Whilst setting up v4 of Microsoft’s (CIE) environment, we encountered numerous problems whilst using Hyper-V with a Realtek network card. After creating an external virtual network within Hyper-V and selecting the Realtek network adapter, all outbound connectivity ceased. This was not the case with another physical network adapter that we were using (which happened to be an Intel card). Continue reading
Category Archives: Networking
Networks 101 – Configuring subnets and VLANs for basic network isolation
Over the last week or so I have spent some time configuring some new networking gear for one of eShare’s numerous internal SharePoint farms and I thought I’d share a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
My task seemed pretty straightforward: implement a couple of load balanced firewalls along with 3 isolated network segments. This is quite a common scenario for us as we deal with a lot of security sensitive clients who aren’t big fans of back end servers sharing a subnet with those that are public facing. Indeed, there are few reasons not to implement a segmented network such as this as it provides a form of defence in depth should your perimeter servers be compromised. Continue reading
Why SharePoint doesn’t work over a WAN (Part one)
I was approached by a client recently with an interesting query around SharePoint WAN performance. The client in question had a server farm located in the UK, but wanted to access their SharePoint sites from a branch office in Australia. They were surprised that download speeds were significantly slower from the Australian branch office in comparison to those located in the UK. Slow downloads over a WAN link certainly isn’t a problem that is specific to SharePoint – but it’s certainly relevant given that sharing office documents is core functionality. In my experience, users sometimes forget or don’t realise that when a document is “opened”, it is first downloaded to their client. Continue reading