Know When to Divide and When to Conquer

When traffic reaches high levels on a network segment, traffic jams occur just like they do at rush hour on the highway . When this happens, you need to improve the existing roads (switch to a faster network technology) or add more roads (break up the existing network and put one subset of users on one new piece, another subset on another piece, and so on).

How can you figure out when traffic is starting to choke your network? Easy! Windows Server 2003 includes a service called Network Monitor (affectionately called NetMon) that you can install on your server to monitor the traffic moving into and out of your server (and on the cable segment or segments to which that server is attached).

NetMon doesn't install on Windows Server 2003 by default, but it's easy to add. Choose Start Control Panel Add or Remove Programs Add/Remove Windows Components Management and Monitoring Tools. Then click the Details button, select the Network Monitor Tools check box, and click OK. After you follow the instructions from there, NetMon shows up in the Administrative Tools folder (Start Administrative Tools Network Monitor).

Tip 

Get to know NetMon, and you get to know your network much better!