75: Interrupt So Frequently

60 Seconds of WIP · Jan 30, 2025 · 1m

Here’s a chunk from the new Networking for System Administrators.

Here’s the catch. The listed speed is not how fast the interface can pass traffic. Think of the speed as a language. Your server’s NIC might speak and understand the 2.5G protocol, but that’s no guarantee that the server, card, or network can support passing that much traffic. Actual throughput depends on how the NIC is attached to the host’s bus, the network cable, the load on the switch, and more. Some low-quality NICs speak the protocols but are built on hardware incapable of passing a tenth of the claimed bandwidth…