Texas A&M, Galveston Adopts WAN Optimization To Throttle P2P Sharing

Texas A&M at Galveston has adopted a new wide area network (WAN) optimization solution in an effort to prioritize academic and social traffic over other uses.

Specifically, the university has implemented Exinda's Unified Performance Management solution to oversee bandwidth allocation over its 100 Mbps dormitory network.

The Exinda solution, which has been used by more than 2,500 organizations in more than 80 countries, lets the university prioritize real-time Web surfing, e-learning and videoconferencing like Skype, while at the same time allowing "reasonable" bandwidth for Netflix and YouTube. Peer-to-peer traffic, frequently responsible for Internet traffic jams, gets bottom priority with a bandwidth limit of 200 kbps.

The application brings "fair Internet access back to our dormitories with full visibility as to what applications are traversing the network," said University Systems Analyst John Kovacevich in a news release. "Previously we were getting complaints from students who couldn’t get online or who had very poor Web browsing performance."

Kovacevich and his team used the Exinda console to visualize how a few students were hogging an inordinate share of the network and choking performance for others. They then took control over every aspect of network traffic and imposed maximum download quotas on performance robbing peer to peer applications.

Texas A&M at Galveston serves nearly 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students. It "is a special-purpose institution" specializing in "instruction in marine and maritime studies in science, engineering, and business and for research and public service related to the general field of marine resources," according to information released by the university.

More information about Exinda is available at exinda.com.

About the Author

Jerry Bard is a freelance technology writer. He can be reached at [email protected].

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