nanog mailing list archives

Re: TCP Performance


From: Blake Dunlap <ikiris () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:31:40 -0500

If you have a router, you can turn on shaping to the bandwidth the link
will support.

-Blake


On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Nick Olsen <nick () flhsi com> wrote:

I do indeed have stats for "TX Pause Frames" And they do increment.
However, Our router is ignoring them since it doesn't support flow control.

I guess my next question would be. In the scenario where we insert a
switch between the radio and the router that does support flow control. Are
we not only moving where the overflow is going to occur? Will we not see
the router still burst traffic at line rate toward the switch, Which then
buffer overflows sending to the radio on account of it receiving pause
frames?


Nick Olsen
Network Operations
(855) FLSPEED  x106



------------------------------
*From*: "Tim Warnock" <timoid () timoid org>
*Sent*: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 1:08 PM
*To*: "Blake Dunlap" <ikiris () gmail com>, "nick () flhsi com" <nick () flhsi com>
*Cc*: "nanog () nanog org" <nanog () nanog org>
*Subject*: RE: TCP Performance


Regardless, your problem looks like either tail drops or packet loss,
which
you showed originally. The task is to find out where this is occurring,
and
which of the two it is. If you want to confirm what is going on, there
are
some great bandwidth calculators on the internet which will show you what
bandwidth you can get with a given ms delay and % packet loss.

As far as flow control, its really outside the scope. If you ever need
flow
control, there is usually a specific reason like FCoE, and if not, it's
generally better to just fix the backplane congestion issue if you can,
than ever worry about using FC. The problem with FC isn't node to node,
its
when you have node to node to node with additional devices, it isn't
smart
enough to discriminate, and can crater your network 3 devices over when
it
would be much better to just lose a few packets.

-Blake

In my experience - if you're traversing licenced microwave links as
indicated flow control will definitely need to be ON.

Check the radio modem stats to confirm but - if you're seeing lots of
drops there you're overflowing the buffers on the radio modem.




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