[OPLINTECH] Bandwidth issues.

Thu Aug 28 11:07:02 EDT 2008

My apologies if I implied standard home cable was a comparable service to
T1s for businesses and government.  I was only trying to discuss the idea
that our expectations may be out of line for a T1 line considering how much
websites believe they can push down to most home connections.

I would personally never use any sort of cable connection for a business
connection.  I just don't trust those companies.  When I was having
disconnected issues at home 2 months ago, I got 4 different explanations and
all of them were made up on the spot.  Being lied to by customer service is
frustrating.  My favorite lie was, "The weather is changing and the cable
lines are expanding/shrinking!"

Travis McAfee

Systems Administrator

Way Public Library

101 E. Indiana Ave.

Perrysburg, OH  43551

Voice:  (419) 874-3135 x103

Fax:     (419) 874-6129

Email:    <mailto:mcafeetr at oplin.org> mcafeetr at oplin.org

Web:  http://www.waylibrary.info <http://www.waylibrary.info/> 

"The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the policies and
procedures of Way Public Library."

  _____  

From: oplintech-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at oplin.org] On
Behalf Of Karl Jendretzky
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 10:22 AM
To: oplintech at oplin.org
Subject: Re: [OPLINTECH] Bandwidth issues.

All,
    I've been following your conversation here, and figured I would add a
couple things.

    First off, when comparing the differences between T1s and cable
connections, though the uptime and service level does effect the cost, the
real modifiers are the guaranteed bandwidth, and the upstream speed. Though
cable companies sell lines that they categorize as a 4mb connection, its all
first come first served, and they never really intend for you to get going
that fast. The T1s are a symmetric dedicated line, so you're looking at a
guaranteed 1.54Mb transmit and receive to the other end. I do alot from my
home in terms of voice chatting, media streaming and file servers, so I tend
to pay special attention to the posture alot of ISPs are taking over
customers using the bandwidth they paid for.

    As for QoS devices, the ones that sit out at your ends perplex me
alittle. If your bottleneck is the downstream traffic on your WAN
connection, I would think a prioritizing device would sit at the head of
that connection, not the tail. I personally don't have alot of experience
with those types of appliances, and if its working out, then its probably
doing more than what I think of as QoS, but hey, as long as its
working...yay! We have implemented some new QoS stuff at our core, so if any
of you are having issues with stuff like video conferencing or ils dropping,
feel free to give us a call and we'll see what we can work out.

    Lastly, for alot of libraries now, a single T1 isn't enough bandwidth.
This is something we've known for awhile, but only recently have we been
able to do something about it. About a year ago the OPLIN board gave us
authorization to start upgrading connections based on a quarterly
utilization report. We run a report on the entire network that shows us your
average utilization between 2pm and 5pm. A report is collected daily, for a
5 day period. If your average utilization is above 80% on three of the five
days, we are then authorized to provide additional bandwidth to the library
at OPLIN's cost. To date, this process has allowed us up provide upgrades to
roughly 20% of the libraries statewide, which has pushed our aggregate
bandwidth from about 400Mb 11 months ago, to about 750Mb today. I know some
of you are pushing your high bandwidth applications down a separate
connection, and therefore aren't getting any help from us, but the only
advice I can give to that is to make some config changes to push some of
that load my way. Once I see it, I can do something about it.

Phew, that was longer than I thought it was going to be, time to refill my
coffee cup.

Thanks,
    Karl Jendretzky
    Technology Project Manager
    Ohio Public Library Information Network
    jendreka at oplin.org
    (614) 728-1515

Travis McAfee wrote: 

Way uses a Cymphonix bandwidth shaping device in conjunction with OPLIN
QoS..  I have mixed feelings about the Cymphonix device.  If it's doing what
it says it's a great and beautiful thing.  I ran into some issues with their
tech support a few months ago, however, and they basically destroyed the
thing twice with bad updates.

Otherwise, I'm not going to say there are no solutions to this problem, but
at peak hours we have our staffers and 30+ patrons on computers.  Even if I
were a bandwidth genius, anything short of blocking Myspace, Facebook,
Snapfish, Runescape, YouTube, and Photobucket would probably result in
congested lines.  Websites are designing their content to run on Cable
connections now, which are rapidly approaching the same speeds as our T1
lines. It's starting to feel a bit like we're attempting to ration an apple
pie between 100 dinner guests here at the library.  

T1 lines just aren't scaling well.  I have about the same bandwidth at home
for $29.99 (RoadRunner - Meep meep!) and it's just a single computer.
Given, I'm enjoying one of the "good" cycles with cable based Internet right
now-  I think they recently upgraded their network.  In my experience it
will slowly deteriorate until they upgrade again. It's also not as reliable
as a T1 connection, so I guess the extra cost is mostly coming from that
last 10% uptime. Still, this is what the popular sites out there believe
their core audience has access to.

Travis McAfee

Systems Administrator

Way Public Library

101 E. Indiana Ave.

Perrysburg, OH  43551

Voice:  (419) 874-3135 x103

Fax:     (419) 874-6129

Email:    <mailto:mcafeetr at oplin.org> mcafeetr at oplin.org

Web:  http://www.waylibrary.info <http://www.waylibrary.info/> 

"The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the policies and
procedures of Way Public Library."

  _____  

From: oplinlist-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplinlist-bounces at oplin.org] On
Behalf Of Christopher Brose
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 9:33 AM
To: oplintech at oplin.org; oplinlist at oplin.org
Subject: [OPLINLIST] Bandwidth issues.

Hello,

I know everyone looks at the subject "bandwidth issues" and cringes, and I
know this has been discussed in the past, and I know with certainty this
will be discussed in the future, so here is my question.

Last September we moved our patron network off the OPLIN router due to
bandwidth issues caused by Runescape, Myspace, video downloads, etc, adding
a second T-1 line through AT&T.   Since the internet and it's traffic are
never going to grow smaller, we are experiencing congestion on this AT&T T-1
line.  The bandwidth of this second line becomes so completely maxed after
the kids visit after school, and when our lab opens, anyone trying to use
the Internet experience complete frustration with long load times and time
out issues.

 I would like see what others have used or tested in the way of throttling
or shaping their libraries network traffic to improve Quality of Service to
their patrons.

Thanks,

Christopher J. Brose

Network Administrator

Tiffin-Seneca Public Library

Voice: 419-447-3751

Fax:    419-447-3045

brosech at oplin.org

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