>This almost a hardware question, but it relates to client/server, so I hope I can get some ideas from somebody here. I am about to propose to a client to upgrade to a simple client/server setup using DCOM for some of their slowest tasks. They don't want to spend the money to go with SQL server, and they have a Novell server.
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>My idea is to have a dedicated PC running windows (my DCOM server), receive the DCOM requests act on them (using the database on the novell server), and then return a temporary table (in the Novell server) for the client to access. This of course would only be beneficial if there is a way to connect the DCOM server to the novell server in such a way that it would have quick access to the data (without the traffic go out on the rest of the network). I don't know much about routers, but I would think that there is away to isolate the traffic and to connect the Novell server with the DCOM server in such a way to increase the throughput.

You can add an extra network card on the server and connect it via a switch (not a hub) or cross-over cable to your PC running your server application. This will give this PC the fastest connectivity.

However, IMO, you are not talking about a big gain in this case unless the following is true:

1. You have 10 MBit for the rest of the LAN and 100 MBit for this one PC. For obvious reasons, the speed is definitely going to increase here.
2. If you already use 100 MBit and you have a large number of users connected via daisy chanined hubs to a network card in the server then you will see some improvement because the packet resends won't be occurring because of collisions.

Otherwise, the data is still remote and you still have to download things over the wire to do any processing. Can your client go with an NT/W2K server? That way you can make a true DCOM server and the processing could be done locally at the server.