The biggest benefit for an IT administrator working at an Internet cafe is accumulating hands-on experience. In an Internet cafe, admins encounter all sorts of problems reported by gamers, and through solving these problems, they build up their expertise.
As a hot topic for Internet cafes, network management techniques are also gained from this experience. Let’s discuss some advanced network management tips.
1. Network Segments and Traffic
Consider a server with two workstations that perform extremely frequent file reads and writes. When the server has only one network card forming a single network segment, all devices on that segment respond very slowly. After installing two network cards in the server to create two separate segments, and connecting those two high-traffic workstations to different segments, the response speed of all devices on the network improved significantly. This is because the added segment shares the previously concentrated data traffic, thereby increasing the network’s response speed.
2. Twisted Pair Wire Sequence
The distance between the server and the switch was changed from 5 meters to 60 meters, but no matter what, the connection failed. Why? Ethernet typically uses two pairs of twisted pair wires, arranged at pins 1, 2, 3, and 6. If you don’t use two paired wires and instead separate wires that were originally paired together, it creates crosstalk (NEXT), which affects network performance.
The cause of the above fault was that pins 3 and 6 did not use a paired wire, resulting in connection failure over the longer distance. After re-crimping the RJ45 connectors according to the correct wire sequence, everything returned to normal.
3. WAN and Grounding
Accidentally plugging the router’s power adapter into a regular wall outlet caused a 64K DDN connection to fail entirely. Technicians from the telecom company checked the line and found everything normal. Finally, they checked the grounding voltage of the router’s power supply, found it was incorrect, and switched the plug back to a UPS outlet. Everything returned to normal.
4. Router Power Supply
The grounding pin on the router’s power plug was damaged, causing frequent packet loss. PING connections were intermittent鈥攕ometimes