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