The best IT articles and suggestions come from the grizzled front-line veterans, and the best grizzled front-line veterans are the ones who are willing to listen to the suggestions of their peers.

Given that I had it in mind to write an article along the lines of “tips for boosting network performance“, I went to our own SysAdmins yesterday and put them on the spot, asking them what their suggestions might be. After they made it very clear that I was asking a slightly silly question, and that there was no conclusive answer to my painfully open-ended question, here’re some of their suggestions:

– Not all cables are created equal; check them often: Occasionally a cable will be damaged, or sometimes you’ll just be plain unlucky and get a ‘bad’ cable. Either way, packets get lost.

– Build in network redundancy: There are arguments both for and against deduping the data in your network, but multiple physical paths are always a good idea.

– Make sure you Subnet properly: It shouldn’t need saying, but sometimes it does. To borrow a line from a Slashdot user, “Segment your traffic according to where the load is, not where the politics are”

– Keep an eye on those broadcast-heavy apps: And don’t be afraid to engage in a little traffic-shaping.

– Look at teaming / load-balancing your network cards: It just makes sense.

– Make sure your switches are consistently configured: Not only will this make initial setup easier, but reducing network variables will make your life easier when the time comes to troubleshoot.

– Educate your users: This one might be an uphill battle, but it’ll (hopefully) pay off in the end.

Naturally, you’ll be a staunch supporter of some of these tips, and consign others to the “unimportant” or “well, duh” pile, but I’m hoping you’ll also share some of your own pearls of hard-earned wisdom, because I don’t think #1 Tip is technical; it’s professional – Listen (debate) and Learn. A quick glance at the Slashdot comments thread suggests that for every SysAdmin tip, there is an equal and opposite opinion, and I’d love to hear some of both.