Hello,longtime lurker...
With the bandwidth we have access to network saturation is a problem that is only going to increase.
Even the slow 100/50 we have in the states is causing issues. You should see what happens to a network when a 1000/1000 connection is being saturated.
But I digress.
QOS- quality of service by way of traffic shaping is what you're after to insure your network does not become flooded by upload/download services.
Think of traffic shaping as a LAN traffic cop. I mention LAN as once data exits your network and enters the interweb any and all control is out of your hands. Well unless your a network Ninja.
For this scenario we would want to limit the amount of bandwidth consumed by the up/down application.
The easiest way is to address this at the application level by limiting the amount of available traffic.
Inversely you can also give specific applications, traffic and even HTTP destinations higher priority.
This is very useful for real-time streaming such as Remote Desktop, VOIP, Video Conference, Skype etc.
For a/v streaming we don't really care as these utilize local buffers and variable compression to smooth out performance.
Software based control is by far the easiest. Also provides real-time and historical data.
I have used Netlimiter in small environments with excellent results. NetLimiter Homepage
There is also a couple open source projects. I have not tired any but this looks promising.
https://seriousbit.com/netbalancer
Win7/8 has the native ability to limit bandwidth consumption by application.
Here is a article that walks through configuring a QOS Policy. It looks a lot more complicated than it actually is.
Boost Network Performance: Windows 7 QOS
You can accomplish even better results across your entire network using capable routers but is more complicated.
Using an advanced router and VLAN's I have granular control over what travels around my network and what enters and exits.
For instance when we're at work or sleeping upload/download services have access to all the bandwidth.
When we're home they have limited bandwidth with other more important services given priority.
I believe you can do something similar with Netlimiter but it's on a PC by PC basis.
Give netlimiter a shot.
Any questions or comments please ask.
TL
