{"id":2770,"date":"2010-10-07T16:06:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T20:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/delmiaworks\/how-much-network-bandwidth-is-needed-for-an-erp-application\/"},"modified":"2010-10-07T16:06:57","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T20:06:57","slug":"how-much-network-bandwidth-is-needed-for-an-erp-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/delmiaworks\/how-much-network-bandwidth-is-needed-for-an-erp-application\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Network Bandwidth Is Needed for an ERP Application?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"how<\/a>This question has come up more times than I can count in the past year and every time it does I cringe because I don\u2019t like saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d \u00a0My response is usually followed by the question: Can\u2019t you just measure the capacity of the network versus the number of users multiplied by the average requirement of the application?\u00a0 The answer is no, because I don\u2019t know what your users\u2019 \u201caverage application usage\u201d is.<\/p>\n

Before we attempt to\u00a0solve this problem, let\u2019s break this question down into simple pieces, starting with the term bandwidth<\/a>.\u00a0 Wikipedia defines bandwidth as the maximum throughput of a network.\u00a0 It is not the amount of data, but the maximum amount at one point in time that the network can transfer.\u00a0 Think of it as the size (diameter, not length) of a garden hose versus the amount of water that can be pushed through the hose.\u00a0 As the size of the hose increases, so does its capacity to transfer more water at once.\u00a0 In other words, a fire hose is going to transfer much more water than a garden hose at one time.<\/p>\n

So far so good, but here comes the difficult part.\u00a0 How much bandwidth does the application use?\u00a0 Measuring the bandwidth of your application usage is similar to estimating how many miles per gallon your car is going to get.\u00a0 In other words, if you\u2019re a driver that gets a lot of tickets, has everything in the car turned on with a full load of people, 400Lbs of luggage and you\u2019re late to the airport, your car is going to get very poor mileage.\u00a0 If you\u2019re the only one in the car on a Sunday afternoon cruise, you\u2019re going to get great gas mileage.<\/p>\n

The same concept holds true for enterprise application software <\/a>versus bandwidth consumption only there are a lot more variables to consider with enterprise application software than there are for gas mileage.\u00a0 An enterprise level application has 1000s of settings, 100s of customized reports, labels, peak number of users at different times of the day, dozens of modules, competition with other network traffic, user driven requests for widely varying amounts of data, etc.\u00a0 Instead of measuring, one driver\/car, we\u2019re estimating what the gas mileage is going to be at rush hour for ALL of the drivers\/cars.<\/p>\n

Estimating ERP Bandwidth Requirements<\/h2>\n

So you should refine the question by answering a few additional questions before estimating your bandwidth requirement.<\/p>\n