Question : LAN Performance

I am putting a diagram together at my workplace to outline the LAN infrastructure, with the pros and cons and solutions.. I have listed some of the reasons what can bring some of the LAN performance down, can someone give me a pointer or two on the solutions.. suggestions or tips based on my outline

RAM in workstations.  
Solution?

CPU in workstations.  
Solution?

Increase in number of nodes.  
Solution?

Increase in traffic and loading.  
Solution?

Upgrades in applications (i.e., upgrade in Windows).  
Solution?

New applications (i.e., access to Internet).  
Solution?

Increase in graphics use.  
Solution?

Configuration problems.
Solution?

Answer : LAN Performance

It realy depends on how you are defining LAN performance.  Many of the items you list there are actually workstation performance issues that will have little, if any, impact on LAN perfomrance.  Interestingly you leave out Server RAM, and Server CPU - that WILL have a percieved impact on performance - as will Server disk IO speed.

it would be helpful to get some background on what you are trying to achieve - you might find that it is the architecture of your LAN that is proving the biggest hurdle.  For example - what is the speed of your network - if you have a lot of clients connected at 100Mbit to a server also connected at 100Mbit - then - as a rough approximation - if 10 clients all want something at the same time, your apparent speed to the server would be only 10Mbits

So - add to your list architecture and interface speed as solutions too

However ....

RAM in workstations.  
CPU in workstations.  

Whilst these will not cause a decrease in performance of your LAN - certainly the apparent speed of applications will suffer if your PCs are too slow.  Increase these by adding more ram - or with CPU - it's probabaly better to look at hardware replacement

Increase in number of nodes.  
Increase in traffic and loading.  

These two are the effectively the same problem.  Again the only way to mitigate these problems is to look at bottlenecks if LAN speed is slowed - look at upgrading servers (or shared resources) to faster networks (eg gigabit) and intelligent layout of switches

Upgrades in applications (i.e., upgrade in Windows).  
Windows won't help,  

New applications (i.e., access to Internet).  
Increase in graphics use.  
These will server to increase load/demand - same question

Configuration problems.
These certainly can have an impact - ensure that you are mindful of full/half duplex when connecting swtiches, routers and media convertors etc.

Also not mentioned is ensuring you are using switches, not hubs, and minimising bottlenecks where you have segmentation of your network (eg a 16 port 100Mbit switch, plugged into a single port of another 100Mbit switch, then into  your servers - uou would get better performance replacing with a bigger switch - or looking at 'stacking' switches that support this feature.

Intelligent planning of your network architecture is worth more than all these questions combined

Good luck