Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[David Rasch <rasch AT raschnet.com>]

Tony:
We do backups of 30 gig databases over our T-1 link ever night.  By 
utlizing a process similar to "rsync" these backups go off without a 
problem and utilize relatively little bandwidth.   We utilize a piece of 
software called "rdiff-backup" for this.

You can see the graph for the last week of how our backups affect our 
bandwidth usage:
http://www.raschnet.com/~rasch/bandwidth/week.png

Michael:
I also didn't mention that we have each of the 30+ employees have and 
utilize VoIP phones that use this connection.  We're currently 
investigating a second connection for the phones, but not because of 
bandwidth needs rather because the internet is a wild wild place over 
which to send VoIP and we're looking to see far better call quality.  
That being said, we've done a bit of connection "shaping" to insure that 
regardless of data activity, the phones are usable, and almost always 
have better quality than my cell phone.

All:
My message is simply that it might make a bit more sense to setup a 
router that can do some connection prioritization to make sure the 
connection you have is being best utilized.  For this, I'd highly 
recommend sending a note to the TriLUG (http://www.trilug.org) mailing 
list or IRC channel #trilug asking for some assistance.  It's likely 
that you can get some free help, and even more if you're willing to buy 
someone lunch or dinner in exchange for picking their brain.  However, 
if it makes more financial sense to just throw more bandwidth at the 
problem, then by all means, go for it :).  

-David

Tony Spencer wrote:

> My setup is small with no more than 4 people connected at a time but I've
> got a lot of processes that eat up a bit of bandwidth such as pulling down
> backups of databases from a colo. 
>
>  
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Rasch [mailto:rasch AT raschnet.com] 
> > Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2005 10:12 AM
> > To: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/
> > Subject: Re: [internetworkers] connectivity choices for small 
> > business?
> >
> > Just out of curiosity, could you give us an idea of what size 
> > organization you're working with? 
> >
> > At $WORK, we share a T-1 among 30+ employees without issue.  Just for 
> > reference, this is symmetric at 1.5M.  We've setup some 
> > traffic shaping, 
> > and so long as you aren't doing a lot of serving across your 384k 
> > upstream bandwidth, I'd imagine the downstream would easily scale to 
> > close to 100 employees for email, and heavy web usage. 
> >
> > My only point is that perhaps there's some optimization or 
> > configuration 
> > that could be done to make the most of the current connection. 
> >
> > Alternatively, it's possible your usage patterns are 
> > considerably more 
> > demanding than ours and you do need to up your downstream bandwidth.
> >
> > Best of luck,
> > David
> >
> > Tony Spencer wrote:
> >
> >    
> >
> > > Funny.  I was just giving our rep a hard time about this a 
> > >      
> > couple of days
> >    
> >
> > > ago.  She agreed that their pricing structure was outdated 
> > >      
> > and she says they
> >    
> >
> > > have been discussing lowering it but seems to me that they 
> > >      
> > need to come down
> >    
> >
> > > A LOT.  This is why I'm looking at the Speakeasy OneLink 
> > >      
> > 6Mx768k for a
> >    
> >
> > > fraction of the price that TW is asking. 
> > >
> > > TimeWarner's real problem is that they don't offer a 
> > >      
> > solution for small
> >    
> >
> > > business who want more downstream but don't need 2Mbps upstream.  
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >      
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Michael Czeiszperger [mailto:michael AT czeiszperger.org] 
> > > > Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2005 5:39 PM
> > > > To: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/
> > > > Subject: [internetworkers] connectivity choices for small business?
> > > >
> > > > I was wondering if the choices for internet connectivity have 
> > > > changed  
> > > > at all recently?  The 3Mx384 connection from TimeWarner has seemed  
> > > > slow now that I've added some more employees, and I went 
> > > >        
> > looking to  
> >    
> >
> > > > increase the service level. What I got back was this puzzling 
> > > > list of  
> > > > prices.
> > > >
> > > > 3Mx384k for $89.95/month
> > > > 2Mx1M for $199.95/month
> > > > 2Mx2M for $299.95/month
> > > > 4Mx2M for $399.95/month
> > > > 6Mx2M for $499.95/month
> > > >
> > > > The cost differential from going from $89.95/month to 
> > > >        
> > $199.95 seems  
> >    
> >
> > > > to make it not worth it, but are there any options? These seem  
> > > > expensive, but the performance still seems higher than DSL, and  
> > > > cheaper than one of the T's.
> > > > ______________________________________________________________
> > > > __________ 
> > > > _________
> > > >
> > > > You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so 
> > > >        
> > unfair. Then  
> >    
> >
> > > > I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and 
> > > >        
> > all the  
> >    
> >
> > > > terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve  
> > > > them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and  
> > > > unfairness of the universe. - J. Michael Straczynski
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ---
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> > > >   
> > > >
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