How do partitions compete for burstable bandwidth?

Products

• PacketShaper

Issue/Introduction

Consider the following example:

Partition size: 384k

256k is used at the moment (128k currently unused and available for other partitions to use)

There are two other partitions that have reached their fixed rate limit and both of them want to use the spare 128k.

 Is the bandwidth equally shared between the two partitions or is it possible to use the priority settings for tuning?

Resolution

Excess bandwidth allocated to partitions really depends on what the policies are for the individual classes. Even if all things are equal (for example, every class had priority 3 policy), the excess is distributed on a first come/first served basis and will not necessarily be distributed evenly.

However, by instituting guaranteed rate policies with varied burst priorities you can control where the excess will go first.

For additional information about how PacketWise allocates bandwidth, see Bandwidth Allocation in PacketGuide.