Going to go over our bandwidth by a lot... now what?

[Dudenell]

Hello,

We recently purchased our first dedicated box ever with NFO in anticipation of BF4, and activated the subscription the day before game release. We decided to attempt 538 slots as we weren't expecting all the servers to fill, and that we would be dropping servers later on. We thought that this would be a cheaper solution for us than purchasing one server at a time and would give us flexibility to switch the configurations around.

We decided to go with official servers as we figured that there would be some bugs on release and this would help keep our servers full, and once the game released we figured that reserve slots were broken and we could wait a little while until there were a few fixes.

The good news is all 9 of our BF4 servers have been pretty much full the whole time, not exactly stable with all the bugs in the server version but we've managed to gain #1, #3, #4, #11, ect places on gametracker. Basically our servers are full most of the time. There is no lag that I experience on the servers personally and my ping is always great!

However I recently learned the downside of this, we have used this month: 3279.68 GB (2440.40 GB in, 839.28 GB out) of bandwidth, and from my understanding we only have 12000 GB total.

In my calculations, were using about 549GB of bandwidth a day (I could be wrong though, maybe more if the servers become more stable, ect).

Assuming we don't drop or change servers (at the current traffic). We're looking at about 17000 -18000 total bandwidth usage (25 days left X 549gb)

5000 X .05 cents per gigabyte over is $250...

at the current costs with BF4 slots, server rental (not including setup), and extra bandwidth were looking at around

$736 total for one month

My question more or less is there anything we can do about this extra unexpected cost?

Thanks for reading

[kraze]

I haven't directly checked on BF4's usage but 12TB should be more then enough to run your servers on a monthly basis. I imagine John will be able to provider some better insight on usage when he takes a look at this post.

One option is that we can add additional bandwidth to your machine at the cost of 1TB per $20. Which saves you the large overage you would see if you went over by 1TB($50).

Looking at your machine specifically it appears your cycle started on the 18th of last month and considering it's the 3rd now and you're only at 3TB, I'd say you're more than likely ok, even though most of that usage came from BF4 I can't imagine your servers using more than 3TB a week.

On a side note, I noticed the usage on your machine was fairly high(75%), I am glad to hear you're not seeing any issues with your servers, but it is very possible you could start seeing issues. We recommend customers aim for 50%. Given that's a bit strict but overall you'll want to keep it as low as possible while allowing for sudden spikes or increases.

[Dudenell]

Looking at your machine specifically it appears your cycle started on the 18th of last month and considering it's the 3rd now and you're only at 3TB, I'd say you're more than likely ok, even though most of that usage came from BF4 I can't imagine your servers using more than 3TB a week.

I've asked about this before, but I guess I will ask again. I didn't activate or start the subscription until the 28th, am I due for renewal on the 18th or the 28th?

I don't exactly remember how much bandwidth was used before I had access to the server, it wasn't very high though if anything at all, but yeah we have used that much bandwidth since the game was released.

On a side note, I noticed the usage on your machine was fairly high(75%), I am glad to hear you're not seeing any issues with your servers, but it is very possible you could start seeing issues. We recommend customers aim for 50%. Given that's a bit strict but overall you'll want to keep it as low as possible while allowing for sudden spikes or increases.

We weren't expecting to use 300-350 slots per night, I know we bought 538 but honestly we were expecting servers to be empty with the option to pick and choose based upon popularity. We have one server at the moment which we are considering for deletion, but still. It's full... lol

http://www.gametracker.com/clan/rufclan/

[kraze]

Looking at your machine specifically it appears your cycle started on the 18th of last month and considering it's the 3rd now and you're only at 3TB, I'd say you're more than likely ok, even though most of that usage came from BF4 I can't imagine your servers using more than 3TB a week.

I've asked about this before, but I guess I will ask again. I didn't activate or start the subscription until the 28th, am I due for renewal on the 18th or the 28th?

I don't exactly remember how much bandwidth was used before I had access to the server, it wasn't very high though if anything at all, but yeah we have used that much bandwidth since the game was released.

I didn't check the start dates on the package but looking closer it was paid for on the 18th but wasn't actually set up and available until the 28th.

That usage does look high, though. Right now I'd say you should just observe the usage and keep an eye on it. There is a good chance usage will die down in the next week or so and allow you to squeak by. As a stopgap measure you could contact us and have us add an additional TB or two to your machine.

[soja]

We had this problem before, but we were going over our bandwidth with 30% CPU usage(damn source engine xD). Our 62 slot CS:S server was using 30Mb/s by itself when it was #1 in the world.

Your 2 options are: 1.)add bandwidth early in the month/prepay for it.

2.) Eat the cost, although I see that would mean an extreme cost for you.


Luckily BF4 doesn't use much bandwidth compared to other games. 75% is TOO HIGH, and if you can bring it down to low 60's high 50's at peak, you should do fine with bandwidth.

[soja]

We had this problem before, but we were going over our bandwidth with 30% CPU usage(damn source engine xD). Our 62 slot CS:S server was using 30Mb/s by itself when it was #1 in the world.

Your 2 options are: 1.)add bandwidth early in the month/prepay for it.

2.) Eat the cost, although I see that would mean an extreme cost for you.


Luckily BF4 doesn't use much bandwidth compared to other games. 75% is TOO HIGH, and if you can bring it down to low 60's high 50's at peak, you should do fine with bandwidth.

Sorry, third obvious option: Drop some servers. Each 64p server is responsible for about 6Mb/s of bandwidth.

[Dudenell]

I ended up dropping 2x servers, I decided to create a google docs spreadsheet regarding our data usage, maybe this can come in handy for someone else having this issue later on. I haven't taken any statistics classes so there maybe better ways at handling the data, but for now here is what I have

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing

[Vanderburg]

Also, adding bandwidth at the beginning of the month isn't always necessary. We are able to retroactively add bandwidth after you've already gone over, so you don't have to add it until you know for a fact that you need it and it's cheaper to wait until you are 400GB over before adding it.

You'd be committed for this month and next month when you add bandwidth, but again, it's cheaper to add 1 TB for two months than to be over 1TB for one month.

[soja]

I suggested a daily bandwdith viewer, similar to the monthly one that could help to determine if you will go over, and by how much. That was over 7 months ago now, and I don't think it will end up being implemented :/

[Edge100x]

I suggested a daily bandwdith viewer, similar to the monthly one that could help to determine if you will go over, and by how much. That was over 7 months ago now, and I don't think it will end up being implemented :/

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