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ThomasFlag for Malaysia

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Network Monitor Tool for bandwith

Hi,

I wonder if you could assist me in finding a good and preferably free software that allows me to do some monitoring. I have a network with 20 stations running Windows 2003 SBS. Mostly they are used by interns doing some contract work. The issue is that i am sure that some do extensive downloading during the time they should work and use my complete bandwidth at these times.
Is there a software that could be on the server that lets me see which one of the stations uses the bandwidth and how much. I would like to record and maybe limit the bandwidth of these workstations to ensure I that one station is not able to use all the bandwidth.
I use Windows 2003 SBS, Internet is connected to the switch Upstream and the server is the DHCP.
Any ideas what would be my best option?

Best wishes,
thom
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blissbear
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Do you have a network point where you can insert a box to do monitoring?  There are plenty of software sniffers/traffic analysis programs out there.  If you are on a switched network you will need to connect into the network at the point where the internet hits your lan most likely.
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ASKER

Hi,
Thanks for the info. So I can not install something onto the server that measures this? It is a switched network but the server is handling the DHCP assignments. Maybe alternatively I could install something to prevent any type of Bittorrent or download software from working?
What do you think would be the best software for monitoring if i would but a computer between the router and switch?
Of course i would prefere not to do this because of the extra expense.

Best wishes,
Thom
depending on your router or switch you can use snmp to get info about bandwidth from your internet  routers or switch.

so basically just enable snmp on your devices, and using some kind of snmp software to capture the info the router pus out regarding bandwidth usage.

oputils is one i use, but that costs money. it receives info from the port on our switch that connects to the internet router
One of solution can be creating gateway on your SBS by adding second network card and one connect to ISP and second one connect to internal switch.
In such configuration can be used traffic shaper BMF at http://www.softinengines.com/ 

If you need only monitor and not limit/reserve bandwidth,
look for example on http://www.vigility.com/


 
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Kamran Arshad
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