PPO is a 100% web based application. All traffic is therefore HTML over HTTPS and the nature of it is very similar to what you would expect from normal web browsing. Due to the fact that there are very few images, the average page size (including images, scripts, etc) is fairly small (on average 65KB). All web traffic is also compressed which further reduces the average page size.
In addition to normal usage/browsing, PPO also includes a document repository which allows users to upload/download documents. These documents are also downloaded/uploaded via HTTPS but the traffic pattern is slightly different (i.e. a spike in bandwidth utilisation). The average document size is very dependent on the nature of the client and how PPO is used, but the overall average is 300KB. For all clients we limit the maximum document size to 50MB.
In terms of typical usage, approximately 15% of the total licensed user base will use the system on any particular day and each user will have approximately 60 hits/page requests. Base on the above you can work on approximately 0.6 MB per user per day (server to client).
Therefore, typical DAILY traffic (server to client) is as follows (based on the number of licensed user):
- 30 users: 17 MB
- 50 users: 29 MB
- 100 users: 57 MB
- 250 users: 143 MB
- 500 users: 287 MB
Note that outbound (client to server) traffic is very small (approximately 15% of the inbound traffic and can generally be ignored).
In Conclusion
PPO’s bandwidth utilisation is very modest. When clients have problems it is usually as a result of the fact that PPO users are competing with other internet users for bandwidth (i.e. against YouTube, news sites, etc). The responsiveness of PPO is therefore very much a function of how internet traffic is managed within the client organisation. Today, most routers allow traffic to be prioritised on the basis of the destination URL. Alternatively, proxy servers or devices such as GateKeeper can also be used to filter and prioritise traffic.
The bottom line is that if users currently experience slow internet browsing and there is no mechanism to prioritise PPO traffic, then users will experience PPO as being slow.