NetEqualizer News Blog

The NetEqualizer Bandwidth shaper has always had the ability to shape a group of people (subnet) to a fixed bandwidth limit. In laymen terms what this means is that you can take a segment of a network and say something like “you guys are only going to get 50 megabits, and try as you might to use more than 50 megabits, you are capped, and won’t be able to go over 50 megabits”.

What has been often requested and not supported, until now, is the ability to selectively enforce the group/subnet bandwidth limit.  In laymen terms again, “I want to set a 50 megabit limit on those guys, but only have it enforced when my network is near peak utilization.  The rest of the time I want those guys to be able to have all available bandwidth.”

Why is this important ?

The best way to answer this question is with an example.

A typical customer for our legacy enforcement feature would be a company where different business units within the company are allocated fixed amounts of bandwidth.   From experience and feed back from our customers we know , most of the time, the company as a whole, has more than enough bandwidth in reserve to accommodate all the business units.  The fixed allocations are really only needed during peak times to make sure no single business unit crowds out the others in a free for all bandwidth grab.   Assuming the critical peak usage situation only happens once a week, or once a day for a few hours , the old fixed allocation scheme is forcing business units to use a limited amount of bandwidth during times when there is unused bandwidth just going to waste. With our new scheme, the intelligence of the NetEqualizer will only apply the fixed allocation during those moments when bandwidth is at a premium.  There is no need for an IT person to make time of day adjustments to maximize utilization , it is automatically done for them.

With our new “Pool Bursting feature”, coming out in July, customers’ wishes have been made a reality.  Enforcement of our pool/subnet bandwidth limits can now be specified as absolute (always enforced) or enforced only at times of peak congestion.

One word of caution though.   As with any dynamic need-based enforcement there may be some customer backlash.  For example, the customer that comes to expect high bandwidth during low utilization times may not be happy if the enforcement kicks in and they are all of sudden hit with a bandwidth cap.