Managing Traffic with ALTQ

Abstract

ALTQ is a package for traffic management. ALTQ includes a queueing framework and several advanced queueing disciplines such as CBQ, RED, WFQ and RIO. ALTQ also supports RSVP and diffserv. ALTQ can be configured in a variety of ways for both research and operation. However, it requires understanding of the technologies to set up things correctly. In this paper, I summarize the design trade-offs, the available technologies and their limitations, and how they can be applied to typical network settings. 1 Queueing Basics Essentially, every traffic management scheme involves queue management. A large number of queueing disciplines have been proposed to date in order to meet contradictory requirements such as fairness, protection, performance bounds, ease of implementation or administration. 1.1 Queueing Components Figure 1 illustrates queueing related functional blocks on a router. Each functional block could be needed to build a certain service but is not always required for other servi..