Data Usage and Uplink Graph Vs Network-Wide Clients Graph

[Donnie-C]

Can someone shed some light on why I'm seeing a difference between the client data statics and real-time uplink traffic graphs. I searched the forum and saw reference to both but I couldn't find out what would explain the graphs being different. In my mind (which absolutely could  be wrong), I would expect the "clients" graph to be an aggregation of all data from the clients going through the MX64. And uplink traffic would be the same although not broken out by individual client devices. We have a fairly flat network with one WAN link.

Around 8:27 to 8:29 this morning, I captured uplink traffic and matched it to the client data graph. The client data graph is showing that our network usage is around 8 to 10 Mb/s ... while the Uplink graph is showing 24Mb/s. Shouldn't these totals be closer?

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks

[cmr]

@Donnie-C your graphs have very different scales, on the uplink graph you have sustained 24Mbps for about 2 minutes.  The clients graph is set to show a day, so a 2 minute spike doesn't register.  The data points on this graph represent the average over a window of something like 15 minutes.

[Donnie-C]

True, they are different scales but I guess the point I didn't focus on was the "data point length". The surge in data is only about 2 minutes long (shown in uplink) and becomes invisible in the client graph. It would be great if we could highlight a section of the client graph and "zoom in" ... which would expose peaks in data usage that are very important. The client graph is actually hiding important data although it's very useful for drilling into specific client usage. This particular business client is on the outskirts of town so fiber is extremely expensive ... but up until recently I wasn't too concerned about bandwidth constraints since the client graph didn't show us bumping up against the 25Mb/s limit. However, monitoring the uplink graph for a full day shows a very different story. Thanks for the input cmr.