Managing Bandwidth Flow

Optimizing bandwidth utilization  is what all network administrators want to

achieve. Antamedia Bandwidth Manager helps you do the same with simplicity. To

start with, download the trial version of this software from the link given in

the Direct Hit box. There are different versions available depending on the

number of connections on a  network with price ranging from $59 to $249. This

software would be loaded on a machine that would act as gateway to your private

network. There is no need to install any client on individual machines in the

network. We installed  the Windows based  software on an  XP machine with two

network cards. One is used as WAN interface and the other as LAN interface.

Installation is simple and requires  only a few clicks.  Once installed, right

click on the Local Area Connection icon inside Network Connections and go to

Properties>Advanced. Put a check in front of  'Allow other network users to

connect through this computer's Internet connection'. This will start routing

traffic through this machine and automatically assign IPs to machines on

network.

Now open Bandwidth Manager and click on 'Setup' on left hand side. Click on

'Network' tab, enter network interface (LAN facing), 'Local Area Connection' in

our case. Now click on 'NAT' tab and put check in front of LAN and select

network facing interface ('Local Area Connection 3'). You can configure number

of features using this interface as shown below like white listing Mac and IP

addresses of machines on local network for free access to Internet, ability to

track URLs visited by users. Plus capability to define keywords and URL's and

block them that might pose security threat to machines on network. Next

important sections in this interface are 'users' and 'statistics'. While former

is for configuring users,where administrator can define amount of download or

time of connection to Internet a particular user can do before his connection is

dropped automatically, latter is to get detailed reports of usage both in

graphical and tabular  form which in turn defines patteren of Internet usage.

Right click on Local Area Connection icon inside Network Connections and go to Properties>Advanced. Put a check in front of 'Allow other network users to connect through this com

Here click on 'Setup' and then click on 'Network' tab. Enter network interface (WAN facing) which is 'Local Area Connection' in our case.

Click on 'NAT' tab and put a check in front of LAN and select network facing interface (Local Area Connection 3, in our case).

To give free access to Internet, you can white list devices on local network by mentioning their IP and MAC addresses on 'Whitelist' tab.

Access control for secure Internet access can be achieved by tracking URLs visited by users. You can also define keywords that could pose potential security threat in 'URL' tab

To block unnecessary websites, just click on 'Filtering' tab and add URLs, IPs and ports. You can also define IP where users would be redirected.

To define users, click on 'Users' in left column. Here administrator can define IPs or MAC address of legitimate users along with quota for download, speed and time.

Every activity of user is logged and you can get time based or IPs based view of stats using 'Statistics' option. You can also check pattern of Internet usage.