NetEqualizer News Blog

Editor’s Note: This month, we announced the availability of the NetEqualizer Directory Integration (NDI) feature. Over the past few weeks, interest and inquiries have been high, so we’ve created the following Q&A to address many of the common questions we’ve received.

What is NDI anyway?
NetEqualizer Directory Integration (NDI) is an API for NetEqualizer that allows you to pull in username information from a directory and display it in your active connections table. This way, instead of only seeing IP to IP connection information, you can see usernames associated with those IPs so that you can make better decisions about how to manage your bandwidth. We will gradually be expanding NDI functionality to allow for shaping by username.

How much does NDI cost?
NDI requires setup consultation and is an additional add-on feature for the NetEqualizer. Currently, version 7.0 is required to run NDI. Take a look at our price list for more information.

How does NDI work?
NDI is an API on NetEqualizer that sends your directory server a URL containing an IP address. The process on your directory server then looks up the username for that IP and returns it to the NetEqualizer which stores the information.

What am I responsible for implementing with NDI?
You are responsible for implementing the process which resides on the directory server. This process returns a username when given an IP by the NDI API call. We have examples of how to do this for some directory server setups, but directory server setups are too specific for us to create a generic process that will work for all customers.

When would knowing the username be helpful?
Knowing the username instead of simply IP-to-IP information can helpful for administrators in many ways. Here are just a few:
– Easily see which users are taking up a lot of bandwidth. This is doable with a manual look up but that can get tedious.
– Eventually, NDI will be enhanced to shape by username. Again, this helps take away a step that an administrator would have to perform manually.
– Often, users are not assigned static IP addresses. With NDI’s dynamic updating, you don’t have to worry about the IP anymore. The username information will automatically adjust.

What are the upcoming enhancements to NDI?
We are planning to make NDI more robust in the months ahead. Our first feature will be Quotas by Username. This feature is currently in Beta. Once this feature is implemented, you will be able to assign usage quotas by username as opposed to IP or subnet. Additional possible changes to NDI include shaping by username and limiting by username. Stay tuned to NetEqualizer News for announcements.

If you have additional questions about NDI, feel free to contact us at: sales@apconnections.net!