Industry standard bandwidth guarantee?

Rafael Possamai rafael at gav.ufsc.br
Fri Oct 31 02:38:51 UTC 2014


Yes, and no.

If you are a given a limited resource (in this case, a physical port that
can process no more than 1gbps for example) and your efficiency in
transferring data over that port is not 100%, the provider itself is not to
blame. Each and every protocol has limitations, and in this case we are
talking about payload I guess. What the provider should say is: if you need
"true" 20mbps, then instead you should contract 20mbps X
1+your-payload-process-loss.

A silly example would be this: you fill your gas tank with 12 gallons...
After driving until it's empty, your engine only used an average of 6
gallons to actually move you from point A to point B. The other 6 were just
wasted in form of heat. Do you ask for your money back at the gas station?
Or maybe you invest in a hybrid car?

Like I mentioned before, this is not unique to networking, it's a broader
concern in the design of any system or process.



On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Joe Greco <jgreco at ns.sol.net> wrote:

> > You can't just ignore protocol overhead (or any system's overhead). If an
> > application requires X bits per second of actual payload, then your
> system
> > should be designed properly and take into account overhead, as well as
> > failure rates, peak utilization hours, etc. This is valid for networking,
> > automobile production, etc etc..
>
>
> Are you saying that the service provider should take into account overhead?
> And report the amount of bandwidth available for payload?  Even there we
> have some wiggle room, but at least it is something the customer will be
> able to work out (IP header overhead, etc).
>
> If not, I'm at a bit of a loss.  As a customer, how do I identify that my
> traffic is actually going over an ATM-over-MPLS-over-VPN-over-whatever-
> other-bitrobbing-tech circuit and that I should only expect to see 60% of
> the speed advertised?
>
> ... JG
> --
> Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
> "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and]
> then I
> won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail
> spam(CNN)
> With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many
> apples.
>



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