Commodity Network Bandwidth: Problems and Recommendations
A report of the Network Advisory Committee
During the spring semester, the campus began exceeding its total allotted network "bandwidth." (Bandwidth is a measure of how much information can be sent through a particular network connection.) Our connection to the "commodity" Internet--which includes everything from AT+T to Amazon--became saturated late in calendar 2001, and continued to have problems until May of this year. At that point the problem was mitigated by some changes in our network topology, combined with the drop in traffic at the end of the semester.
The Network Advisory Committee believes that the problem will recur during the fall semester unless immediate action is taken. Bandwidth problems impact all aspects of the University's mission, and we urge that the campus seek remedies.
We have two primary recommendations:
The Network Advisory Committee should investigate methods of managing our network traffic, and prepare a complete report for the E-Berkeley Steering Committee in early 2003.
The Vice Chancellor's Advisory Council should immediately set aside a reserve of $50,000, to pay for additional bandwidth if campus demand again outstrips our ability to pay.
Background: Technical and funding information about our campus Internet connectivity.
Patterns: Recent history of bandwidth usage and analysis of our traffic.
Impacts: A discussion of some of the impacts the campus feels when our commodity Internet connection is saturated.
Recommended Actions: There is no single solution to the problem; we recommend immediately creating a funding reserve, combined with longer-term work on traffic management and distributed costing.