Switch – Packets Per Second and Packet Size

For a simple windows based application you can try Logmein Hamachi.

For a more advanced solution for NAT to NAT connection udp/tcp look at pwnat.

Speed is not that essential as many think. I had a server that had many drops (ingoing and outgoing) - but every tool only showed low bandwidth utilization (on a gigabit link, less than 2% average).

Nevertheless the statistic counters showed dropped tx and rx on the server. An analysis of the ip-packets showed that the server is being flooded by thousands of tiny ip sessions containing just a few bytes.

So the real problem - which you might see in your case, too - migth be that your hardware and/or IP-packet-stack is not able to serve enough packets per second.

What operating system are you talking about? If it is Linux I can give you further details.

Added: 2011-06-26 (We are talking about a Cisco 2960-S Switch/Router)

Strange that Cisco does not know their own data sheets. :-/

Look at Section "Forwarding Rate: 64-Byte Packet Cisco Catalyst 2960-S" here. From this I would say the 2960-S is the bigger brother of the 2960 and should do a lot of PPS. Where do you experience that problem? Is this a trunk/uplink?

Since you talk about layer 2 forget IP - we are at ethernet packet level. But the problem could be the same.

Where/how did you run that wireshark?