Can Windows Server 2008 limit bandwidth useage

Lennon · 4th June 2008

Our company is looking at purchasing Windows Server 2008, but before they do this, our director wants to know whether it has a feature that allows an administrator to limit the amount of bandwidth / monthly traffic allocated to a website.

I've been through microsoft.com but haven't been able to find any useful information.

Any info would be appreciated.

**Admin.** · 4th June 2008

Please follow Posting Rules (#3 - Meaningful Subject) when posting.

I have adjusted your subject.

**ReggieB** · 6th June 2008

Have a look at ISA server.

Its has been applied as an additional service or as part of an SBS package (though not all SBS packages) on previous version of Windows Server.

However I can't see any reference to either ISA or a replacement service for it on the Microsoft site. It looks to me that ISA would still be the preferred Microsoft product.

Therefore, I don't think the feature is there with just out of the box 2008.

**Scott Smith** · 7th June 2008

A layer 3 switch should be able to manage bandwidth.

**ReggieB** · 9th June 2008

I think the key phrase in the original posting was

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lennon

....our director wants to know....

My money would be on a bet that it isn't so much bandwidth for a particular protocol or network resource that is the issue, but rather who is accessing what and when.

A layer 3 switch can be used to manage bandwidth - particularly doing things like ensuring certain services like VOIP get priority - they aren't so good for managing individual user's use of a connection.

Lennon · 9th June 2008

Thanks for the info guys.

I live in South Africa and we only have one telecommunications provider. Because this company has a monopoly on our connectivity, they've imposed some rather heavy and expensive restrictions on bandwidth.

As a result, local hosting providers have to limit monthly traffic for each website hosted with them.

Up until now, we've been hosting our client's sites using Linux and Windows NT, but this has become a problem for FrontPage / Publisher / Expression users as FrontPage extensions are currently not supported.

My director wants to know whether we can impose monthly traffic limits on individual sites using Server 2008.

Sorry..... Guess I should've been a bit clearer on this.

**ReggieB** · 9th June 2008

The problem is that Windows 2008 is a new product that not many people here will have had a play with. Therefore, I don't think you are going to get an definitive answer.

However, I'd be very surprised if you could limit bandwidth by site with out of the box 2008. You need a firewall or connection sharing proxy to do that. Microsoft's ISA is their firewall/proxy solution and it is an add on application.

As server systems develop, some add on applications get pulled into the main platform, so some ISA functionality may have turned up in 2008, but I can't see an indication of that from the documentation.

The best solution for doing this sort of thing is a bandwidth management application. A google search gives you some idea of the range of such appliances and applications.

The options range from hardware systems that will manage all traffic (the best solution if these are web pages that your users are accessing from outside your network), to basic software applications. If you want to manage internal users access to these resources, Websense has a very good reputation, but it isn't the right solution if your users are external to your network.

If you are on a tight budget and/or have a small network, using a hardware firewall with a load-balancing facility is probably going to be the best compromise. Have a look at SonicWall and Watchguard firewalls.