Sean Figgins wrote:
Eric Spaeth wrote:
With rate-shaping they would need to have the P2P identification widget in-line with the data path to be able to classify and mark traffic so that it can be queued/throttled appropriately.
The Sandvine, in particular, is designed to be placed in-line like this. It does, however, deploy a technology to shunt the traffic through the device in the event that the server craters. Many network devices do this now. I have previous experience with Sitara QoS devices that sported that same feature. The problem was that the relay would only shut if the box lost power or if it received a software command to disengage. We had numerous problems where the packet processing engine would become overwhelmed and lock up; the relay stayed engaged because the box retained power and the software driver was rendered useless once the whole OS locked up.
Maybe it's just me, but when a vendor is concerned enough about their box failing that they work out these elaborate bypass options it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the stability of the product. IMHO, wedging a 99.5% available piece of hardware between your 99.99+% available network hardware is just bad karma. -Eric