Balanced network usage with bandwidth throttling for backups

Backing up your business data to the cloud has loads of benefits, like availability of data anytime/anywhere, security, reliability, dependable disaster recovery, and comprehensive analytics.

While backing up the data, bandwidth plays a vital role. Unmonitored or uncontrolled automated backups over a network can lead to over-utilization of available connections which can slow internet speeds and cause network overloading, usage overages, impact day-to-day business operations, or degrade the performance of enterprise systems.

There are several ways to achieve balanced network usage without compromising on data backups but one of the more effective and straightforward solutions you could adopt immediately could be Bandwidth Throttling

There are several ways to counter these impacts and achieve balanced network usage without compromising on data backups. You could temporarily slow down high-bandwidth users during periods of heavy congestion, set up more frequent backups only for mission-critical systems, avoid backups during non-business hours, or provision exclusive bandwidth only for backup and recovery activities. Most of these solutions, however, require constant monitoring and attention. One of the more effective and straightforward solutions you could adopt immediately could be Bandwidth Throttling.

Bandwidth Throttling in backup solutions

How does bandwidth throttling work?

Bandwidth Throttling in backup solutions like BluVault lets you set the bandwidth limit for your backup activities. This lets backups take no more than a fixed portion of available network bandwidth, leaving the rest for other business and production purposes.

How to enable Bandwidth Throttling for backup in BluVault?

To enable Bandwidth Throttling for backup in BluVault, follow below-mentioned steps:

1. Login to Parablu Portal as Administrator

bandwidth throttling - login to parablu portal

2. On the portal dashboard, click on Policy Management from the left panel

bandwidth throttling - click on policy management

3. On the Policy Management page, under Backup Policies section, click on Backup Policies

bandwidth throttling - click on backup policies

4. On the Backup Policies page, click on the Create New Policy button

Create new Policy - Balanced network usage with bandwidth throttling for backups

5. On the Create New Policy page, give Name and Description to the policy and click on the Advanced tab

6. On the Advanced tab, under Throttling Attributes, enable the Network Throttle Setting from Client to BluKrypt option and enter the desired value in Kbps, Mbps or Gbps and click on Save to save the policy

7. Now, go back to the Backup Policies page and use the Policy Mapping option or use the Edit Profile option under Active Users section on the portal dashboard to Map the created policy

Policy Mapping - Balanced network usage with bandwidth throttling for backups

Active Users - Balanced network usage with bandwidth throttling for backups

Now, for the users who are mapped to this policy, the bandwidth usage gets automatically limited to the value specified in the Network Throttle Setting.

Network throttling is a handy way to prevent backups from creating noticeable negative impact on users, networks and system performance. But Network throttling only slows backups down and spreads them out over a longer time period. There are other built-in mechanisms in Parablu’s BluVault which can actually reduce payload – like software compression and de-duplication. To learn more about such features and explore, get in touch with our team. We’d love to hear from you!