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Ivan Chalif Senior Product Manager
February 6, 2008
How to Calculate the Bandwidth for StrongMail
A common question that we get from customers is "How do I calculate the bandwidth that StrongMail is using or requires when sending messages? They typically want to see how much bandwidth is being used or are
planning to expand their email programs and want to know how much bandwidth will be needed to accommodate their new mailing volumes and schedule.
For starters, here's the formula for computing bandwidth:
If you want to determine how many messages you can send given the size of your current pipe, you can use the following formula to figure out the maximum number of messages that can be sent per hour. In the example
below, we will be using an available outbound pipe of 24Mbps, and the average message size is 24kb
Notice that I said, "In an ideal scenario." When making these types of calculations, the formulas mentioned above assume 100% availability of the pipe, which in reality doesn't happen. To account for overhead and
network congestion, you should lop off 10-15% of the bandwidth figure (or more if your pipe is shared with other functions besides email sending) you get from the calculations in order to get a more realistic number.
Here's a handy Excel spreadsheet that can help you determine sending times with a variety of different standard pipe sizes. You just plug in the size of the message, number of messages and the utilization factor and the spreadsheet does the rest!
Bandwidth_Calc.xls
Special thanks go out to the StrongMail Support team and Luis Rojas for their assistance with this posting.
planning to expand their email programs and want to know how much bandwidth will be needed to accommodate their new mailing volumes and schedule.
For starters, here's the formula for computing bandwidth:
Bandwidth in bits per second = [ (msgs/hr) x (msg size in bits) ] /If the average size of a message is 4kb and you want to send 250K messages per hour, then the required outbound message bandwidth could be calculated as follows:
(secs/hr)
[ 250,000 msgs/hr x (4 x 1024 x 8) bits ]/ 3600 sec = 2275600 bits/secSo if you have an average message size of 4kb, you would require 2.28 Mbps of bandwidth in order to send without being constrained by your pipe.
= 2.28 Mbps
If you want to determine how many messages you can send given the size of your current pipe, you can use the following formula to figure out the maximum number of messages that can be sent per hour. In the example
below, we will be using an available outbound pipe of 24Mbps, and the average message size is 24kb
[X msgs/hr x (24 x 1024 x 8)bits] / (3,600 sec/hr) = 24MbpsWith an average message size of 24kb and available bandwidth of 24Mbps, a maximum of 468,000 messages per hour would be expected output in an ideal scenario.
X = [ 24 x 1024 x 1024 x 3600 ] / [24 x 1024 x 8]
X = 468,000 msgs/hr
Notice that I said, "In an ideal scenario." When making these types of calculations, the formulas mentioned above assume 100% availability of the pipe, which in reality doesn't happen. To account for overhead and
network congestion, you should lop off 10-15% of the bandwidth figure (or more if your pipe is shared with other functions besides email sending) you get from the calculations in order to get a more realistic number.
Here's a handy Excel spreadsheet that can help you determine sending times with a variety of different standard pipe sizes. You just plug in the size of the message, number of messages and the utilization factor and the spreadsheet does the rest!
Bandwidth_Calc.xls
Special thanks go out to the StrongMail Support team and Luis Rojas for their assistance with this posting.
Posted by: Ivan Chalif at 7:01 AM
Categories: Application , Platform
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