Bandwidth on Anything About IT

Group Policy Settings to control BITS Bandwidth usage

Wed, 11 May 2011 23:32:59 +0000

I just read the article BITS – More Flexible Bandwidth Limit Policies on the Windows Management Infrastructure Blog which describes how BITS bandwidth usage can be configured through Group Policy settings. For Windows 7 (or computers with BITS 3.5 installed) there are 2 Group Policies that provide more granular control of BITS bandwidth usage during working / non-working days/hours and during scheduled maintenance days/hours.

The 2 GPOs can be found under Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> Background Intelligent Transfer Service

ToolTip: Test Poor Network Connectivity (TMNetsim)

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:56:41 +0000

A few days ago I found another utility for testing poor network connectivity. TMNetsim is a FREE utility provided by TMUrgent Technologies. TMnetsim is used to simulate a wide-area network for a single protocol. TMnetsim is primarily used to simulate network delay, however, in some (rare) cases it may be used to simulate packet loss or out-of-order delivery, as well as packet capture. (For more details read the provided tmnetsim.html file).

ReadTip: Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:09:32 +0000

For those who are in the decision making process of using BranchCache, I strongly recommend to read the Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache Report from Edison.

Microsoft commissioned the Edison Group to create and run a series of tests designed to provide quantified data to illustrate the effects of the file transfer acceleration provided by using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with BranchCache enabled. The result of the testing shows that file downloads were, on average, 69 percent faster with Windows 7 with BranchCache than for Windows XP and 66 percent faster than for Windows Vista. Bandwidth utilization averaged 58 percent less for Windows 7 with BranchCache versus Windows XP and 53 percent less than Windows Vista. This document explains the tests and presents the test results.

ToolTip: Network Delay Simulator

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:03:00 +0000

How long does it take to copy 1 GB over a slow network connection? How fast does my virtual application start? Today I came across a nice FREE utility called Network Delay Simulator.

Network Simulator tool allows you to perform network bandwidth and delay simulation (simulate slow/congested links between nodes) on any connection from your computer to any remote node (on the local LAN or remote over Internet).

More information and download links can be found here

Saving on WAN Costs with BranchCache

Sat, 29 May 2010 19:48:52 +0000

In this video Oliver Rist, Technical Product Manager at the Windows Server group, talks about BranchCache, the Features, the usage modes and the benefits.

Watch the video here or download the Transcript from here

Collect BranchCache Bandwidth data using PowerShell

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:49:12 +0000

If you have BranchCache deployed within your enterprise environment you might be interested in the
BranchCache Bandwidth Saving Calculation PowerShell Script for the SMB Protocol which allows you to collect and measure the amount of WAN bandwidth that is saved by your BranchCache deployment.

Get the documentation and script from here