FAQ


1. Do I need Bandwidth Management and Firewall ?

This product is useful tool if you need to:
a) deploy traffic shaping on your network - reserve or limit network bandwidth for some computers, subnets or some network service.
b) protect against network attack.
c) filter network traffic by supported protocols. For example filtering by: MAC addresses, IP addresses, TCP/UDP ports, URL in HTTP requests, etc.
d) set download/upload quotas in chosen time period.
e) setup NAT, redirect TCP connections. For example redirecting dedicated IP addresses and ports to proxy server or antivirus server.
f) monitor network traffic, to see how much data was transferred to some computer, subnet or how much data was transferred by some network service. With help of logging feature and graphs, you can determine bandwidth requirements for different parts of company network.

2. What does it mean 10Mbit license, 100Mbit license and 1000Mbit license ?

License name determines maximal possible speed of network interface which may be configured in BMF. Installed BMF automatically bounds to all network interfaces. Every network interface can to provide some maximal possible speed. Properties window of ethernet card often contains property called: "Speed & Duplex" with possible values: 10Mbit Half/Full, 100Mbit Half/Full, 1000Mbit autonegotiated etc. For example if you have 100Mbit license and 1000Mbit network card then you must unbind BMF from this network interface or you must to lower maximal speed of such network interface to 100Mbit. Network interface which is unbound from BMF is functional and usable on network but it cannot be configured in BMF.

3. Which computer is suitable for installation and trying ?

BMF is corporate product. Install it on Windows gateway to your LAN with configured router or ethernet bridge. You can manage and monitor network traffic going through computer with installed product. It can be also used on intranet or internet Windows server and manage bandwidth for inbound connections accessing this server. It can be installed also on desktop machine but product is primarily designed for Windows routers and gateways.

4. Where can I find more details about product ?

Download and read manual.

5. Can be Bandwidth Management and Firewall used with similar products from other firewall vendors on the same machine ?

This product has not restrictions for using with other firewalls on the same machine. It was only roughly tested with some of them and we did not meet problems with exception of maximal speed. Windows firewall products usually does not reach so high speed like this product, result is that fast ethernet speed can not be reached and mostly it's markedly lesser. Maybe you can meet some other problems, only way to know answer is to try it.

6. I'd like to try BMF. Where can I found it ?

30-day trial is possible to download from section: download

7. Can this product run on Windows 98 or Windows NT4.0 ?

No. This product is created for Windows XP/Vista/2003/2008 all 32-bit and 64-bit systems .

8. Is this product really able to operate on Gigabit/s flow ? I tried it and I have measured smaller flow.

Yes, this product really can operate on Gigabit/s and higher data flow and this speed can be reached in configured state. See tests for maximal speed and number of connections . Systems W2K/WXP/W2K3 mostly provides maximal practical speed approximatelly 650Mbit/s on machines with two gigabit network cards configured like router or ethernet bridge, but in Vista we reached about 1500Mbit data flow. Be careful in measuring. Measure first flow without Bandwidth Management and Firewall in ideal conditions - three computers connected with two cross-over ethernet cables. Many things can have impact on maximal possible flow speed for example type of ethernet card, bus type, version of network card driver, there are active some not suitable settings in network card properties, another software which does packet filtering etc.

9. How precision this product manages bandwidth ?

You can calculate approximately with +6kbit/s deviation in flows higher than 512 kbit/s and for lesser flows the deviation grows and maximal deviation is +12kbit/s. Bandwidth limiting is guaranteed with possible above deviation. Bandwidth reserving is not guaranteed because it is not possible.

10.Can be used Bandwidth Management and Firewall on Windows with Internet Connection Sharing ?

Yes it can. But keep in mind that this product is developed for Gigabit networks and in low bandwidth connections the deviation can be +12kbit/s. Also granularity for bandwidth settings is from 6kbit to 12kbit depending on size of network packets so in managing low-speed connection bandwidth it is not possible to be sharp.

11. If I have some problem with Bandwidth Management and Firewall, where I can put question ?

Use forum: https://www.softinengines.com/forum/ , for putting questions there is needed to register.