Battling the Bandwidth Crunch

Network connectivity has never been more critical for conducting business.

Bandwidth has moved beyond the traditional cost of infrastructure and is the

life-blood for the flow of information. Efficient bandwidth usage enables

enterprises develop closer relationships with customers, suppliers, and other

business partners. Inefficient bandwidth usage could well stymie efforts at

communication. CIOs recognise the vital role of bandwidth in the growth of the

organisation. Network bandwidth is crucial in the expansion of operations,

especially in larger companies and at those with larger numbers of nodes

attached to their networks.

Quality is crucial In addition to improving network utilisation, network

managers focus on quality of service and policy-based management to control

bandwidth spending. By effectively prioritising traffic, companies hope to avoid

overbuilding capacity simply to ensure that certain business-critical

applications perform adequately over the network. Quality of service will be an

essential element of convergence. By running voice and data over the same pipes,

network managers could expect to save considerably on their monthly connection

costs, although they may also give away some of those savings in the form of

more onerous network-management operations. Not only will convergence reduce the

number of pipes companies have to acquire, but it will also give them an upper

in negotiating with carriers.

Another potential change is the availability of more sophisticated

bandwidth-on-demand services that let users change speed whenever they want.

Network managers have so far had to deal with the ‘step function’ of

bandwidth buying. Here, they would not have to buy more bandwidth until their

utilisation reaches a certain point and then they have to buy a lot more. They

also typically must commit to that additional cost for an extended period of

time. With bandwidth-on-demand, customers can order more capacity on an

as-needed basis.

Issues such as the lack of a single window solution provider affect

enterprises. Says Hilal Ishar Khan, manager IT, Honda Siel Cars, "A

bandwidth provider should actually act as a single window for most customer

solutions. This would eliminate the need for customers to interact with

bandwidth and solution providers separately," Khan cites the example of his

own company. "Honda Siel was in the process of evaluating a video

conferencing solution but we are finding it difficult to synchronise the choice

of bandwidth and solution provider," he says.

Smart rationing



Bandwidth allocation can be optimised by the utilisation of various tools

like distribution, prioritisation, guarantees and borrowing. With organisations

putting up more and more applications and services, which are centralised on the

network, bandwidth is consumed very fast. Even SMEs are getting hooked onto the

net and are fast catching up on services delivered through the medium. The

resultant traffic is causing an enormous amount of strain on the networks. The

result–unsatisfied users. Since multiple users and applications access almost

all network resources, the available bandwidth must be shared. While most

organisations in India have sufficient bandwidth to cater to their average

requirements, the response time is generally poor, mainly due to the lack of

bandwidth management. Using the tools available for managing bandwidth, a good

IT manager can ensure that all applications keep running smoothly and users are

satisfied. This also helps in reducing costs.

Typically, an organisation would be on a LAN at the branch or central office.

Hence, unless there is a very complex application running on the LAN, which hogs

a lot of bandwidth, a LAN does not require management per se. This LAN, in turn,

is connected to the Internet pipe through a gateway. It is at this point that

the capacity crunch strikes. Hence, it becomes imperative that this capacity is

utilised to its fullest, while giving the best response time. Traffic can be

monitored in a variety of ways, but the two most common methods are–user and

protocol-based monitoring

Intranet: The greedy child



Intranet deployments require an existing network that supports the TCP/IP

protocol suite and related Internet applications. TCP/IP provides the

fundamental set of communication protocols that permit basic connectivity

between networks and individual desktop systems. Internet applications (e-mail,

Web browsing, file transfer, terminal emulation, etc) provide the tools and

services that allow workers to share information across one or more LANs, a WAN,

or the Internet. These applications significantly increase demand for bandwidth.

Deregulation and disinvestment in the telecom space would signify better QoS.

Says Manish Tripathi of Bharat Petroleum, "The privatisation of MTNL, VSNL

and BSNL will really help us in getting the higher uptime of our terrestrial

links as they will certainly offer better quality of service and customer care,

coupled with the offer of a basket of value-added services. The privatised

entity will certainly bring in latest technological solutions to offer diverse

networking products to the ordinary customer and big corporate houses as

well".

This might just be a ray of hope to beleaguered enterprise users grappling

with their bandwidth woes.

Amit Sarkar in New Delhi