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
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?
We put together a report after our analysis a year ago.
<http://www.net.cmu.edu/docs/arch/qospe-pre.html>
You may want to review our more recent presentation on traffic control..
<http://www.net.cmu.edu/pres/jt0803/>
-Kevin
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
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
http://www.bandwidtharbitrator.com/ perhaps? The full version is inexpensive,
the non-GUI version is freely available.
Cheers,
Steve
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
Even though it compares more with WebSense, CensorNet does basic shaping
plus has some nice features. Free download. (Extra features (i.e. image
filter and blacklist updates) require a subscription.)
CensorNet
http://www.censornet.com/
-W
(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
> 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]
Check out http://www.ellacoya.com/products/products.html.
They are tried and true. Their deep packet inspection to pick up all known P2P for example works extremely well.
Regards,
Timo