Internet Bandwidth Monitor and Management System

Info Systems has completed work on an Internet Bandwidth Monitor and Management System that can be accessed via the web. The explanation presented here is intended to provide Residence Hall computer owners with information they need to understand what bandwidth is, how it is monitored and what they can do if the system reports that their computer is using excessive amounts of Internet bandwidth.

Questions and Answers

What are Info System's policies regarding the EMU Internet connection?
What is "bandwidth"? Why do I need to be concerned about it?
What are examples of how much bandwidth is used?
What kind of monitoring does the Internet Bandwidth Usage Reporting System do?
Can I find out what my bandwidth use is before I get a warning letter?
I got an email warning but I am sure I wasn't doing anything to receive that much data. What is wrong?
I received an email warning, but it looks a bit garbled and there are no links on it. What is wrong?
What happens after I get a warning message?
This really seems like we are being hassled. Is this really necessary? What good does it do?
I paid for a connection to the EMU network and the Internet. I should be able to use it in any way that I want to. Why are you being so restrictive? I paid for it, didn't I?

What are Info System's policies regarding the EMU Internet connection?

Policies governing the use of the EMU Internet connection can be found at this link:
www.emu.edu/is/policies/internet.

What is "bandwidth"? Why do I need to be concerned about it?

Bandwidth is a means of measuring our Internet connection's speed and capacity. Our connection provides a maximum capacity of about 15 million bits per second (3 mbps). At this rate it would take approximately twenty minutes to transfer an uncompressed audio CD.

There are over one thousand computers on campus connected to the Internet. Theoretically, if one thousand computers are simultaneously using the EMU Internet connection each will receive an average of 15,000 bits per second-about the speed of the average modem in 1994. Roughly speaking this means that each computer on campus could download one (5) megabyte per hour simultaneously.

Fortunately, not every computer on campus connects to the Internet at the same time. Persons whose computers use more than 500mb/day are identified as "excessive bandwidth users".

The EMU Internet connection is a finite resource that is expensive. EMU will spend over $34,000 this year just to connect to the Internet.

What are examples of how much bandwidth is used?

Different kinds of Internet use will result in different amounts of bandwidth being used. This table shows estimates of different kinds of Internet activities and their use of bandwidth.

What kind of monitoring does the Internet Bandwidth Usage Reporting System do?

All EMU network data traffic (either coming from or going to the Internet) passes through a bandwidth manager in the data center. This device gives priority to faculty, staff and classroom traffic, throttles maximum data speeds for student computers and measures the amount of Internet data coming in and going out from every computer on the EMU network. Every day this data is captured and summarized in a web database for the previous day's traffic (measured from mid-night to mid-night).

After the data has been summarized it is sorted to reveal the records of computers having received more than 500mb of data during the entire day. Email warning messages are sent to computer owners for these records.

Can I find out what my bandwidth use is before I get a warning letter?

Unfortunately we don't have any way to provide real-time bandwidth statistics with our current setup. However, there are tools you can install on your computer to help you track your bandwidth usage.

To see your bandwidth for previous days, we have provided a web page for this purpose. You simply log in at www.emu.edu/is/enforcer to see your bandwidth usage. An example bandwidth use table is below.

Date	IP Address	Mbytes Transferred	Minutes Online
9/10/2002	10.6.62.2	408 MB (17 MB/hr.) Limit Exceeded!	1424
9/9/2002	10.6.62.2	398 MB (17 MB/hr.) Limit Exceeded!	948
9/8/2002	10.6.62.2	27 MB (1 MB/hr.)	85
9/7/2002	10.6.62.2	25 MB (1 MB/hr.)	154
9/6/2002	10.6.62.2	263 MB (11 MB/hr.) Limit Exceeded!	653
9/5/2002	10.6.62.2	60 MB (3 MB/hr.)	425
9/4/2002	10.6.62.2	2 MB (0 MB/hr.)	21

IP Address identifies your computer
Mbytes Transferred is the total number of megabytes of data received by your computer
Minutes Online is the total number of minutes data was coming to your computer.

If the daily total Mbytes Transferred exceeds the limit (currently 500mb) an email warning message will automatically be sent to you and provide a link directly to this same page. For each day that exceeded the limit you can click on on the date to view an hourly report of totals for that day, as shown below.

Start Time	End Time	IP Address	Megabytes
September 6, 2002
23:00	23:58	10.6.62.2	10
22:00	23:00	10.6.62.2	17
21:00	22:00	10.6.62.2	28
20:00	21:00	10.6.62.2	27
19:00	20:00	10.6.62.2	25
18:00	19:00	10.6.62.2	21
17:00	18:00	10.6.62.2	28
16:00	17:00	10.6.62.2	35
15:00	16:00	10.6.62.2	29
14:00	15:00	10.6.62.2	26
13:05	14:00	10.6.62.2	16
Total			263

I got an email warning but I am sure I wasn't doing anything to receive that much data. What is wrong?

There are many reasons your computer may be sending or receiving data over the Internet. The "megabytes transferred" is the sum of both inbound and outbound data. Peer to Peer file sharing programs will queue your download requests and begin receiving the files, as they are located. These programs also allow you to "share" your files with other users anywhere on the Internet. Your downloads may occur many hours after you made the request and others who "upload" your files may get them at any time, without you knowing it. You need to fully understand how your file sharing programs work. We recommend that you turn off file sharing or remove all files from your "shared" directories in order to control the amount of outbound data in your daily megabyte total.

Sometimes programs are running in the background that you are not aware of or that you forgot about. It may take some sleuthing to determine what is really running on your computer. Check if a large number of programs start up when you boot your computer, or if there are a great many icons in your system tray at startup (next to the clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen). Not only are these taking up valuable memory and processor time, they may also be communicating over the Internet. It is a good idea to minimize the number of programs launched at startup.

A new kind of problem has appeared in recent months in the form of spyware and adware programs. These programs often get loaded on your computer download certain kinds of software. We highly recommend downloading and running a system utility like AdAware which identifies and removes known spyware and adware programs.

If you have ruled out file sharing, spyware and adware programs as a source of trouble, there could be something terribly wrong with your computer that needs to be diagnosed.

This really seems like we are being hassled. Is this really necessary? What good does it do?

The reality is that if we did not prioritize and control bandwidth to the Internet, a few aggressive users (no more than several dozen) would completely use all the available Internet bandwidth and other campus users would effectively be unable to access the Internet. Every college and university is confronted with this problem today and almost all of them are using some sort of bandwidth management appliance to provide a workable environment for all users. We have chosen to severely restrict users who abuse our system to keep Internet resources available to everyone on campus.