Hoxsie, Howard wrote:
> Years ago I was told that it is also helpful to keep the HP3K on its own
> sub-net.  Something about much fewer interrupts to throw away?

Extremely true for shared, half-duplex networks and hubs, from the
coax-tapping or other shared media days.

Still a valid concern for today's networks, from both a performance and
security perspective.

But with modern switches supporting multiple virtual LANs or even
virtual networks (VRFs), many still operate with a shared buffer pool. 
The availability of those buffers is dependent on the aggregate amount
of traffic traversing the switch, regardless of subnet / vlan / vrf.

There are also switches with fixed buffer allocations, or their own pool
management to avoid exhaustion.  Just another detail that seldom rears
it's ugly head until you approach one of the design limits of the device.

If you want to avoid all those constraints, find a switch that provides
true non-blocking, wire-speed forwarding.  They are few, and they are
expensive.

Jeff

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