How many masters on a single network segment?

kderickson2

I work in Higher Ed and we opened a new facility this fall that has upwards of 80 AMX masters (MCP, DVX, and DGX). All told the new building introduced a few hundred new devices onto the network. All of our campus AV equipment sits on its own VLAN, with multiple distribution points that divide campus into segments. Since all of these new systems came online we have been battling a lot of issues, specifically with EXB devices. They randomly will disconnect from their master and will not reconnect without a reboot. We've updated to the latest firmware and tried IP and host name entries for the master connection info. My networking team is telling me that they are seeing quite a bit of broadcast traffic from 100 or so devices. So far they have identified a few as the MCP's, and I assume the rest are other masters since AV traffic is the only thing on the VLAN. In this particular segment of campus there could easily be more than 100 AMX masters. Could this be a reason why devices are falling offline? Through searching this forum I've discovered the command to turn off the broadcast heartbeat. Before I go around and change settings on 100 masters I want to know if anyone thinks this will even help. Could a high traffic environment knock devices offiline?

Network devices on VLAN:
AMX masters (MCP, DVX, NI, DGX)
transmitters
receivers
EXB
TP - AMX and iPad
BSS audio
SVSi (3 encoders and 25+ decoders on three dedicated switches,1319 Netlinx traffic allowed through firewall to AV VLAN, currently disconnected while we troubleshoot)

I am going to try to wireshark this segment for a while and see what else might be generating lots of traffic.


Thanks!

infoscreen

This is work. But I'm never prefered one C class segment. I'm use one system with one segment. Master-to-Master commication is work other segment. Don't forget one netlinx master is possible use maximum 200 IP comminication same time. Streaming is very comlicate question. This is very high trafic...

ericmedley

There might be a whole host of issues going on not mentioned here. There could be issues with your routing over the VLAN. One I've seen several times is they were using a MAC table to assign IP addresses to each device in the DHCP server. But, the leases still expired and the routing across switches kinda broke down on the less-than-common ports. I've also seen changes to the network routing just cause the boxes to go away.

Also, you might want to look at how you're connecting to master. Maybe the EXBs are not gone but just conneccted erroniously to another master. These are just a few possibilities. There are way more that come to mind.

All this to say I'd definitely get AMX Tech Support on it. i've done several systems this large on relatively small network space and haven't had these kinds of problems.

fogled@mizzou

We've got probably 100 or so masters, mostly MCPs, NXs, and NIs, on one of our campus AV VLANs without any real problem, but we aren't using EXB boxes either. Those might need something similar to the "watchdog" function in DX-RX units. Definitely bring in AMX on this.

ericmedley

fogled@mizzou wrote: »

We've got probably 100 or so masters, mostly MCPs, NXs, and NIs, on one of our campus AV VLANs without any real problem, but we aren't using EXB boxes either. Those might need something similar to the "watchdog" function in DX-RX units. Definitely bring in AMX on this.

I guess I didn't notice there were any DX Link (TX or RX) in the mix. I can say I've had quite a bit of trouble with those staying bound to a master. (DVX especially) There are times I have to have the tech start from scratch with them; resetting them and reassigning a device number and rebinding and all that. (all this usually from on top of a ladder - they love that part)

javery1

One school I worked for had well over 120 masters scattered across campus all on the same VLAN with no issues.

I even had them all connecting to a single NI master via M2M as a backup for managing them. The only problem I encountered with this setup was one time I somehow changed the IP address of the single master in the office without rebooting it - it kept sending its old IP out and all of the others were flooding that now-non-existent IP address with packets.

crobinson49

One of our VLANS is a /22 which we are using close to 1000 AMX and other AV devices. One thing we've done in the past to help with communication, is place a DHCP server inside the VLAN so devices don't have to travel outside. Before the dhcp move, devices would communicate to router outside vlan and would bogg communication down especially when leases were up