Does acceleration require that shaping is enabled?

Products

• PacketShaper

Issue/Introduction

When using acceleration, does traffic shaping also have to be enabled?

Resolution

Acceleration does not require Shaping to be enabled. However, it is preferable that Shaping be enabled because if Shaping is disabled, Acceleration will attempt to accelerate traffic beyond the WAN link capacity.

The result can be a large number of XTP retransmissions and an overall decrease in performance.

 

If for some reason Acceleration is used with Shaping disabled, Acceleration Congestion Control should be enabled. Acceleration Congestion Control is a mechanism that will monitor XTP retransmissions and invoke a dynamic back off routine when retransmissions become excessive.  

For best performance it is recommended that Shaping be enabled when Acceleration is used.  This provides better control of the WAN link bandwidth than relying solely on Acceleration Congestion Control.