Do routers prioritize control traffic?

Stephen Sprunk stephen at sprunk.org
Sun Feb 18 05:34:53 UTC 2007


Thus spake "Christos Papadopoulos" <christos at CS.ColoState.EDU>
> I know routers today have the ability to prioritize traffic, but last I 
> heard,
> these controls are not often used for user traffic (let's not discuss
> net neutrality here).

They're not often used on _public_ networks for user traffic.  They're used 
extensively on _private_ networks, though, because the people paying the 
bills for network do so for a particular business purpose and they want to 
make sure it's met.

> Are they used for control (e.g., routing) traffic?

Many routers automatically put control traffic to/from the local node into a 
separate path that completely bypasses the standard queueing mechanisms (and 
predates operator-accessible QOS).  In other routers, the control plane and 
forwarding plane are segregated, which achieves the same goal but with a 
rather different approach.

S

Stephen Sprunk      "Those people who think they know everything
CCIE #3723         are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
K5SSS                                             --Isaac Asimov 





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