IPX traffic on the same VLAN on Catalyst 3550

[dvabat]

I installed two cat3550 and trunk them. Enable port-based vlan. Create two vlans ( one intended for IP and the other one intended for IPX traffic). I noticed that the response time was too slow on IPX network even though they reside on the same vlan. I checked the switch status but the seems no problem.

Anyone encountered this problem?

David

[wong34539 · Accepted solution]

Reasons for IPX network slowdown:

1. As you say the IPX VLAN respose is slow, it might be due to heavily loaded traffic, i.e the no of hosts might be many.

2. Some IPX host may be creating broadcast storm.

3. If IPX network has Server, and server might be responding slowly.

4. Check for Bad NIC in the hosts

To Prevent broadcast storm you can configure as follows

Traffic suppression prevents switchports on a LAN from being disrupted by a broadcast, multicast, or unicast storm on one of the interfaces. A LAN storm occurs when packets flood the LAN, creating excessive traffic and degrading network performance. Errors in the protocol-stack implementation or in the network configuration can cause a storm.

You enable traffic suppression on an interface and enter the percentage of total available bandwidth that you want to be used by a particular type of traffic; entering 100 percent would allow all traffic.

Switch# configure terminal

Switch(config)# interface gigabitethernet0/2

Switch(config-if)# switchport multicast 70

Switch(config-if)# end

Switch# show interface gigabitethernet0/2 switchport

For broadcast the command is -

switchport broadcast broadcast suppression level