In a NetWare 4 environment, WAN traffic can be seen from the following sources :

1. Time synchronisation.
2. NDS.
3. SAP/RIP.

Traffic from each of these sources MAY be reduced in the following ways. 

Time Synchronisation : The following two SET parameters may be adjusted to change the frequency (number) and polling interval (SECONDS) for time synchronisation polling :

• TIMESYNC Polling Count = number (DEFAULT 3) (Decrease this figure) 
• TIMESYNC Polling Interval = seconds (default 600) (Increase this figure) 

NDS : NDS traffic may be reduced by using the DS Filter program,which allows setting of the periods during which synchronisation may take place. Using this program, NDS synchronisation will only occur at certain times of the day. DS Filter NLMs are available as part of the Novell Multi Protocol Router (MPR) 3.0 product, or on the Novell Consulting Toolkit.

Additionally, it is possible to change the SET parameter : NDS inactivity synchronization interval = minutes (default 30) to increase the time between periods when a synchronisation attempt takes place, if no other activity has been seen during this time. This is of particular interest on ISDN (and other switched) connections where frequent activation of the line might be undesirable. 

SAP/RIP :  SAP (Service Advertising Protocol) and RIP (Routing INFORMATION Protocol) traffic may be reduced by the use of a filtering program included with NetWare 4.0x and 4.1. This program can be used on servers which are acting as routers WITHIN the network.If servers are not acting as routers, it is suggested that the filtering facilities as provided by the third-party router are used instead. 

In a NetWare 4 environment, WAN traffic can be seen from the following sources :

Traffic from each of these sources may be reduced in the following ways. 

Time Synchronisation : The following two SET parameters may be adjusted to change the frequency (number) and polling interval (seconds) for time synchronisation polling :

NDS : NDS traffic may be reduced by using the DS Filter program,which allows setting of the periods during which synchronisation may take place. Using this program, NDS synchronisation will only occur at certain times of the day. DS Filter NLMs are available as part of the Novell Multi Protocol Router (MPR) 3.0 product, or on the Novell Consulting Toolkit.

Additionally, it is possible to change the SET parameter : NDS inactivity synchronization interval = minutes (default 30) to increase the time between periods when a synchronisation attempt takes place, if no other activity has been seen during this time. This is of particular interest on ISDN (and other switched) connections where frequent activation of the line might be undesirable. 

SAP/RIP :  SAP (Service Advertising Protocol) and RIP (Routing Information Protocol) traffic may be reduced by the use of a filtering program included with NetWare 4.0x and 4.1. This program can be used on servers which are acting as routers within the network.If servers are not acting as routers, it is suggested that the filtering facilities as provided by the third-party router are used instead.