Ruling Out Network-Bound Problems
The network and how it is deployed is essential to the proper performance of an Exchange server. It is uncommon for networks to be network-bound, because 100 Mbps networks generally offer enough bandwidth for most organizations. However, with increasing message sizes and users per server, it is important to ensure the network does not become a choking point.
Use the counters listed in the following table to determine whether there is any network performance degradation.
| Counter | Expected values |
|---|---|
Network Interface\Bytes Total/sec Indicates the rate at which the network adapter is processing data bytes. This counter includes all application and file data, in addition to protocol information such as packet headers. |
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Network Interface\Packets Outbound Errors Indicates the number of outbound packets that could not be transmitted because of errors. |
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The following item describes how you can improve network performance:
Segment inter-server and global catalog traffic
When there is much traffic, and therefore overhead due to packet collision, you can improve network performance by separating inter-server and global catalog traffic from client traffic. You can do this by having servers and global catalogs with dual network adapters, and by building a separate network for the communication required by servers and global catalogs.