Bandwidth Consumption Analysis (XP Professional)

[freds]

Please look at the graphs on the attached MHT file.

Our technical guys are claiming that we need more bandwidth.
From your analysis of this data, would you agree or disagree with them? And why?

How can I calculate the AVERAGE bandwidth usage?

Cheers.

[bigaldoc]

I'm not an IT guy, but your charts do seem to confirm that your peak load (outgoing) is during what looks like daytime hours, although I don't understand why there's a dip on Thursday and Friday. Can that be a mistake? Most importantly, I'm not sure if the graphs are capped at some saturation point or not. What IS your current bandwidth setup - DSL, cable, T1.... ?

[JohnGray]

You haven't said what type of data traffic these graphs relate to.

Initially I thought they might be for your ISP line for internet access by all your employees, but you are getting significantly more data going OUT than coming IN (daily graph). It does tend to raise rapidly to a peak and stay there, all day, from shortly after 0700 until about tea-time. Could it be the traffic going OUT from your web server(s), perhaps?

The weekly graph is a puzzle, in that the usage is equivalently high on Saturday and Sunday, but lower on Thursday and Friday -- a glitch?

The year graph shows a significant and sustained rise in data which took place towards the end of March.

Without knowing much more about your situation it is difficult to advise, but the fact that you appear to be running at 100% data throughput on whatever speed line(s) you have throughout the working day would make me think that you could certainly do with More Capacity, whatever than means in your circumstance.

I would say that your question about "calculating the average bandwidth usage" is a bit of a red herring. Are you trying to give a good service to the producers of this data, who apparently come in during the working day, and many of whom have Thursday and Friday off? Or to the people who are asking for data from your web server(s)? If so, you couldn't really care about the response time at 02:00, only during the working day! It would seem that you need more bandwidth during this period, but how much more I couldn't say/guess without knowing more about the environment.

John

PS Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you personally are not a network techie, is there any particular reason why you aren't believing those whom you are employing as network techies? They will have a more precise knowledge of your environment, and any comments by "outsiders" such as myself will inevitably be generalised and potentially inaccurate.