I do track my own usage (and have for a number of years). My/our usage fluctuates wildly. Between 50 and 350 GiB/per month. Of course this is two home users with heavy web usage, as well as Netflix, streaming audio, blah blah. Presumably the things that I do at home to eat bandwidth is something that you would restrict or shape to have less of an impact (do your users really need access to Netflix for example).
Where I work we have a "burstable" 10 Mbit Terrago link and a Shaw cable modem (Shaw extreme, 15mbit down, 1mbit up). The Terrago link is for our Internet facing services (there is a web app that is used by a couple of other companies as well as email traffic) and the cable modem is where we push browser traffic. We also have default outbound deny firewall rules, which forces our users to use an onsite proxy to get web access. Blocking traffic by default keeps our overall usage low (there are no rogue bittorrent clients, and most streaming services break). Of course this may not fit the requirements of your users. What you really want is to get an idea of what is currently happening on this network. If you can't get decent reporting out of your existing firewall, you could re-purpose a desktop or laptop with two bridged NICs and then run something like ntop for a week or two. Once you get a good idea of who is using the bandwidth and what services they are doing this with, you can move forward with your connection choices. You will need to manage your bandwidth. Regardless of how you go about this (you will probably use a couple of technologies together), 50 GiB will get eaten pretty quickly by a single power user, let alone 75 students. I am only seeing a ~10% reduction in bandwidth utilization by using the proxy. Do not assume that a proxy will solve this particular problem. My experiences with fixed wireless in Alberta has not been very positive. Sometimes there have been no other alternatives, but the performance leaves a lot to be desired. If you do get them On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 11:14 AM, John Jardine <john_e_jard...@spamcop.net> wrote: > Hi Dave, > > 50GB doesn't sound like a lot to me. I don't track my own utilization > (new project!) but would expect it to be in that neighbourhood. I don't > know what your customer does but I routinely use web-meetings, VoIP > phone, VPN access to remote sites and upload software releases. > > Viewed from another perspective, 10Mb/s * 3600s/hr * 24hr/day * > 30days/month is 2.5TB. 50GB out of 2.5TB is a line utilization of 2% - > hardly stressing the last mile connection. > > There is a third way. How much bandwidth can you get by putting in a 3G > access point? I'm paying $30/6GB. Using that metric it would scale to > about 80GB for $400.00. Speed varies and the carrier will hate you but > that's their problem not yours. > > You can probably reduce the bandwidth requirements by using Squid (or > any other caching web proxy). That won't cache the Google searches but > it'll probably cache a lot of the resulting pages. > > The other thing you can do to manage bandwidth is have the switch/router > shape the connections so that the few don't dominate the many in usage > as well as applying an aggregate cap on bandwidth. > > Cheers, > J.J. > > > > On Sat, 2011-03-12 at 01:00 -0700, Dave Watkins wrote: >> Hi Folks, >> >> >> >> One of my customers has been approached by Shaw recently. Shaw would >> like to put up a cell tower on their property and very close to their >> building. They have offered a lump sum per year but are not willing >> to “comp” the internet access. >> >> >> >> Currently I have 2 DSL lines onsite. One 1.5 MBit and the second is a >> 2.5 Mbit connection. Neither line is anywhere near the speed that it >> should be. We’re simply too far down the line. I’d asked Shaw for a >> quote on bring in cable to their location and was told that it would >> be $50,000 to the door!! >> >> >> >> Currently we run two networks, one staff with about 20 users max with >> limited wireless access and a student network with a maximum of 75 >> student users, the majority of them on wireless. I’m using >> commercial grade access points and the main complaint is the lack of >> speed, both wired and wireless. This is especially so during school >> hours. >> >> >> >> Shaw has offered us 10Mbps fibre access, 50 GB/month on a 3 year term >> at $395.00 per month. I’m unsure what the current usage is but I’d >> expect that it will increase if we go ahead with the deal. >> >> >> >> In addition to the two networks we might add a separate 4 systems on >> another IP with a VPN connection to an Exchange server in Toronto. >> >> >> >> I’d like to backup our file server to a remote location in the >> future. >> >> >> >> So, what are your thoughts on this? Will this connection be fast >> enough for us? Do you thing the 50GB a month will suffice? I realize >> you are guessing but thought you may have clients in similar >> situations. >> >> >> >> Thanks for your help with this one, >> >> >> >> Dave Watkins >> >> www.calgaryitservices.com >> >> 403-701-5746 >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> clug-talk mailing list >> clug-talk@clug.ca >> http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca >> Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) >> **Please remove these lines when replying > > > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > clug-talk@clug.ca > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list clug-talk@clug.ca http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
