Many computers at Keene have the NetBEUI protocol installed along with file and print sharing enabled. Each of these computers generates periodic broadcast packets that announce the availability of their shared resources.
Broadcast storms consume network bandwidth and can cause havoc on many machines.
The most damaging effect of by these broadcasts comes from the stealing of CPU cycles from every workstation and server on the network. Figure 1 . NetBEUI broadcast storm at Keene. These broadcast are received by almost every station at Keene as an intense blast within a 1-2 second period. One of the DHCP-provided parameters is the address of a WINS server, so as soon as the client is configured by DHCP, it registers its name with the WINS server.