How to Calculate Network Bandwidth Requirements
Knowing how to calculate your business’ bandwidth requirements is vital to making sure your network is running smoothly. Since requirements vary from one network to another, it’s best to use the correct formula from the start. Read on to learn what factors to consider and how to calculate bandwidth properly.
What is bandwidth?
Bandwidth is the rate of data that can be supported by a network connection. It represents both time and volume, and the amount of data that can be transmitted between two points in terms of bits per second.
When calculating bandwidth requirements, it’s important to keep in mind that bandwidth and speed are not the same thing. While high-bandwidth networks are often fast, that is not always the case.
Creating a formula
A 1 GbE network has 125 million Bps of available bandwidth. But before you begin, there are two simple steps you should take into consideration. First determine the amount of available network bandwidth and then how much each application requires. You can do this by using a network analyzer. Next, follow these steps:
- Enable the cumulative bytes column of your network analyzer.
- Capture traffic to and from a test workstation running the application.
- In the decode summary window, mark the packets at the beginning of the file transfer.
- Follow the timestamp down to one second later, and then look at the cumulative bytes field.
If you see that your application is transferring data at 200,000 Bps, plug the number into the formula: 125,000,000 Bps / 200,000 Bps = 625 concurrent users. Here we see that hundreds of concurrent users will be able to use the network.
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