Typical bandwidth usage for SME's

[cow]

We're a small business with 3 remote locations connecting to a VPN. For the past 2/3 months we've been using around 13GB a month - using one WebAfrica account with 4 concurrent connections.

Typical traffic includes the following:
- Windows networking (all clients are part of the domain)
- Sharepoint
- Exchange server
- SQL Server client applications
- Windows updates to +-12 pc's (6 on Vista, 3 on Win 2003 srv, 3 on WinXP)
- Skype
- Normal internet browsing traffic

I'd be interested to compare our usage to others on more or less the same setup.

Regards.

 

[sleek]

(Install a proxy for those windows updates...)

 

[cow]

yup, had SUS running, but haven't found the time to upgrade to WUS yet (SUS is no longer supported).

Does 13 GB sound excessive? Take into account that VPN traffic counts 2x against the cap (outgoing from client to server counts as incoming on server, and vice versa)

 

[gregmcc]

WSUS is a awesome product - a major improvement over SUS and the previous version of WSUS. And best of all its free - but you do need to run it on Windows 2003 Server

 

[The_Unbeliever]

13Gb is not excessive - at all.

telkom will tell you a different story, but I think 13Gb is NOT excessive.

But, yes, install and configure WSUS to cache all those windowsupdates things. Drawback is, you'll need a Win2k3 server.

Failing that, you can have a look at Smoothwall and the update cacher mod.


If your antivirus support it, have one w/s download all the antivirus updates and signatures and push them out to the rest of the clients - this will also cut down on bandwidth usage.

And block advertisement sites whenever possible.

Good luck!

 

[cow]

Actually, I'm trying to convince my boss that it's not excessive...

 

[The_Unbeliever]

We use our uncapped adsl for email, downloads, general web browsing, antivirus updates, windowsupdates and pushed our bandwidth to 50Gb the one month.

So 13Gb is not excessive at all.

 

[cow]

yow! How many pc's on the network?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

More than 50 but less than 60

still have to fine tune that dang Symantec Corp Edition tho...


Will have to look at WSUS + extra win2k3 server for windowsupdates...