Bandwidth used during scanning

[Lansweeper]

Scanning non-Windows machines like Linux, Unix and Mac computers, VMware servers, printers, switches etc takes very little network traffic. One full first-time Windows computer scan takes 4 MB if you are scanning without a scanning agent. Subsequent scans require less traffic, as data that is unlikely to change is not rescanned all the time.

If you scan your Windows computers without a scanning agent, you'll see more traffic being generated from your Lansweeper server to the client computers, as opposed to from the clients to the server. Lansweeper pulls Windows computer data from WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), a management framework built into Windows operating systems. It takes a lot more traffic to set up the various WMI connections to the client machine than it does to send the scanned data back. By default, Lansweeper uses as much bandwidth as it can get.

Here are some best practices for reducing or spreading out bandwidth usage:

• Reduce the number of scanning threads.
  The number of concurrent scans is determined by the Computer Threads and IP Threads values configured in the Service Options section of the Configuration > Server Options page in the web console.
  
  Computer/IP thread changes won't take effect until you restart the Lansweeper Server service on your Lansweeper server.
• Scan your Windows, Linux and Mac computers with LsAgent instead.
  LsAgent scans locally, doesn't need to set up client connections and therefore only generates 40 KB of traffic for one full Windows computer scan. Windows computers can also be scanned locally with LsPush instead.
• Set up a Lansweeper installation with multiple scanning servers.
  A multi-scanning server setup allows for more efficient load balancing, as the scanning load and network traffic are divided among multiple machines.
• Disable scanning of any Windows data you're not interested in.
  This can be toggled in the Scanning > Scanned Item Interval section of the web console. The intervals can be increased as well, so data is scanned less frequently.
• Disable scanning of any Windows computer license keys, files and registry keys you're not interested in.
  This can be toggled in the Software > License Key Settings and Scanning > File & Registry Scanning sections of the web console.
• Use QoS on your WAN connections to throttle network traffic.
  This is recommended for Lansweeper as well as other applications.

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