Answer
When the agent is asked to throttle there are two methods:
Relative: This is specified as a percentage of the available bandwidth to the server in question. When the speed for the server in question is accessed, the agent calculates the percentage it is allowed and uses that as the download target speed.
Note: Usually this does not cause any traffic on the wire because the server throughput speeds are cached for 6 hours by default. Please see the following docs for details on this process:
Altiris Agent package download speed checks - 6.0
Altiris Agent speed testing when ICMP is turned off
Agent Back Offs
Altiris Agent throughput parameters
Altiris Agent throttling operation
Altiris Agent speed testing trigger activities
Absolute: This is specified as a specific throughput amount. The agent directly uses this quantity as the download target speed.
When throttling occurs the process is as follows: