NetEqualizer News Blog

By Art Reisman, CTO, APconnections (www.netequalizer.com)

Whether you are a home user or a large multinational corporation, you likely want to get the most out of your Internet connection. In previous articles, we have  briefly covered using Equalizing (Fairness)  as a tool to speed up your connection without purchasing additional bandwidth. In the following sections, we’ll break down  exactly how this is accomplished in layman’s terms.

First , what is an optimizing appliance?

An optimizing appliance is a piece of networking equipment that has one Ethernet input and one Ethernet output. It is normally located between the router that terminates your Internet connection and the users on your network. From this location, all Internet traffic must pass through the device. When activated, the optimizing appliance can rearrange traffic loads for optimal service, thus preventing the need for costly new bandwidth upgrades.

Next, we’ll summarize equalizing and behavior-based shaping.

Overall, equalizing is a simple concept. It is the art form of looking at the usage patterns on the network, and when things get congested, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. In other words, heavy users are limited in the amount of badwidth to which they have access in order to ensure that ALL users on the network can utilize the network effectively. Rather than writing hundreds of rules to specify allocations to specific traffic as in traditional application shaping, you can simply assume that large downloads are bad, short quick traffic is good, and be done with it.

How is Fairness implemented?

If you have multiple users sharing your Internet trunk and somebody mentions “fairness,” it probably conjures up the image of each user waiting in line for their turn. And while a device that enforces fairness in this way would certainly be better than doing nothing, Equalizing goes a few steps further than this.

We don’t just divide the bandwidth equally like a “brain dead” controller. Equalizing is a system of dynamic priorities that reward smaller users at the expense of heavy users. It is very very dynamic, and there is no pre-set limit on any user. In fact, the NetEqualizer does not keep track of users at all. Instead, we monitor user streams. So, a user may be getting one stream (FTP Download) slowed down while at the same time having another stream untouched(e-mail).

Another key element in behavior-based shaping is connections. Equalizing takes care of instances of congestion caused by single-source bandwidth hogs. However, the other main cause of Internet gridlock (as well as bringing down routers and access points) is p2p and its propensity to open hundreds or perhaps thousands of connections to different sources on the Internet. Over the years, the NetEqualizer engineers have developed very specific algorithms to spot connection abuse and avert its side effects.

What is the result?

The end result is that applications such as Web surfing, IM, short downloads, and voice all naturally receive higher priority, while large downloads and p2p receive lower priority. Also, situations where we cut back large streams is  generally for a short duration. As an added advantage, this behavior-based shaping does not need to be updated constantly as applications change.

Trusting a heuristic solution such as NetEqualizer is not always an easy step. Oftentimes, customers are concerned with accidentally throttling important traffic that might not fit the NetEqualizer model, such as video. Although there are exceptions, it is rare for the network operator not to know about these potential issues in advance, and there are generally relatively few to consider. In fact, the only exception that we run into is video, and the NetEqualizer has a low level routine that easily allows you to give overriding priority to a specific server on your network, hence solving the problem. The NetEqualizer also has a special feature whereby you can exempt and give priority to any IP address specifically in the event that a large stream such as video must be given priority.

Through the implementation of Equalizing technology, network administrators are able to get the most out of their network. Users of the NetEqualizer are often surprised to find that their network problems were not a result of a lack of bandwidth, but rather a lack of bandwidth control.

See who else is using this technology.

Created by APconnections, the NetEqualizer is a plug-and-play bandwidth control and WAN/Internet optimization appliance that is flexible and scalable. When the network is congested, NetEqualizer’s unique “behavior shaping” technology dynamically and automatically gives priority to latency sensitive applications, such as VoIP and email. Click here for a full price list.