[olug] support costs. for Linux

[Phil Brutsche]

On Mon, 2001-10-08 at 08:28, Schmeits, Roger wrote:
> Just this year we has started to use eCollege.  ECollege is a portal for
> small or large schools that want to (insert fancy marketing term).  We now
> have numerous faculty members posting audio Real Player files to their web
> sites on eCollege. Prior to this our bandwidth width was just enough to
> satisfy everyones need.  Now with faculty memebers uploading files ...well
> you guess what going on.  Traffic get bogged down between the hours of 9am ~
> 5pm.  The range of files range from 15M to 25M and will get larger as the
> semester goes on.  
> 
> To answer your question I would venture a guess that inbound and outbound
> traffic is about equal this semester.  Last semester it was inbound that had
> prefernce.  In the future outgoing traffic (larger files will be uploaded)
> will increase.

A squid proxy will definitely help.

Perhaps you should look into traffic shaping.  Traffic shaping is where
you limit certain traffic, like all outbound HTTP traffic, to a hard
upper limit.  Say, 768kbit, for example.  That's 'bout half your T1.

You may also be able to make network traffic "more fair" with some fancy
queuing algorighms on the router/firewall.

It will be worthwhile to talk to the people in control of the
router/firewall about it.  If they don't know what traffic shaping is,
well...

> > My experience with cable is that you get 1 to 2 T1 of bandwidth inbound
> > and only 256 to 512K outbound.
> 
> I will have to think about that one.  I am assuming I would have to change
> some of my router settings to implement such an idea?

Yes - you need to make sure your router can do policy routing.  Policy
routing lets you use the source IP, or just about any other bit if data
in the packet, rather than just the destination IP, as the routing key.

If not, you may need a dedicated "firewall" for the cable modem.

> We sit behind a firewall which is out of my control.

Oh, I hate that...

> Please note we are part of the Nebraska Health System and they control
> the firewall an numerous other routers.

Putting in a cable modem will be tricky if you don't control the entire
network configuration, including the firewall.

-- 

Phil


-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

For help contact olug-help at bstc.net - run by ezmlm
to unsubscribe, send mail to olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net
or `mail olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net < /dev/null`
(c)2001 OLUG http://www.olug.org

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_