PDA

View Full Version : Computer/network people - Got a question.


HoserSooner
6/1/2006, 08:40 AM
OK, so I've been asked by my boss to try and figure out how much bandwidth is used up to load a simple website (cnn.com for example).

Anyone know of a piece of software or a website that will give me this information?

Thanks.
Mjcpr
6/1/2006, 08:41 AM
Do you want it in metric?
OUDoc
6/1/2006, 08:43 AM
Ounces would work just fine.
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 08:48 AM
Ghetto method: clear out your browser cache, go visit the site, then check the size of your browser cache and add about 120 bytes for the DNS request/reply associated with hitting that site.

There are probably hundreds of freeware/shareware packet counters out there, it oughtta be fairly easy to find one which translates the packets into kilobytes
yermom
6/1/2006, 08:48 AM
i'm not sure i understand the question...

http://www.answers.com/bandwidth&r=67
HoserSooner
6/1/2006, 08:48 AM
Do you want it in metric?

Imperial or metric would be just fine.
Mjcpr
6/1/2006, 08:48 AM
Ghetto method: clear out your browser cache, go visit the site, then check the size of your browser cache and add about 120 bytes for the DNS request/reply associated with hitting that site.

There are probably hundreds of freeware/shareware packet counters out there, it oughtta be fairly easy to find one which translates the packets into kilobytes

I think in Canada they're kilobyters.

YWIA
crawfish
6/1/2006, 08:57 AM
He's gonna start charging employees for bandwidth use, isn't he? :eddie:
colleyvillesooner
6/1/2006, 08:59 AM
Imperial?

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/kdy/mmisd01.gif
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 09:15 AM
He's gonna start charging employees for bandwidth use, isn't he? :eddie:

:D or mebbe he's thinking about blocking the innerweb altogether

Hoser, he just wants to know how much bandwidth an average website hit uses?
OUinFLA
6/1/2006, 09:34 AM
Nobody accesses the innerweb from work anyway, so why's he care?
HoserSooner
6/1/2006, 09:34 AM
:D or mebbe he's thinking about blocking the innerweb altogether

Hoser, he just wants to know how much bandwidth an average website hit uses?

Yeah, pretty much. We are moving to a new building, and going with a new provider. We get 50 Gb per month, and she wanted to get an idea of how much that was in comparisson to a simple web site hit.

We don't have a lot of internet usage as it is though. Most of our bandwidth gets used up by e-mail attachments and our client database.

The Getto method worked fine, thanks. The software that I was looking at was way over-complicated for what I needed.
Vaevictis
6/1/2006, 01:12 PM
wget -p http://website

(might need to download wget first, and maybe cygwin ;) )

It'll download all of the files necessary to display the web page, at which point, you can just check the size of the directory it downloaded them to.

Also, if your switches/router are snmp capable, happiness is mrtg. It'll graph bandwidth usage (among other things). If you're a clever fellow and willing to put some time into it, you can do all kinds of neat things with it.

FWIW, "a simple web site hit" is never that. Bandwidth usage is highly variable with the web site you're using. For example, Google is pretty popular, but as an almost exclusively text website, it uses almost no bandwidth. CNN, on the other hand, uses a bit more ;)

Also, if you're having issues with web traffic using too much of your bandwidth, there are free web caches (like Squid) that can help you with that.
yermom
6/1/2006, 01:12 PM
or use a Linux box :P
Vaevictis
6/1/2006, 01:24 PM
There is always that option, but I usually find "Install linux so you can use wget" to be a not-so-very-productive piece of advice.
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 01:55 PM
I tricked up MRTG for teh win over here. You should see it, it's sweet as candy
mdklatt
6/1/2006, 02:46 PM
OK, so I've been asked by my boss to try and figure out how much bandwidth is used up to load a simple website (cnn.com for example).



Do you have a bandwith caliper handy?
yermom
6/1/2006, 03:09 PM
There is always that option, but I usually find "Install linux so you can use wget" to be a not-so-very-productive piece of advice.

i never said to said to install it...

you could boot off of a Knoppix CD around though :D

i used to carry one around with my Windows laptop instead of dual booting
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 03:25 PM
i never said to said to install it...

you could boot off of a Knoppix CD around though :D

i used to carry one around with my Windows laptop instead of dual booting

Geeze you sound like my coworker linux/unix dude :D
He was living his whole life off that bootable Knoppix CD there for awhile
Beano's Fourth Chin
6/1/2006, 03:31 PM
It depends on the text formatting, really. Upper case letters take up twice as much room in the pipe so the page will load slower.

If I were you, I'd do a File>Save page in the browser, then see how big the html + the folder is divide that by the amount of time the page took to download and that will give you your bandwidth.
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 03:40 PM
It depends on the text formatting, really. Upper case letters take up twice as much room in the pipe so the page will load slower.

If I were you, I'd do a File>Save page in the browser, then see how big the html + the folder is divide that by the amount of time the page took to download and that will give you your bandwidth.

But the actual letters don't come across as extra-large fonts, inside the actual packets they come as letters with a single, corresponding "size bit", so to speak, right?
BlondeSoonerGirl
6/1/2006, 03:41 PM
I can hear PQ typing his posts.

It's creeping me out.
yermom
6/1/2006, 04:06 PM
It depends on the text formatting, really. Upper case letters take up twice as much room in the pipe so the page will load slower.

If I were you, I'd do a File>Save page in the browser, then see how big the html + the folder is divide that by the amount of time the page took to download and that will give you your bandwidth.

heh, the one i deleted was less turdy than that :D
yermom
6/1/2006, 04:07 PM
Geeze you sound like my coworker linux/unix dude :D
He was living his whole life off that bootable Knoppix CD there for awhile

it's really amazing how much is crammed on that thing... i'm thinking about putting it on my thumb drive...
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 04:17 PM
it's really amazing how much is crammed on that thing... i'm thinking about putting it on my thumb drive...


http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/images/buttons/report.gif
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 04:24 PM
But the actual letters don't come across as extra-large fonts, inside the actual packets they come as letters with a single, corresponding "size bit", so to speak, right?

Oh actually the html just comes across as text, the font sizes are worked out from the html tags on your p.c. so it's basically the same size bandwidth-wise no matter what? I think.
Vaevictis
6/1/2006, 04:33 PM
Oh actually the html just comes across as text, the font sizes are worked out from the html tags on your p.c. so it's basically the same size bandwidth-wise no matter what? I think.

It does depend on encoding method. Standard text encoding HTML is one thing, Unicode (for non ASCII character sets) might be different.
Partial Qualifier
6/1/2006, 04:49 PM
true but somehow it gets worked out to a regular character and some sort of sizing marker. I've seen the contents of 20 million tcp packets and I'd remember seeing one with big-*** fonts in it ;)
mdklatt
6/1/2006, 04:51 PM
true but somehow it gets worked out to a regular character and some sort of sizing marker. I've seen the contents of 20 million tcp packets and I'd remember seeing one with big-*** fonts in it ;)

The browser renders all the fonts and images and stuff. The web page itself is nothing but plain text.