BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT Fitter versus fat pipes
Bandwidth usage will continue to expand and exceed the available bandwidth, but before increasing capacity it is important to understand and manage current traffic, according to Ian Kilpatrick, Chairman of VAD Wick Hill.
the bandwidth they already have work more efficiently, and how it can be tuned to their own particular needs. More lanes on motorways have just put more traffic into the outside lane, whereas the M25 variable speed limit has improved traffic flows.”
Ian Kilpatrick T
he more bandwidth that is thrown at a network the more it will consume.
Resellers should be looking at providing clients with ‘fit’ not ‘fat’ pipes so they can maximise the use of what they have, rather than just opting for ever more bandwidth, says Kilpatrick. “Peer-to-peer networking, streaming media, videoconferencing etc can make huge demands on today’s networks. The result can be ongoing or intermittent performance problems for companies which may cause operational difficulties or present a poor image to the outside world,” he commented.
When addressing the problems of poor quality VoIP or slow CRM systems, the natural reaction is to add more bandwidth. However, this isn’t always possible for a number of reasons. It might be, for example, because the cost is prohibitive or because bandwidth between company sites is fixed. “Even if you do have the money and the opportunity to add more bandwidth it isn’t necessarily the right choice as it may not solve the performance problems,” added Kilpatrick. “Bigger pipes may be the answer to some situations, but before even considering that way forward companies should be looking at how to make
Many companies have no idea how their bandwidth is operating
www.comms-dealer.com
There are three main issues over bandwidth, Kilpatrick points out, visibility, prioritisation, prediction and billing. “It’s impossible to assess and manage bandwidth without visibility,” he noted. “The first step to getting a proper assessment of how the bandwidth is working for a business is to gain insight into how it is operating. Service delivery to an organisation might be perfect, but application contention at certain times or misuse by just a couple of users could still cause disruption. Take the recent example of one large company with a multi- gigabit pipe, whose whole network was brought to its knees by one user. That user was connected on peer-to- peer networking and was simultaneously uploading 15 copies of the movie Kill Bill. Once that was discovered and throttled back, the whole network improved showing that visibility is absolutely critical, even for those with very large capacity.”
When there is visibility traffic can be prioritised so business critical systems are available when they are
The Comms National Awards yet? Visit
www.cnawards.com
Have you entered Comms Dealer Special Award Sponsor COMMS DEALER JULY 2011 63
needed. Currently, bandwidth usage for many networks is demand-driven rather than managed. It’s the users who determine, by their actions, what happens and how services are provided, which is obviously not the ideal way to run a business, observes Kilpatrick. “The demand for multi-media resources is increasing and will continue to do so,” he added. “Many companies need to understand their multi-media resource usage for future planning and cost allocation. Organisations with unmonitored bandwidth activity have no visibility, making problem resolution and planning difficult.”
Sensible steps Internal cost allocation is a sensible step to take before ploughing more money into providing greater network capacity. Internal cost allocation focuses users and departments on the cost of the resources they are consuming. “If users have visibility they can create predictive trends and ascertain when and for what they are likely to need more bandwidth. They can then organise accordingly,” said Kilpatrick. “You might find, for example, that certain times of day or times of the year have burst requirements, or you occasionally need bandwidth for activities such as videoconferencing. You could then decide whether to prioritise applications or users, or
whether to restructure the working practices.”
Many companies today have no idea how their bandwidth is operating. The channel opportunity is to offer advice and solutions that will manage bandwidth more effectively and ensure that service delivery is maximised. Such solutions mean users can gain visibility into the applications they are running, which is often a significant surprise to them. Managing bandwidth-hungry, non- business applications such as peer-to-peer, YouTube, Skype etc can provide major benefits and enable users to roll out more business UC applications.
Traffic management is an important solution for optimum bandwidth use. “Solutions such as those available from Allot are available for carriers, ISPs and enterprises. They use deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor, manage and report on network activities.
“Another possible solution to bandwidth management is WAN optimisation and acceleration, available from companies such as Expand Networks,” commented Kilpatrick. “Such solutions offer accelerated delivery of applications and guaranteed performance of business critical applications and services over WANs, supporting the benefits derived from QOS.”
n
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68