How do you balance the trade-offs between throughput, delay, jitter, and packet loss in traffic shaping?

1 What is throughput?

Throughput is the amount of data that can be transmitted or received in a given time period. It is usually measured in bits per second (bps) or megabits per second (Mbps). Throughput depends on factors such as bandwidth, congestion, and protocol overhead. Higher throughput means faster data transfer and better user experience, but it also consumes more network resources and may cause congestion or contention.

2 What is delay?

Delay is the time it takes for a packet to travel from the source to the destination. It is usually measured in milliseconds (ms) or seconds. Delay depends on factors such as distance, routing, queuing, and processing. Lower delay means more responsive and interactive applications, but it also requires more bandwidth and less buffering.

3 What is jitter?

Jitter is the variation in delay between packets. It is usually measured in ms or as a percentage of the average delay. Jitter depends on factors such as congestion, queuing, and scheduling. Higher jitter means more unpredictable and inconsistent performance, which can affect voice, video, and real-time applications. Jitter can be reduced by using priority queues, traffic shaping, and jitter buffers.

4 What is packet loss?

Packet loss is the percentage of packets that are lost or discarded during transmission. It is usually measured as a percentage or as a rate. Packet loss depends on factors such as errors, congestion, and buffer overflow. Higher packet loss means more degraded and unreliable performance, which can affect all types of applications. Packet loss can be minimized by using error detection, error correction, and retransmission mechanisms.

5 How to balance the trade-offs?

Balancing the trade-offs between throughput, delay, jitter, and packet loss is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it depends on your network, applications, and user requirements. To achieve this balance, you need to identify your QoS objectives and classify your traffic into different categories. To manage your traffic flow, you can use traffic shaping algorithms and techniques such as token bucket, leaky bucket, weighted fair queuing (WFQ), and random early detection (RED). Token bucket allows bursts of traffic up to the bucket size while limiting the average throughput to the token rate. Leaky bucket smoothes out bursts of traffic and limits the throughput to the drain rate. WFQ assigns each queue a weight based on its priority or importance and transmits packets from each queue in a round-robin fashion. RED monitors the average queue length and drops packets randomly before the queue becomes full. By using these algorithms and techniques, you can shape your traffic according to your QoS objectives.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?