Packet loss occurs when a router has to drop some packets because the buffer to store them is running out because the link where they are supposed to go is overloaded.
Bufferbloat is the issue where you make your queues too deep, i.e. you allocate too much RAM to buffering, while the cause of the buffering still exists, so the deeper queue just fills up anyway, so you haven’t improved anything, and have induced extra latency on the packets that do make it trough.
Deep buffers can help in situations where you have a step down in link speed, but only bursty and not sustained overloading of the slower output link.
The big bottleneck in router hardware is more about TCAM or HBM memory used to store the FIB of the global routing table. Since the table has grown so much the devices with less high speed memory can’t hold the table anymore, and if they start swapping the FIB to normal memory your routing performance goes to shit.
So not all of your concerns seem to apply to this class of device, but of course you’re right, The Register should have mentioned the RAM.
Isn’t RAM like the biggest bottleneck in routers causing bufferblaot and packet loss?
How does the article not mention how much RAM this device has?
Packet loss occurs when a router has to drop some packets because the buffer to store them is running out because the link where they are supposed to go is overloaded.
Bufferbloat is the issue where you make your queues too deep, i.e. you allocate too much RAM to buffering, while the cause of the buffering still exists, so the deeper queue just fills up anyway, so you haven’t improved anything, and have induced extra latency on the packets that do make it trough.
Deep buffers can help in situations where you have a step down in link speed, but only bursty and not sustained overloading of the slower output link.
The big bottleneck in router hardware is more about TCAM or HBM memory used to store the FIB of the global routing table. Since the table has grown so much the devices with less high speed memory can’t hold the table anymore, and if they start swapping the FIB to normal memory your routing performance goes to shit.
So not all of your concerns seem to apply to this class of device, but of course you’re right, The Register should have mentioned the RAM.
Where do I find TCAM and HBM specs?
1GB