Note: delurk. Some of the commercial traffic shaping devices reviewed here are tens of thousands of dollars. For a smaller ISP (i.e. less than a DS3 of aggregate upstream bandwidth), that kind of expense doesn't make sense-- but the need to control bandwidth consumption is still an issue. For example, I work at an ISP in Central America where bandwidth costs are quite high. A 2Mbps dedicated link typically sells for over $4,000 per month. One can imagine how important it is to be able to throttle the top P2P talkers in this kind of environment. Is anyone on the NANOG list aware of a disk-less Linux solution? One might imagine a Knoppix-like bootable CD image (perhaps CD-RW, so config files could be updated) that would turn an inexpensive Linux box into an effective traffic shaping device, using tools like CBQinit, MRTG/RRDTOOL, and a Webmin-like admin interface. The closest thing to this I've seen is ETINC's BWMGR, but that's a closed-source solution and is still somewhat expensive. -Andrew White On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, William Caban wrote:

A resume of some of the answers I have received:

What's missing from (at least some) current traffic shaping appliances http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joe/what-shapers-need.pdf

Ten Odd Strategies for Picking Numerical Values for Your Traffic Shaper http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joe/picking-a-shaper-policy.pdf

The Case for Traffic Shaping at Internet2 Schools http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joe/i2-traffic-shaping.ppt

Bandwidth Management Strategies and Methodologies http://rdweb.cns.vt.edu/~cgaylord/talks/20020507-i2bandwidth.pdf

Bandwidth Managers: Going With The Flow http://www.bcr.com/bcrmag/2003/04/p32.asp

Reviewing Packet Shaping Products http://www.net.cmu.edu/docs/arch/qospe-pre.html

Succesful Bandwidth Management at Crnegie Mellon http://www.net.cmu.edu/pres/jt0803/

Bandwidth Management Technologies http://www.etinc.com/index.php?page=bwcompare.htm

Thanks everyone.

-W

On Mon, 2003-11-24 at 17:36, William Caban wrote:

...

I'm looking for a review/report on traffic/packet shapers products with a side-by-side comparison. Did any one has a clue where I can find one such report?

Thanks, -W

On Tue, 2003-11-25 at 12:38, andrew@vivalibre.com wrote:

Is anyone on the NANOG list aware of a disk-less Linux solution? One might imagine a Knoppix-like bootable CD image (perhaps CD-RW, so config files could be updated) that would turn an inexpensive Linux box into an effective traffic shaping device

Sounds like you are looking for LART: http://www.lartc.org/ I would expect you could setup your own CD image if that is part of your need. HTH, C

(caveat: I am not in sales - I'm a very happy PacketShaper user.) Traffic shaping comes in many shapes and forms. Many places who need to do traffic shaping need to do it down to the application level, so those apps that are of a mission-critical nature get through, while those that can wait are made to wait. Trouble with the 'diskless' units is a) they can't distinguish enough different applications to really be useful, b) they don't have control over the incoming traffic, and c) they can't provide you with a historical trend analysis (or event analysis) to correlate with issues that may be happening on the network. Most make use of queueing, which can only provide some control for outbound traffic, and at worst can lead to further retransmissions and thus further congestion. The CMU study between the Allot and the Packeteer devices was not well done, and I would encourage you to look further at each of these devices - especially since a full year has passed since those reports, and that the testing didn't even look at the rate-limiting features of them, which is what would make all the difference. Certainly, the shaping devices out there are not inexpensive, but a box that can shape 10MBit of traffic, broken out to over 500 different classes, a PacketShaper 2500 can be had for well under US$10000. The ROI on these devices is proven, and depending on the scenario, it can be months, not years before the device has paid for itself. In many situations, it is the *only* solution to keeping control of ever-increasing bandwidth demands in non-ISP (just move packets as fast as possible) environments. I would be more than happy to discuss my experiences with these units. -Peter Peter Murray Pittsburgh, PA On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, William Caban wrote:

On Tue, 2003-11-25 at 13:38, andrew@vivalibre.com wrote:

...

Note: delurk.

Some of the commercial traffic shaping devices reviewed here are tens of thousands of dollars. For a smaller ISP (i.e. less than a DS3 of aggregate upstream bandwidth), that kind of expense doesn't make sense-- but the need to control bandwidth consumption is still an issue.

[snip]

...

Is anyone on the NANOG list aware of a disk-less Linux solution? One might imagine a Knoppix-like bootable CD image (perhaps CD-RW, so config files could be updated) that would turn an inexpensive Linux box into an effective traffic shaping device, using tools like CBQinit, MRTG/RRDTOOL, and a Webmin-like admin interface. The closest thing to this I've seen is ETINC's BWMGR, but that's a closed-source solution and is still somewhat expensive.

-Andrew White