IT Guys: Would like to talk over bandwidth requirements...

SlowToady · 03-31-2007, 04:45 PM

I know a lot of guys here are in IT, and from my last IT related thread know who a lot of you are:-P but I didn't want to bother anyone who didn't want to be bothered. So...

Would like to talk over bandwidth requirements for a few different applications. I *know* we don't have enough to run everything (should have just gotten a DS1...) but I think we might be able to get away with just email, which would solve a few logistical problems. Small user base, relatively small volume of e-mail.

Before I commit or even get to far planning, if anyone would like to offer input, please email me SlowToady@fakelife.com or IM me on AIM: SlowToady or ICQ me 224-932-148.

SlowToady · 04-01-2007, 07:52 AM

The server I'm thinking about moving is an email server; it has ~10 mailboxes and handles email volume of about 400 messages daily. Some days less, some days more (but not much more). It's mostly text/html, occasionally we have PDF docs or images attached either going in or going out. Right now it's sort of a PITA to get a new account added, or to get an account modified as the server is in Idaho and the server guys keep kinda short hours.

So, I'm thinking about moving it to the office; currently we have a 1.5Mb/384K ADSL line with 9 IPs. I'm wondering if that line would handle the traffic, I think it would but I wanted some other opinions before I go too far.

masraum · 08:45 AM

Text email messages take very little BW. I'd suspect that 400 messages over the course of 8 hours wouldn't warrant any extra BW over what you have now.

My company is a service provider of sorts. We have connections from our office to several different corporate offices for providing data (shared drives, email, intranet, etc...) as well as voice over IP. In most cases a T1 is not only sufficient, but probably overkill.

The only way that moving the email server would be a problem is if the emails regularly contained large attachments or there were much, much more than 400 messages a day.

How much junk mail do you get? That's the one other consideration.

Scott R · Scott R's Garage

You will be fine on the ADSL connection, I would suggest however that you put a policy in place on the email server to restrict attachments to a certain size, say 5MB for starters. I've put in place larger email systems that ran on shared T1's and even over frame relay at 256, all of these pumped more traffic than what your describing.

If this is exchange you can download MS's "Loadsim" application and you can test what your limits are going to be traffic wise, you just keep ramping loadsim up until you find your breaking point.

SlowToady · 11:37 AM

Great, this is great. It's SUCH a PITA right now to get anything done on it, if I'm at work at 8A, and so-and-so needs an email addy, or a password change, or if the owner is traveling and I need an IP added to the allow list, I have to wait until it's 8A in Idaho. My client doesn't like that too much.

We really don't get too many large attachments. Like I said, PDF docs (price sheets, dealer info), and occasionally Word and Excel docs.

So far, junk mail isn't too bad, probably in large part due to the Barracuda SPAM firewall that's in place. We get them every now and then, but mostly it's all good mail.

I really don't anticipate the volume growing TOO much; we've been around awhile and doing business the same way.

Right now the server is running Windows 2003 + Exchange Server, but it's a shared server, so we won't actually be getting that one. I'm thinking of going with 1U rack servers. Budget isn't huge, and I really don't need a massive server to do mail duty, so I'm thinking about buying an off-lease box (or two). Probably going to either run a Linux distro or Solaris 9/10 with zones.

edit:

Maybe I could use that Ultra1 Enterprise that is sitting in my closet collecting dust. New disks and it'd be ready to go. Although, Netra T1 105s are $100 on ebay with good options.