September 2008 Data Usage Explosion

[Johand]

We have a problem in our company - our data usage for this month has been sky high. This includes usage of our ADSL lines as well as the individual 3G data contracts.And the average throughput speeds on all connections lower this month than previous months.

I can't explain it except maybe Windows XP SP3 being released. Is there any other reason why September 2008 is such a bandwidth crazy month?

 

[Belial]

Best thing to do is monitor your data usage and not speculate.

 

[Johand]

Best thing to do is monitor your data usage and not speculate.

Not very practical:

1) I need to determine what went wrong - it is in the past.
2) It is over 20+ different connections from different PC's and servers.

My point is that it is not one person doing something specific. Our average is just a lot higher than it used to be.

If somebody can recommend software that I can use to monitor bandwidth of different connections remotely that would be awesome though.

 

[HideInLight]

3G data bundles...

 

[Johand]

3G data bundles...

? - I don't quite understand. Yes we have bundles. And most of them got depleted, which normally does not happen.

As far as I know there is no central place to monitor all the data bundles on different contracts at once - you have to log in per contract.

And the data is delayed by 24+ hours.

But it still doesn't help - it will only tell me what I know anyway - usage has been consistently higher on all connections this month.

 

[Balstrome]

Two methods.
Try educating staff about costs/bandwidth
or put in place restrictive policies.

The second one gives results fast, and is easier to put in place. except that it can have a hard hit on your productivity.

 

[Grimspoon]

To answer one part of your question Johad, no I don’t think there has been any significant happenings in September that would cause the sudden spike in usage...However you have to look at all avenues, it could possibly be malware that has spread throughout your environment, which in turn is chewing up data. Your best bet here is to get a spy ware remover and scan every machine, this may be tedious but necessary...Also get a program that monitors your bandwidth, I am using a trial version of Bandwidth Monitor V3.4 which is actually excellent. Are there possibly machines running Vista that have downloaded service pack 1? Also XP SP 3 could contribute. Good luck

 

[Johand]

Two methods.
Try educating staff about costs/bandwidth
or put in place restrictive policies.

The second one gives results fast, and is easier to put in place. except that it can have a hard hit on your productivity.

This is really not a staff issue. Everybody's bandwidth is higher. Including my own, and I know that I haven't been downloading things like crazy.

To answer one part of your question Johad, no I don’t think there has been any significant happenings in September that would cause the sudden spike in usage...However you have to look at all avenues, it could possibly be malware that has spread throughout your environment, which in turn is chewing up data. Your best bet here is to get a spy ware remover and scan every machine, this may be tedious but necessary...Also get a program that monitors your bandwidth, I am using a trial version of Bandwidth Monitor V3.4 which is actually excellent. Are there possibly machines running Vista that have downloaded service pack 1? Also XP SP 3 could contribute. Good luck

Well all the machines are scanned. Besides - it is a consultancy and nobody is on the same LAN ever! They are geographically dispersed as well! No suspicious e-mails. Nothing in the past month. Just everybody's bandwidth usage is higher.

That in the fact that latency on the 3G network suck this month as well. I use to average ~300ms to Germany now it is between 450ms - 600ms.

I suspect Windows Service Packs. It is the only thing I could think of that would lead to higher bandwidth usage across the board plus degraded networks.