Designing an Adaptive Bandwidth Management for Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Purpose This study proposes an adaptive bandwidth management system which can be explicitly used by educational institutions. The primary goal of the system is to increase the bandwidth of the users who access more on educational websites. Through this proposed bandwidth management, the users of the campus networks is encouraged to utilize the internet for educational purposes.

Method The weblog from a universitys pfSense proxy server was utilized and undergo Web Usage Mining (WUM) to determine the number of educational and non-educational websites accessed by the users. Certain formulas were used in the computation of the bandwidth which was dynamically assigned to the users. A prototyping technique was applied in developing adaptive bandwidth management system. The prototype was simulated and evaluated by experts in compliance with ISO/IEC 14598-6 and ISO/IEC 9126-1 standards.

Results This study found that the prototype is capable of adjusting the bandwidth of the network users dynamically. The users who browsed more on educational websites or contents were assigned with higher bandwidth compared to those who are not. Further, the evaluated prototype met the software standards of ISO.

Conclusion The proposed adaptive bandwidth management can contribute to the continuous development in the area of computer networking, especially in designing and managing campus networks. It also helps the network administrators or IT managers in allocating bandwidth with minimal effort. 

Recommendations Further work on refining the process in the computation and allocation of the bandwidth is recommended. Other techniques should be tested as well to lessen the delay in assigning the bandwidth of each user.   

Research Implications The proposed method can also be implemented in other open-source networking software and applied to other organizations by changing the rules instead of considering educational websites.