When to subnet to reduce broadcast domain

[d.higginbotham]

Is there a rule of thumb for the number of nodes on one subnet before you need to break it up? I know this depends on many factors, but given an average office environment with no particularly chatty devices, is there a threshold at which point you can expect a degradation in service?

[milan.kulik]

Hi,

Designing Cisco Networks by Diane Teare (the official CCDA coursebook), page 119 says these maximal worksation numbers per a broadcast domain:

IP - 500

IPX - 300

AppleTalk - 200

NetBIOS - 200

Mixed - 200

Regards,

Milan

[d.higginbotham]

Thanks Milan, this is exactly the number I was looking for and the reference is especially helpful in that I can quickly obtain further info.

Thanks much,

David

[mftaylj]

A much better indicator is when you approach 20% of the segments traffic being Broadcast / Multicast traffic it is time.

Jim

[d.higginbotham]

That sounds like a number the boss might be interested in. What's the best way to determine what percentage of the traffic is broadcast/multicast?

[mftaylj]

I use a Sniffer once the interface stats for the vlan in question start looking bad.

I also have broadcast supression configured on my uplink ports set at 20%.

Jim

[d.higginbotham]

Please excuse my ignorance, but what stats are you looking at? sh port x/x and look at collisions?

[mftaylj]

On a CatOS based switches - "show mac" will give you the numbers you are after.

Jim

[d.higginbotham]

Thanks Jim!

[mftaylj]

No problem,

Here is a link to BC suppression on a 6500

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a008007f2b9.html

Good luck -

Jim

[d.higginbotham]

Thanks again Jim, the link is much appreciated. I don't anticipate any problmes but I like to be prepared.