If the path between those two addresses passes through the server, using it as a router, or if one of those addresses belongs to the server, the previous rule of thumb does not apply. In these cases, where Packet Burst is employed frequently, the minimum and maximum settings will need to be watched carefully. When to Change the Settings. If your server allocates the maximum number of buffers, you run the risk of the server's LAN channel reaching an overflow condition in which it ignores incoming packets until additional receive buffers are available. When this happens, those packets' clients resend their packets.
Nothing is lost, but each client pays a penalty in response time.
This problem is exacerbated when the server is routing between two or more networks with a significant differential in speed. In these types of configurations, the minimum and maximums may need to be increased greatly. To better handle these types of situations, Novell has increased the priority of routing requests in NetWare 4.0. This change should reduce the number of receive buffers required to service a given workload, when compared to the number of buffers required in NetWare 3.x. Part 3 of this series will detail the NetWare 4.0 setable parameters related to the cache, the LAN channel, and the disk channel.