7.3. Network Utilization The following points help describe the effects of network utilization. Network events, like disk events, are slow. They are often measured in milliseconds. A client application that is heavily network bound will experience delays. Network server applications often obviate these delays by being multithreaded or multiprocess. A network card that is at 100% utilization will most likely degrade application performance. However there are times where we expect 100% utilization, such as in bulk network transfers. Dividing the current Kbytes/sec by the speed of the network card can provide a useful measure of network utilization. Using only Kbytes/sec in a utilization calculation fails to account for per-packet overheads. Unexpectedly high utilizations may be caused when auto-negotiation has failed by choosing a much slower speed.
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