now available on all MSA models
Proven Bandwidth Management

FairShare is the only bandwidth management product globally proven to accurately work in environments that range from dozens to tens of thousands of ACTIVE users.

Bandwidth can be managed on a per-user basis with application awareness. Applications such as FTP or file sharing applications like KaZaA, Gnutella, Direct Connect, etc., can be assigned lower priority (or blocked) to ensure that user experience conforms to their service level agreement while using the optimal amount of bandwidth. When offering different service packages such as tiered services, FairShare guarantees that each user gets exactly the service parameters specified in their SLA. FairShare goes beyond merely controlling maximum bandwidth on a per-user basis, and ensures that users who have been allocated premium service get it. The online monitoring capabilities of FairShare give the network operator an accurate snapshot of network parameters at any given time allowing for better management of network resources. Efficient traffic optimization results in substantial savings in the network resources required to provide a specified grade of service to a given number of users.

Key Features and Benefits

• Field proven technology, used by ISP’s and corporations worldwide
• Precisely manages up to 100Mbps of traffic and up to 20,000 active hosts from a single Windows based PC
• Accurate priorities, per-user/per application bandwidth management and guarantees
• Maximizes number of users per network
• Consistent network performance improves customer satisfaction while reducing support costs and customer turnover
• Tiered services and dynamic individual user bandwidth enforcement (variable min/max bandwidth)
• Application prioritization
• Peak-time and load-based sensing for variable policy enforcement
• Real-time reporting of top users, servers, groups, applications, activity, etc.
• Real-time overall and per-user bandwidth monitoring
• Differing inbound and outbound policies on a per-user basis for asymmetric networks
• Reliable low-bandwidth policies in asymmetric networks
• Throttling of File Sharing and P2P protocols
• Performance guarantees for real time applications like VoIP and Video.

Tiered Service
Tiered service packages can be easily offered with FairShare. Users can be grouped and assigned different service parameters delivering variable grades of service. For example, users can be sold standard or premium service packages with differing bandwidth levels and SLAs. FairShare guarantees that premium users always get premium service, even during the peak hours and periods of high network loads. In addition, FairShare can prevent situations where regular subscribers receive premium service.

Application and Protocol Prioritizing
In order to utilize bandwidth efficiently, applications and protocols may need to be prioritized. Protocols such as FTP and peer-to-peer applications such as KaZaA can be assigned to a lower priority than interactive protocols such as HTTP that have a time-sensitive user waiting for a response. FairShare can easily be configured to provide any required priority on a per-protocol and application basis.

Online Monitoring
FairShare provides network operators with a clear picture of traffic in the network. Real time information such as bandwidth usage, most popular protocols, most popular sites, number of active users and the bandwidth usage of a specific IP address can be easily monitored. A user-friendly graphic display makes it easy for the operator to evaluate network performance at any point in time, or to look back in history.

Load and Time-Based Policies
Network policies may be applied at all times, or varied based on actual load or time of day. A Network Manager may wish to only throttle heavy bandwidth users back to the upper limit of their SLA when overall network load is high, during specific times of the day, or both. Policies can be enforced based on multiple simultaneous thresholds.

Perfect Bandwidth Fairness
Policies are immediately applied when a user starts consuming bandwidth, guaranteeing immediate and perfect fairness of bandwidth between all users. Other bandwidth management products suffer from a delay of several minutes for policies affect network bandwidth following the appearance of a new user. FairShare delivers immediate and continuous perfect fairness as defined by established policies between all active users.

Reliable Low-Bandwidth Policies in Asymmetric Networks
Unlike other bandwidth managers, FairShare reliably operates in asymmetric networks where low-bandwidth policies are being applied (e.g., a policy that restricts VoIP to 32Kbps while allowing more to other applications). Competitive products do not properly handle TCP control packets and timeouts in these environments resulting in frequent dropped sessions.