Optibase MGW 2400 WMT User Manual

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Appendix C 
Optimizing your Network 
Introduction 
In order for rich media to be an effective tool for your business 
you must first provision your network to support streaming. 
Below are some rules of thumb to ensure that video streaming 
will enhance your company’s performance without hurting your 
network performance. 
Switches are always better than Hubs 
Hubs contain only one collision plane, rendering hub-based 
networks unproductive because of their inadequacy in handling 
collisions. A collision is an Ethernet event that occurs when two 
Ethernet frames collide. Switches, on the other hand, are 
comprised of ports. Each port is a separate collision plane. 
Thus, only those machines connected to the same port share a 
collision plane, reducing the number of collisions and 
increasing available resources. Moreover, Level III enabled 
switches support IP multicasting using IGMP (Internet Group 
Management Protocol) across LAN and VLAN spaces without 
interfering with the productivity of the rest of the users 
connected to the network. 
Whenever possible, separate Departments 
This is especially important in large organizations. If your 
network is segmented well and each segment is connected to a 
common backbone, maximum utilization on one segment will