Bufferbloat: Dark Buffers In the Internet

Expanding on earlier work from Jim Gettys of Bell Labs with a new article in the ACM Queue, CowboyRobot writes that Gettys "makes the case that the Internet is in danger of collapse due to 'bufferbloat,' 'the existence of excessively large and frequently full buffers inside the network.' Part of the blame is due to overbuffering; in an effort to protect ourselves we make things worse. But the problem runs deeper than that. Gettys' solution is AQM (active queue management) which is not deployed as widely as it should be. 'We are flying on an Internet airplane in which we are constantly swapping the wings, the engines, and the fuselage, with most of the cockpit instruments removed but only a few new instruments reinstalled. It crashed before; will it crash again?'"

Comments

Push or Pull

[JoeMerchant]

To configure your active queue management, the first thing I need to know is: do you have a push system, or a pull system?

Neither, sir, we have a suck system.

Re:SPAM

[larry bagina]

not only that, but Getty's buffer bloat theory has been featured on slashdot before. Maybe the dupe queue was full?

article's analogy is like

[OrangeTide]

This analogy is like a bathtub, full of spiders, and on fire. It sounds dangerous, but it's self limiting.

Re:Is this a problem?

[syousef]

That is actually the exact problem. You do not want buffers larger than the flight time of your circuit. You absolutely want the buffers to fill and drop packets otherwise.

You talkin' smack, fool? I will end you! I bloat like a buffer, sting like a TCP!