bandwidth requirements

[navarro1]

This is a question in Capacity Planning. I need to calculate the bandwidth requirement of the following applications.
1) Database Access
2) Backup
3) e-mail
For example VoIP is 20 Kbps per connection and Video is 384 Kbps per connection. Does anyone have a "rule thumb" capacity metrics for the other applications.

Thank you

 

[newmangj]

Your question is un-answerable without a lot more information, for example in topic 2 you ask how much bandwidth is required for backup.

Questions that immediately arise include, but are not limited to, the following....

How much data must be backed up and how often.
How long can the backup take.
What type of data is being backed up.
What types of systems are the backup server and the client system(s)
How much can you afford for the backup solution.
What backup media is being used and how much data can it accept.
In the case of tape backup - can you backup to an intermediate disk drive?

and so forth. The same principle applies to your other points. You need to quantify your requirements and do a lot more definition work before arriving at a blanket bandwidth definition.

Re your quoted bandwidths - these are also capable of argument. It is possible to run video-conferencing on less that the 384Kbs you quote but whether the result would be acceptable to the target audience is debatable - I've seen it run over 64k, 128k. It could also run over 2MBps when high quality is mandatory - so again you can't just state that Video-conferencing MUST use 384kbps.