Sunday, May 18, 2008

How Much Bandwidth Is Too Much For Your Business??

For your company's specific business applications....how do you decide on how much bandwidth will be necesary? Is it T1, DS3, or OC3 or greater? Do you factor in a reasonable overage to account for potential emergent situations? What modeling approach do you use to calculate your min and max load and thus your supportable need range? How do you decide how much is "enough"?

I suggest to address these issues that you apply an end to end approach. The parts are the workstation, communication link(s), server, database, and support systems (DNS for example).

Next, its important to remember that users do tasks. Any analysis must be based on the task concept. Also, the specific tasks in any application will likely differ by user type so its useful to look at the frequency of specific tasks by user group.

Each task can be looked at in terms of time. The total time is split among the parts. Before worrying about bandwidth, you should determine just where the time is being spent for each task. Don't consider the user action in the task analysis - their keyboard time is best handled with scripts to eliminate that variable, and output is done when the screen is populated or the printout complete.

The communications aspect is impacted by volume of data moved, amount of communications overhead, background load, packet size, protocol, latency, and bandwidth.

While there are many "favorite" tools to speed the analysis, it can all be accomplished with a spreadsheet, a packet capture tool, and a knowledge of scripting.

There are some generals you can follow for this evolution.

First, while applications vary, most have yet to find the application that improves performance on any task when bandwidth goes above about 750Kb. Most see no improvement once bandwidth reaches 200Kb. Additional bandwidth then becomes an issue of user count. Next, most applications do not suffer performance drops until total average utilization goes above 80%.

The best time to define bandwidth requirements is during application development. The reason is that most applications can be tuned to perform with significantly less traffic while still in development, and the traffic is often a good indication of other problems like poor database structure or less than optimal distribution of work. The second best time is before purchasing an application. Often two similar applications will have significantly different WAN performance characteristics and this can be a key decision criteria.

So how much bandwidth is too much? If you can lease less than you currently have and lower your costs, you have too much.

I strongly suggest that you NOT enter directly into discussions with a bandwidth provider while deciding your bandwidth requirements. They're more likely to be focused on "making a sale" than in helping you with your infrastructure decisions. Instead, seek the advice of an independent unbiased broker. They can walk you through the process to finding a solution which best makes business sense to you and your organization.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including DS3-Bandwidth.com and Business-VoIP-Solution.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, insights, and ramblings for the masses.

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Two Enter Internet Battle

Consumers understand that when there is more competition in a market, there are lower prices. This is especially true in the computer industry where it is reported that 68% of households have a computer. According to the Computer Industry Almanac, the worldwide number of Internet users will exceed 1 billion this year with the United States leading with over 185 million users. The number of users will continue to increase as well as competitors, forcing companies to offer faster connections at a cheaper price. Two technologies that will lend a hand in allowing new players into the Broadband market are BPL and WIMAX.

Broadband Over Power Lines, BPL

BPL is a technology that allows Internet data to be transmitted over utility power lines and is also referred to as Power-line Communications or PLC. The technology works by modulating high-frequency radio waves with the digital signals from the Internet. These radio waves are fed into the utility grid at specific points, then travel along the wires and pass through the utility transformers into homes and businesses. One main concern by officials in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), is that BPL will interfere with radio systems including fire, police, short-wave and land mobile. There are other groups who are taking the initiative in realizing this potential including the IEEE which has begun to develop IEEE P1675, "Standard for Broadband over Power Line Hardware."

This technology has gained national attention with reports by the Wall Street Journal that industry powerhouses Google and Goldman Sachs have invested nearly $100 million into Current Communications Group, a company that provides high-speed Internet access over electrical power lines. According to Reuters, CCG will use the financing to deploy voice, video and data services in domestic and global markets. IBM is also currently researching the use of electrical power lines to provide internet access by opening a BPL center in Houston with CenterPoint Energy although IBM has declined to put a dollar value on the amount invested.

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, WIMAX

WiMAX, also known as IEEE 802.16, is a standards-based wireless technology that provides broadband connections over long distances and is intended for wireless metropolitan area networks". It can be used for wireless networking in much the same way WiFi is used today while also allowing for more efficient bandwidth use and interference avoidance. WiMAX has a broadband wireless access range of 30 miles compared to only 100 ?300 feet for a WiFi wireless local area network.

WiMAX can be used for a number of applications, including "last mile" broadband connections, hotspots, and high-speed connectivity for businesses. Alvarion, a global organization headquartered in Israel that supplies integrated Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) solutions, has announced it will supply satellite provider DirecTV Group Inc. with equipment that uses WIMAX technology in order to enhance customer upstream bandwidth requirements. By implementing last mile?broadband connections, DirecTV would then be able to supply faster connections to rural areas where it would cost millions to lay down the cable lines necessary for high speed. Another application under consideration is gaming. Microsoft is looking to make WiMax a standard feature in its Xbox 360. This would allow gamers with similar equipment to interact with other players without any internet access. All the funcionality of WiFi with improved range and reduced network latency makes WiMAX a very attractive alternative.

James Junior is a freelance writer and web programmer for http://www.jccorner.com

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