THE BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT ADVISORY SERVICE

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THE BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT ADVISORY SERVICE

• Ingrid Evans George Neisser
• Manchester Computing
• University of Manchester
• ingrid.evans_at_man.ac.uk
• George.Neisser_at_mcc.ac.uk

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Background to BMAS

• Recent years have witnessed growth in
• Dynamic Web content.
• Multimedia and real-time applications.
• Expansion of JANET user base to include FE
  colleges.

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Advisory Requirement Identified

• In recognition of the changing types of web
  traffic, UKERNA carried out a survey in 2002
  amongst academic institutions.
• The following conclusions were drawn
• There is a general need for web caching.
• There is a need for generic advice.
• An Invitation to tender was issued Summer 2002.
• Manchester Loughborough awarded contract.

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BMAS

• BMAS Remit to deliver leading-edge
  state-of-the-art advice to UK academic
  institutions on how to maximise the efficiency of
  their bandwidth resource utilisation
• Staffed by the former JWCS team.
• Plenty of experience.
• Will expand to include new and on coming
  bandwidth management techniques and technologies.

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What is Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management is the control and
  monitoring of your network bandwidth allocation
  to get best use out of said link.
• Bandwidth Management can encompass various
  techniques and policies
• Your requirements will depend on numbers of
  users, work profiles, teaching and research
  programmes, connection capacity etc, etc.

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BMAS Help and Advice

• BMAS advises on
• Deployment of state-of-the-art techniques and
  technologies.
• Good Practice techniques.
• Usefulness and relevance of latest technologies
• The need to develop an institutional bandwidth
  management policy

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What factors constitute Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management can be achieved using a
  variety of techniques.
• We would ask you to consider the following
• Installing a local cache . This can save you
  between 30 and 40 of your internet bandwidth
  usage.

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What factors constitute Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management can be achieved using a
  variety of techniques.
• Content Filtering. This factor also has legal /
  best practise connotations

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What factors constitute Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management can be achieved using a
  variety of techniques.
• Effective network monitoring techniques can
  indicate blackspots and bottlenecks and identify
  unnecessary or illegal traffic

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What factors constitute Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management can be achieved using a
  variety of techniques.
• Data Compression techniques - making staff aware
  of various compression techniques or formats can
  help free up some bandwidth.

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What factors constitute Bandwidth Management?

• Bandwidth Management can be achieved using a
  variety of techniques.
• Implementing a variety of policies. Effective
  bandwidth management does not necessarily mean
  spending lots of money.

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How can BMAS help me with Bandwidth Management?

• BMAS are currently listening to the needs and
  requests of the academic sector.
• As well as providing support and advice we also
  operate a development arm to enable us to
  research the latest tools in the field.

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How can BMAS help me with Bandwidth Management?

• Our development team have recently built a
  development network which will simulate a
  typical FE 2 Mbit link.
• This development network will enable us to trial
  various hardware and software components in the
  fields of filtering, streaming media and caching.

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What is the Development Network made up of?

• The development network includes a range of
  Operating Systems and hardware / software.

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What is the Development Network made up of?

• Currently we have 16 PCs
• 1 router
• 3 switches
• OSs include
• Unix - Linux / FreeBSD / Debian
• Irix / Solaris
• Windows 2000, NT
• Novell

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What is the Development Network made up of?

• We are currently running the following
  applications
• MS Proxy ISA Server
• Firewalls
• Proprietary and open source filters
• Caching software / cache clusters
• Streaming servers and clients

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Development Network schematic

• Campus NetworkNNWJANET

Router
Switch
Switch
Firewall
Machine Rack8 machines
Machine Rack8 machines
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BMAS and the academic community

• BMAS is a new service that will evolve over time.
• We hope we will become a resource that the
  educational community really use.
• BMAS would appreciate your input

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Ongoing work with FE

• We have already received a number of requests for
  our action and collaboration .
• As a result of this we are currently looking
  into
• Streaming media over 2Mbit links
• Voice over IP

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Suggestions for BMAS

• If you would like us to look into a certain area
  of bandwidth management, please contact us

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BMAS help and support

• We will operate a helpdesk during normal office
  hours.
• This helpdesk will be there both for advice and
  support and can be accessed by telephone, fax,
  email and webform
• Our website should be a first stop for all
  bandwidth management related issues.
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Email support_at_bmas.ja.net
• Web http//www.bmas.ja.net