If I have a DS3 or OC3 handling mounds and mounds of FTP download traffic, what is the easiest way to detect if the bandwidth in use is falling into a classic Tail Drop pattern? According to a Cisco book I am reading, the bandwidth utilization should graph in a "sawtooth" pattern of gradual increases in accordance with multiple machines gradually increasing via TCP slow start and then sharp drops. Will this only happen when the utilization approaches 100%. (maybe dumb question) Should I be able to do a show buffers and see misses or is there some better way to detect other than via graphing? Also, suppose in examining my ftp traffic patterns that I noticed that it spikes at 15minutes after the type of the hour, consistently, etc. Could I create a timed access list to only kick in at that time? Anyone have experience with WRED to handle ftp congestion? I usually take these types of questions to Cisco but I thought I'd post it to this list to get any generic real world advice. sh buff Buffer elements: 499 in free list (500 max allowed) 5713661 hits, 0 misses, 0 created Public buffer pools: Small buffers, 104 bytes (total 600, permanent 600): 580 in free list (20 min, 1250 max allowed) 2225528470 hits, 6 misses, 18 trims, 18 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Middle buffers, 600 bytes (total 450, permanent 450): 448 in free list (10 min, 1000 max allowed) 68259213 hits, 7 misses, 21 trims, 21 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Big buffers, 1524 bytes (total 450, permanent 450): 449 in free list (5 min, 1500 max allowed) 6807747 hits, 0 misses, 0 trims, 0 created 0 failures (0 no memory) VeryBig buffers, 4520 bytes (total 50, permanent 50): 50 in free list (0 min, 1500 max allowed) 46167681 hits, 0 misses, 0 trims, 0 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Large buffers, 5024 bytes (total 50, permanent 50): 50 in free list (0 min, 150 max allowed) 0 hits, 0 misses, 0 trims, 0 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Huge buffers, 18024 bytes (total 5, permanent 5): 5 in free list (0 min, 65 max allowed) 34 hits, 6 misses, 12 trims, 12 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Interface buffer pools: IPC buffers, 4096 bytes (total 768, permanent 768): 768 in free list (256 min, 2560 max allowed) 769236774 hits, 0 fallbacks, 0 trims, 0 created 0 failures (0 no memory) Header pools: