{"id":56,"date":"2010-06-04T13:49:51","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T17:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wavecrestcomputing.com\/?p=56"},"modified":"2011-06-21T11:30:56","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T15:30:56","slug":"control-excessive-bandwidth-consumption-with-wavecrest-filtering-and-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wavecrest.net\/index.php\/control-excessive-bandwidth-consumption-with-wavecrest-filtering-and-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Control Excessive Bandwidth Consumption with Wavecrest Filtering and Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bandwidth consumption is an increasing concern for all organizations as bandwidth-intensive sites and video streaming become more popular.\u00a0 The table below offers several examples of the amount of bandwidth that different online activities consume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Activity or File<\/strong><\/td>\nSize (in kb)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
One hour of IM chatting with AOL<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Send a one-page text email with Gmail<\/td>\n150<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
View five different articles in Wikipedia<\/td>\n1,200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Upload a 10MP JPEG photo in Flickr<\/td>\n2,400<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Downloading a 3 minute song from iTunes<\/td>\n5,600<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Watch a 5 minute YouTube video<\/td>\n12,500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Watch episode of “The Simpsons”<\/td>\n25,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Listen to one hour of music on Pandora<\/td>\n56,300<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Compressed version of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”<\/td>\n800,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As the table shows, many online activities that are probably not work related utilize a lot of bandwidth.\u00a0 The last thing any organization needs is network latency or slowdowns due to non-work related online activity.<\/p>\n

To mitigate this problem, CyBlock and Cyfin<\/a> provide IT with the information needed to determine 1) if the bandwidth consumption is work related and 2) if any measures need to be taken to reduce the amount of consumption. \u00a0Both products provide quantified data (via Web-use reports) that can help IT personnel keep track of network (bandwidth) utilization by users as well as by type<\/em> of usage (appropriate or not so appropriate).<\/p>\n

The Dashboard <\/a>is the easiest way to get a quick view of bandwidth usage.\u00a0 You can quickly find the top bandwidth consumers by users, groups, categories or sites.\u00a0 You can also check when spikes in bandwidth activity occur.<\/p>\n

The reports below can also be used to monitor bandwidth usage<\/a> by users and identify potentially troublesome sites.<\/p>\n