IT/Networking Urgent Advice Needed!!!

[MrMiYoda]

How many simultaneous 8GB files can be pushed into a 1GbE and 100GbE network pipe? What is the safe number without breaking the network?

Thanks in advance. Blessings.

[The Guardian]

I have no idea, but I've passed along the question to a couple buddies who are IT wizards of varying degrees.

[Kevinthedude]

The limitation is not the size or number of files but the method you are using to send them and your connection speed. It shouldn't be possible for you to "break" the network as it will simply send as much data as it can until it's done. It might make it pretty slow for anyone else on the same connection though depending on your bandwidth.

[The Guardian]

Well, there are other factors at play like the distance the files are being transferred, size of the buffers, buffer queuing protocol, packet size, TCP window size, etc. . . How many you can transfer at once will depend more on the size of your buffers than the bandwidth of your network. If you're wondering speed the files would move through the system (also ignoring all other variables), it would take 64 seconds to transfer an 8GB file over a 1Gbps network and 0.64 seconds to transfer It over 100Gbps.

[The Guardian]

Well, for starters if you are honoring TOS or COS values in the switch level all the way through, and if you are crossing vlans or subnets, if you has your QoS queues setup appropriately, then it doesn't matter.

I have to do this for voice traffic all the time, or else volumes of traffic like this take out phone calls on your network. This is why if you have your packet marking and QoS honoring in the switch and router then the amount of data you are transferring is irrelevant. If you are dealing with a situation with no QoS, then the answer is never do parallel file transfer, but so them serially to avoid traffic bursting.

Hopefully you understand what he's talking about...I'm afraid I can't translate... 

[Kevinthedude]

Well, for starters if you are honoring TOS or COS values in the switch level all the way through, and if you are crossing vlans or subnets, if you has your QoS queues setup appropriately, then it doesn't matter.

I have to do this for voice traffic all the time, or else volumes of traffic like this take out phone calls on your network. This is why if you have your packet marking and QoS honoring in the switch and router then the amount of data you are transferring is irrelevant. If you are dealing with a situation with no QoS, then the answer is never do parallel file transfer, but so them serially to avoid traffic bursting.

Hopefully you understand what he's talking about...I'm afraid I can't translate... 

Translation: Transferring large amounts of data on a network not configured to regularly deal with that will likely cause problems for anyone using something like voice over IP phones that require a certain minimum connection speed to be usable. Fortunately, networks that have things like VoIP phones also have configuration on the network that dedicates a certain amount of bandwidth to said phones (Quality of Service) so that when the network is busy the phones will still work.

Translation of the translation: If you're trying to transfer giant files at work your IT department might get mad at you but they shouldn't at long as they configured things properly in the first place.

[Kevinthedude]

If we did force the Math, is it just simple division to know how many files result from say Bandwidth = 1G, File size = 8GB? I'm sorry I'm old Obiwan nowadays when it comes to networking IT stuff. And sorry for the bother. Thanks and Godbless.

Can you guys help me calculate it if it does involve a more complex formula?

Clarification for 'breakdown":
Break down = slow the network = negative impact to network performance = congestion etc all mean the same

Thanks and Godbless.

Interfaces are measured in maximum throughput per second. So for example an interface that is a 1Gb interface means it is theoretically capable of transferring 1Gb of data every second. If it were that simple your 8GB would go through in seconds. However, there are a lot of factors that prevent the link from reaching is maximum theoretically throughput such as distance between source and destination, congestion, interference, etc. All in all though, if you just send whatever it is you're planning on sending, it should work completely fine. Networking hardware and software has been engineered for decades to just work and the only time you really see networks going down is people of severe user or administrator error. Transferring data is exactly what networks are made to do and I doubt you could break something doing that even if you tried.

[Jonesy]

Eh it wont break, youll just have alot of lost packets and speed slowdown

[Jonesy]

In theory, you can put as much load on a network as you want, it will just get deathly slow

[MrMiYoda]

In theory, you can put as much load on a network as you want, it will just get deathly slow

So this and other related consequences -- what then is the estimated number of 8B files pushed that will BEGIN causing slowdown, congestion, negative network performance? Ergo, what should be the max number of 8GB files that should be pushed maintain network integrity and efficiency?

[Kevinthedude]

In theory, you can put as much load on a network as you want, it will just get deathly slow

So this and other related consequences -- what then is the estimated number of 8B files pushed that will BEGIN causing slowdown, congestion, negative network performance? Ergo, what should be the max number of 8GB files that should be pushed maintain network integrity and efficiency?

The proper answer to that question requires knowledge of how many other people are on the network and what they are doing and even still it's just a very rough estimate. Whatever you are using to transfer the files almost certain has a self throttle far below the limits of your actual connection. My advise would just be to send all the files and let the network figure it out.

[The Guardian]

Depending on how exactly your transferring them, maybe you could start small then gradually increase until you start to see performance issues.

[MrMiYoda]

Depending on how exactly your transferring them, maybe you could start small then gradually increase until you start to see performance issues.

I wish I had the luxury of doing it physically. That is why I needed others' experience or an 'encyclopedic' reference to read.