"Christopher J. Wolff" wrote:
I'm wondering what the list's opinions are on Traffic-Shaping vs. Rate-Limit for DIA customers (Frac DS3, for example). From what I've read, Traffic Shaping is a better option since it doesn't drop packets. Just curious as to what the opinions are.
Traffic shaping may drop less packets, but it can't not drop packets if offered load eventually fills the buffers. The choice of which to use is probably a trade-off and the benefits of each depend on the implementation. If you're looking for simple, strict rate-limiting may be the way to go. The customer (or even you) might try AQM mechanisms to help deal with congestion if that is a big concern. Traffic shaping may give the customer some breathing room at the expense of some latency during short periods of congestion. You could get real cute with traffic shaping by applying policies to different types of traffic, but this is probably something the customer would want control over. My preference would be to be to setup strict rate limits so it looks like a simple single speed pipe. John