Advise - Bandwidth Limiting/Traffic Monitoring

[RDWest2005]

Hello Guys, Gals...

I've purchased four ibm 1u servers that I want to rent out as dedicated servers. My servers are colo at a data center near me and I have a 100mb port which I run to a auto sensing gbit switch and then out to servers. But this does not give me any way to monitor or shape bandwidth to a certain server in group.

What would be my best (cheap) solution either a server with software or a electronic canned box to limit bandwidth and monitor traffic to these dedicated servers?

Thanks,
RD

 

[nobaloney]

Connect a router to your incoming connection, and use it to set up your own VLANs. We use a simple linux box with only iptables and a text editor, and two NICs, one for your WAN (your upstream) and one for a switch on your LAN.

You don't need a 1GB switch to start. If your current switch isn't a managed switch, then you'll need one, but it doesn't have to be new:

Check this ebay search for switches which have done well for us.

You'll need to learn how to use iptables to set up the VLANs on your router, and to use your managed switch control language to set to switch each VLAN to it's own physical ethernet port.

Then run mrtg on any of your systems (but NOT the system you're using for your router as the router shouldn't be burdened with any additional software) to monitor each switch ethernet port. There's even a plugin available you can use to figure out 95th-percentile billing for you.

Jeff