As your business grows, it becomes essential for you to maintain adequate bandwidth so you don't experience system congestion and network slowdowns. Since the price to establish lines for increasing amounts of bandwidth are very expensive, the Internet Information Server allows you to limit the amount of bandwidth you dedicate to your users. This becomes an invaluable tool if your Internet connection has multiple uses (i.e., fax, data, and voice).

When you limit the amount of bandwidth you can control several other uses including e-mail and external network logons (for remote users). This allows you to utilize the same line to a greater degree without experiencing any congestion from an overload of activity on your Internet server.

You can protect your investment by setting a certain level for the read, write, and transfer functions. Whenever that actual level goes above your settings, the functions are disabled. When your set level is exceeded, the system reads are rejected and the file transfers are blocked until the bandwidth falls into your established parameters.

This can play an important role in your security offering. If your resources jump to an abnormally high level outside of business hours, you are probably looking at a hacker trying to corrupt your network. While this is only a general indicator, it can provide you with a bird's eye view of your network status that can help you prevent extensive damage from a security breach.