Limiting specific user (IP or MAC address) badwidth

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

Hi everyone,
**
Hello! Happy Peplink Noob. **
Just recently purchased a Balance 20 for our small office and it has completely changed the way we work for the better. We combined two 30Mbit WAN connections (VDSL / Coax) to one wired network with a Unifi wireless N access point. Downloading files at 7MB/sec and 2x the upload capacity has been very good to us. The other day one of the WAN connections went out and we barely noticed for several hours. Configured e-mail notifications for next time. Overall - extremely satisfied with it! :cool:

**Issue: **
One user who is a graphic designer constantly syncs with Google Drive creating a massive upload strain. While asking her to pause syncing during multiple file revisions that occur throughout the day is a temporary solution, I’d like the ability to individually set bandwidth limits (upload or download) to users via IP or MAC address. The only thing remotely close to this kind of setting I found was the outbound policy settings.

I haven’t been able to find it in the settings at all! I would expect this to exist in a load balancer. I’ve updated to the latest firmware (5.4.9 build 1732).

Any advice? Am I simply missing a glaringly obvious setting somewhere? :confused:

Thanks!

Ari

2

I may have answered my own question. I see from the feature list that the “User Groups Bandwidth Control” is only available in the higher Balance model.

For small businesses, I see this kind of functionality as absolutely crucial. The minute you have small business that relies exclusively on the internet to function, the ability to balance and limit or prioritize specific users is paramount.

Any thoughts? Outbound policy only allows me to push to one connection or another. I guess the ‘enforced’ option will at least limit the upload hogging to one WAN so the rest of the users can benefit from 1 clean WAN upload stream. Doesn’t seem like a real solution, though.

Help?

3

Hi Ari, you are correct. The Bandwidth Management feature is reserved for the higher end more powerful Enterprise class models.

4

Hi Tim,

Is there any work around? Is there any way I can limit bandwidth to a particular type of network activity (either via port or otherwise…)?

Will setting up a QoS setting for a certain port (say those used for Google Drive or Dropbox syncing…) at LOW priority help at all?

Thanks

5

It can’t be done in the 20 or 30 models. It does not filter per IP or MAC. The QOS will filter on protocols and port numbers. That will affect all users. You need to buy an extra network device specifically designed for the purpose of IP / mac filtering, and insert this into the LAN. Buy something that does program filtering too (bittorrent, etc) .