Using Linux as network bandwidth controller?

Hi, I'll appreciate some advice on setting up my network for this
purpose.

I'm thinking of moving our office server which we frequently access
from out of office into a datacenter to get better upstream bandwidth,
since it's hideously expensive here to get a fast connection at the
office.

At the same time I want to be able to ensure that certain people get
priority so that they get a minimum bandwidth allocation out of the
3Mbps we are going to get. E.g. senior staff will always have at least
x Kbps while others have no guarantee.

I know I can cap bandwidth in Apache, but there's no way I could find
that guarantees a minimum speed.

Since we are given at least 2 IP by the datacenter, I would like to be
able to do this

1. Senior access using say A.B.C.101 will be guaranteed at least
512Kbps (overall not per senior) but can go up to the allocated 3Mbps
if nobody else is using.

2. Clients accessing using A.B.C.102 will be guaranteed at least 1Mbps
but can go above that as well.

3. Other staff accessing using A.B.C.103 will have no guarantee but
can go use more if nobody else is accessing or maybe cap to 2Mbps
total for this IP.

Is it possible, via some affordable hardware or using a Linux system
as an additional router to manage the bandwidth this way? Thanks!

In message <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
nospam <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Hi, I'll appreciate some advice on setting up my network for this
>purpose.
>
>I'm thinking of moving our office server which we frequently access
>from out of office into a datacenter to get better upstream bandwidth,
>since it's hideously expensive here to get a fast connection at the
>office.
>
>At the same time I want to be able to ensure that certain people get
>priority so that they get a minimum bandwidth allocation out of the
>3Mbps we are going to get. E.g. senior staff will always have at least
>x Kbps while others have no guarantee.

Maybe the first thing to do is to talk to the datacentre about it. If
it's something you want then it's probably something their other
customers want too. Make it somebody else's problem.

The solution I was looking at recently was to put in a low capacity
leased-line plus a big SDSL line. Critical traffic gets routed through
the leased-line and anything non-essential uses SDSL. If the bigboss
thinks that his web surfing is critical then give him a different proxy
server to the one everyone else uses.


--
Bernard Peek
back in search of cognoscenti

Bernard Peek wrote:
> In message <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
> nospam <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>> Hi, I'll appreciate some advice on setting up my network for this
>> purpose.
>>
>> I'm thinking of moving our office server which we frequently access
>> from out of office into a datacenter to get better upstream bandwidth,
>> since it's hideously expensive here to get a fast connection at the
>> office.
>>
>> At the same time I want to be able to ensure that certain people get
>> priority so that they get a minimum bandwidth allocation out of the
>> 3Mbps we are going to get. E.g. senior staff will always have at least
>> x Kbps while others have no guarantee.
>
> Maybe the first thing to do is to talk to the datacentre about it. If
> it's something you want then it's probably something their other
> customers want too. Make it somebody else's problem.
>
> The solution I was looking at recently was to put in a low capacity
> leased-line plus a big SDSL line. Critical traffic gets routed through
> the leased-line and anything non-essential uses SDSL. If the bigboss
> thinks that his web surfing is critical then give him a different proxy
> server to the one everyone else uses.
>
>
Actually I THINK - not sure because I am a few years out of date - that
you can sort this out with a pair of Cisco type routers ..one in your
office and one right next to your server rack.

ISTR that they can be configured to give priority to certain IP addresses..

It's not simple, but I suspect a call to Cisco technical salesdroid wil
start you off on the right track.

You may need to create two VPNS..one a high priority one and one a low one.

It is doable, but I don;t think a GP linux computer is the best tool to
do it.