As you make performance improvements to your individual machines, don't forget to maintain a sound physical network infrastructure. A poorly designed physical network can completely negate any performance improvements you make on a server, just as flat tires would restrain a finely tuned Indy-car engine. Use the following tips and techniques to properly segment your network and maximize the benefits of performance tuning your systems. Segmenting at its most basic level is the process of separating certain portions of network traffic, either for performance, security, or reliability reasons. You can use a bridge, a switch, or a router to separate your network's devices into segments.
Performance tuning is at once a science and an art.
Knowing your options for grouping various devices to form a network is the science of network segmenting. To master this art, you must understand the types of traffic on your network and the path each type of traffic takes. Then, you must minimize the number of devices between the source and destination points of each packet. Many administrators use NT servers as routers between their network's segments because of budget constraints or because adding NICs to an existing server is easier than restructuring a network. This segmenting scheme places a performance burden on the two servers.