be helpful to have the new Intel Pro NIC card? Well... it won't hurt. But I just don't see it as that important. Because your bandwidth limit is in the DSL service. You said 10 Mbit/s rated. That is the same speed as the 10BaseT (the older Ethernet). You can have a NIC card that you can pick up for $5 or $10 or something these days and they can do 1000 Mbit/s. But that's irrelevant because your DSL can only do 10. It's like the firemen come to your house with a 4-inch fire hose. But all you have is the 1/2 inch water pipe for your gardening. The bottleneck is the key consideration in any networking. But 10Mbit/s is plenty for trading.

Bernard111 · Dec 14, 2013

Bolinomo,

Ok -- we have excluded 'gadgets', and buses plenty of kids looking for a wifi connection

But I would like to clarify this excerpt:

>> Since you are not sharing the network with any other device, none of the switch/router functions applies in your case.>>

I did not say there is only one PC, otherwise I would connect that computer directly to the modem section, skipping the router features.

The all-in-one-box DL device provides 4 x RJ45 ports: 3 are used by PCs, the other one to a VMWare VM with its dedicated, hardware NIC. Everything connected with their patch cat 6E cord.

So I'm sharing the WAN network with 4 devices.

In this scenario, putting aside for a moment those Intel 1000 NIC cards with their tweaks in terms of buffers, etc and the great drivers/software, splitting the modem vs. router vs switch could improve the overall performance - as suggested by Winston?

>>The bottleneck is the key consideration in any networking. But 10Mbit/s is plenty for trading.>>
In other terms, if the bandwidth is not an issue, could the bottleneck be router/switch components in this case?

Bolimomo · Dec 16, 2013

Quote from Bernard111:

.....
So I'm sharing the WAN network with 4 devices.

In this scenario, putting aside for a moment those Intel 1000 NIC cards with their tweaks in terms of buffers, etc and the great drivers/software, splitting the modem vs. router vs switch could improve the overall performance - as suggested by Winston?

I don't think splitting the modem and router and switch will improve the overall performance. (I am not sure what the original context was which prompted TJ to make such suggestions. I do not wish to dig back into old posts.)

I think with your "all-in-one" device (I don't have any direct experience with them but it seems that they have built in the router+switch function into a DSL modem.), you don't need to purchase/install other external routers/switches.

Typically, anything (network traffic) that can be handled internally within a hardware box is typically faster than anything that need to go through external devices.

So I think having one "all-in-one" may be all you need.

Quote from Bernard111:

.....
>>The bottleneck is the key consideration in any networking. But 10Mbit/s is plenty for trading.>>
In other terms, if the bandwidth is not an issue, could the bottleneck be router/switch components in this case?

I don't think the bottleneck will be the router/switch components. Those things happen pretty fast. Your bottleneck is still going to be your DSL throughput, which is rated at 10Mbit/s from what you said. Sharing 10Mbit/s by 4 devices - I would not say that it is plenty any more because on average that's only 2.5Mbit/s for each device.

Bernard111 · Dec 16, 2013

Bolinomo,

Thank you for the detailed reply. I appreciated your help.

About the TJ splitting hardware practice, everything began from these links:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3419343&postid=3419343

âComputers should never be plugged directly into routers. You should always have your WAN >> Modem >> Router >> Switch >> Computers & Devices. Or in the case of a wireless access point... WAN >> Modem >> Router >> Switch >> Wireless Access Point >> laptops, phones, POS devices, etc.â

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3419355&postid=3419355

âBloomberg requires only a T1 connection (1.54mbps) for 5-9 terminalsââ¦

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3422184&postid=3422184

âThe way to maximize or optimize your hardware's performance is to let each device do what it does best.â

So it's different perspective vs yours.

However it appears, at this point, that the 'noise' and that eventual slowness is being a byproduct of wi-fi or LAN connection traffic. Not my scenario.

Bolimomo · Dec 16, 2013

Quote from Bernard111:

.....
About the TJ splitting hardware practice, everything began from these links:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3419343&postid=3419343

âComputers should never be plugged directly into routers. You should always have your WAN >> Modem >> Router >> Switch >> Computers & Devices. Or in the case of a wireless access point... WAN >> Modem >> Router >> Switch >> Wireless Access Point >> laptops, phones, POS devices, etc.â

Well... that was a different context. Networking solution is very context-dependent. What works in one environment may not work well or work at all in a different environment.

In general, sure, setting up devices in this hierachy of "WAN >> Modem >> Router >> Switch >> Computers & Devices" works well for enterprise or small business networks. Because in a corporate, you tend to have some (or sometimes a lot of) internal network traffic. Typically those are individual PC's accessing file servers for storage, or the client/server software type of set up, or centralized printing, things of that nature.

But in your case: 3 PCs. They don't need to talk to each other, from what you said. They are basically only sharing the pipe that goes into your house/business. With one device having the capability of modem + router + switch built into one would work just fine.

Quote from Bernard111:

.....
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3419355&postid=3419355

âBloomberg requires only a T1 connection (1.54mbps) for 5-9 terminalsââ¦

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=postid=3422184&postid=3422184

âThe way to maximize or optimize your hardware's performance is to let each device do what it does best.â

I don't know exactly what a Bloomberg terminal does. My guess is something like news feed, stock price quotes, price charting, etc.. And maybe more text-driven, as I know Bloomberg has been around for a long time. 5-9 terminals sharing a 1.54 Mbps link were okay - back in those days. It probably hardly meets today's need. Like one poster's comment of 56 kbps for wifi. It may be true at one point but is no longer true in today's world. In today's world, many individual traders at home can do sophisticated algo-based trading and need to analyze a vast amount of data in real-time. In those situations, you need high network bandwidth.

We just need to match the discussions to the context, and keep up with the rapidly changing computer technologies.

Bernard111 · Dec 17, 2013

Bolinomo,

Thank you for your additional comments.

Given the fact not mentioned before, that I run every 5 secs a tracert to critical IPs with Pingplotter on each of the 3 PCs & VM and do not see meaningful variance in roundtrip time (when DSL is fine), probably there are no evident bottlenecks in my setup, limiting my traffic to markets streams.

Again, I appreciated all of your analysis.