Interface Bandwidth Summary

Monitoring > Bandwidth > Interface Bandwidth

To display the summary view of the Interface Bandwidth tab, click the summary icon.

This view displays interface bandwidth data for one or more selected appliances. It provides a visual representation of various interface statistics, such as inbound and outbound traffic, firewall denies, average bandwidth utilization, and peak bandwidth utilization. You can export the data to a CSV file. From this view, you can also display the Interface Trends Charts, which show interface bandwidth statistics in chart form for easy analysis.

NOTE: For IP Alias interfaces, the system does not provide statistics.

The statistics in the summary view of the Interface Bandwidth tab, and also the charts, are provided for the selected time period.

  • Interface bandwidth statistics are shown for one or more selected appliances, but the Interface Trends Charts display the statistics for only one appliance at a time. You can export the data for only one appliance at a time.

  • The default time range is one hour. You can click a predefined time range (1hr, 4hr, 1d, or 7d) or specify a custom time range by clicking Custom and entering start and end dates/times.

  • Data can be expressed in packets or bytes. Packets displays statistics according to the number of packets sent and received. Bytes displays statistics for number of bytes sent and received.

  • To view the Interface Trends Charts for an appliance without leaving the summary view of the Interface Bandwidth tab, click the chart icon in the Trends column for an appliance. The Interface Trends Charts dialog box opens, displaying the charts for the selected appliance. To view the data in the charts on a larger scale, click the trends icon to display the trends view of the Interface Bandwidth tab.

Interpreting the Interface Summary Report

The following example shows a custom Interface Summary Report displayed on the Interface Summary tab for a single appliance for one hour with minute granularity and data expressed in bytes.

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The following example shows an example Interface Summary Report for 50 appliances exported on Oct 13, 2023 at 8:42 pm and data expressed in bytes.

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The previous examples provide two different output formats for the Interface Summary. Both report formats contain the following:

  • Columns that show the total number of bytes sent and received on a particular interface within a specified time frame.

  • Columns that track denied flows for inbound and outbound, which are counted for each flow that was denied during that period.

  • Columns for average bandwidth utilization for inbound and outbound, which are calculated as follows:

    (Total number of bytes received or transferred) ÷ (Duration of the selected interval in seconds)

    The resulting numbers are expressed as percentages of the maximum configured bandwidth for that link. These statistics could be less useful if there are several idle periods within the selected time frame, as the idle periods bring down the averages.

  • Columns for peak bandwidth utilization, which is measured as the maximum bandwidth utilization per second during the selected time frame, as reported by EdgeConnect. This statistic could be less meaningful if the traffic pattern for the link is mostly idle with occasional bursts up to link speed.

To accurately determine the bandwidth utilization for capacity planning, identify the “busy periods” during the workday and only use those time frames to calculate the average and maximum bandwidth utilization. Currently Orchestrator does not have an automated way to identify busy periods. However, you can use the Interface Trends Charts to get a sense of this information. To view the Interface Trends Charts, click the icon in the Trends column for an appliance, as shown in the following graphic, or click the trends icon to display the trends view of the Interface Bandwidth tab. For more information see, Interface Bandwidth Trends.

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