I currently run a very small (10 clients) ADSM server.  We are considering
expanding service to several hundred and perhaps eventually several thousand
additional clients.  However, before we move forward, I've been asked to
get an answer to the following question:

"What impact will ADSM have on the network?"

Unfortunately, "It depends" isn't going to work for me. :-(

There is concern around here that opening up ADSM to many more clients
is going to generate a large increase in network traffic that would, in
turn, have an adverse effect on our network.

Has this issue ever been a concern to your organization?

What impact have you observed on your network?  Have you been able to
measure and quantify this, and if so, how?

Have you ever attempted to predict the impact of additional clients?  If
so, how have you done it?  How close to reality have you been able to
get?

Do you try to control the impact?  If so, what do you do?  Obviously,
forcing compression on will reduce the amount of data that goes over
the network.  Is MAXSESSIONS an effective control?  Have you tried to
spread out the initial backups so that you don't have very many of them
going on at once?  What other controls are there?

Have you ever had to make changes to the network due to the effect that
ADSM traffic had on it?  If so, what did you do?

Finally, is there any particular documentation that I could/should look
at to help me answer this?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Vince Anderson
Rutgers University