[SOLVED] Looking for advice on router & switch througput to address bottleneck

[sddjd]

Hello all, I'm here to demonstrate my naivete in the hope that I'll get myself on the right track, so appreciate any advice/comments.

We just upgraded to fiber/1000 service and I am looking to purchase hardware upgrades to bring our internal network up to par/futureproof levels.

1. At the gateway I have down speeds in the 900's, so far so good (ATT BWG210-700). It is operating in passthrough mode for my own wireless router.
2. Directly downstream of that lives my positively ancient Cisco EA3500. I know this is a major issue as it's max link rate lists at 450mbs, but tested max throughput from years ago reveals WAN-LAN max of only 223mbs. - REPLACE
3. Wired to that is my first D-Link DGS-1016D (32gbs switching capacity), feeding the various cat5e cables distributed through the house.
4. Through necessity, there are two locations in far rooms (office and media closet) that have another DGS-1016D, and a DGS-105 (10gbs switching capacity). These are linked unfortunately only via single cat5e to the "main" 1016D. This is because the number of devices to be connected (5-8 at each) are in locations with a single RJ45 outlet.
5. At the far end of this chain we have current-gen pc's with gigabit NIC's that are achieving download speeds of around 15mbs.

The issues with this arrangement are too many to list, even for a beginner like me. It is not feasible to run all new home runs to the main panel upstairs, so my thought is to provide a 10gb/SFP line to a 1gb + 10gb sfp switch in each of the two rooms requiring multiple hi speed connections. Those would tie to a new 10gb/SFP-capable switch in the main panel location.

Finally, and I definitely need advice here, I badly need to replace my router with a model that can actually provide maximum throughput to the fiber gateway. What criteria is most important in determining the actual capability of the WAN-LAN capacity (would this be "switching capacity", "max link rate", or other)?

Unfortunately the BWG210 doesn't support link aggregation, but in spite of that I may hook the new master switch directly to that (barring a replacement router that can feed this traffic sufficiently). Up to now I've just always been hesitant to rely on any provider's equipment for our firewall needs.

Any input is much appreciated; I'm comfortable spending some money on this as I would prefer to raise our internal mbs limit beyond our current service from the street. All of my current networking gear is quite aged so replacements are expected. Is linking two remote swtiches via 10sfp to the main switch a reasonable alternative to eliminate bottlenecks?

 

[kanewolf]

Hello all, I'm here to demonstrate my naivete in the hope that I'll get myself on the right track, so appreciate any advice/comments.

We just upgraded to fiber/1000 service and I am looking to purchase hardware upgrades to bring our internal network up to par/futureproof levels.

1. At the gateway I have down speeds in the 900's, so far so good (ATT BWG210-700). It is operating in passthrough mode for my own wireless router.
2. Directly downstream of that lives my positively ancient Cisco EA3500. I know this is a major issue as it's max link rate lists at 450mbs, but tested max throughput from years ago reveals WAN-LAN max of only 223mbs. - REPLACE
3. Wired to that is my first D-Link DGS-1016D (32gbs switching capacity), feeding the various cat5e cables distributed through the house.
4. Through necessity, there are two locations in far rooms (office and media closet) that have another DGS-1016D, and a DGS-105 (10gbs switching capacity). These are linked unfortunately only via single cat5e to the "main" 1016D. This is because the number of devices to be connected (5-8 at each) are in locations with a single RJ45 outlet.
5. At the far end of this chain we have current-gen pc's with gigabit NIC's that are achieving download speeds of around 15mbs.

The issues with this arrangement are too many to list, even for a beginner like me. It is not feasible to run all new home runs to the main panel upstairs, so my thought is to provide a 10gb/SFP line to a 1gb + 10gb sfp switch in each of the two rooms requiring multiple hi speed connections. Those would tie to a new 10gb/SFP-capable switch in the main panel location.

Finally, and I definitely need advice here, I badly need to replace my router with a model that can actually provide maximum throughput to the fiber gateway. What criteria is most important in determining the actual capability of the WAN-LAN capacity (would this be "switching capacity", "max link rate", or other)?

Unfortunately the BWG210 doesn't support link aggregation, but in spite of that I may hook the new master switch directly to that (barring a replacement router that can feed this traffic sufficiently). Up to now I've just always been hesitant to rely on any provider's equipment for our firewall needs.

Any input is much appreciated; I'm comfortable spending some money on this as I would prefer to raise our internal mbs limit beyond our current service from the street. All of my current networking gear is quite aged so replacements are expected. Is linking two remote swtiches via 10sfp to the main switch a reasonable alternative to eliminate bottlenecks?

First thing is that the "switching capacity" of a switch is not meaningful. EVERY port gets wire speed. Having 5 devices on a switch won't generally slow any single device, because all 5 devices are not 100% active. Even streaming 4K video is only about 25Mbit. If you have gigabit ports, that is a very low utilization.
What you need to do to test out your LAN is to get two laptops that you can move around and use iPerf -- https://iperf.fr/ on them. That will let you generate and receive network ONLY traffic. Not dependent on disk speed or anything, just network speed.
Then you need to check ALL the LEDs on your switches. Verify that all the ports are running gigabit speed based on the LEDs. If they should be and are not, then you need to investigate your wiring. In-wall wiring is very often the problem.
Your hardware should provide you 1Gb wired connectivity to all your devices. You need to do some work to find out "Why NOT??" ...

 

[SamirD]

I think all you need to do is replace the ea3500 with something with a 1Gbps wan-to-lan speed--that is if you need anything that an additional router will do. The att device can do dhcp as well as port forwarding and you can just use your ea3500 as an access point and let the att box handle everything else and you'd be done and have 1Gbps to every location.

Now the 15Mbps to the end locations is a problem in itself. As kanewolf pointed out, you need to use iperf to figure out what is going on here as this is your only true bottleneck on your network.

 

[beers]

10g sounds like a wasted cost for this effort unless you're moving volumes of data. Upgrading the router should give you the performance you're looking for. You can always drop cash into your switching environment at a later point if you truly have the requirements for a 10g workload.

First thing is that the "switching capacity" of a switch is not meaningful. EVERY port gets wire speed.

I agree as a generalization in the consumer space, although there are a lot of switches (especially on emerging standards) that oversubscribe their switching capacity, so while you can have x amount of link speed to each client you may be backplane limited or similar.