In response to both this...
| Quote from: Bob |
This is something I asked. It would have involved making queue weighting changes across every single one of our edge routers (which would then need to have been reverted once the problem was fixed). The focus was on fixing the underlying problem, rather than spending the engineers' time making configuration changes elsewhere that could have made the situation worse, and almost certainly would have detracted from the issue at hand. Having said that, this is something that needs looking at in the aftermath. This is due to those who were reporting a *complete inability* to fully render certain websites. Despite the fact I was on a default profile, I couldn't replicate any of these problems which begs the question why?
|
and this...
| Quote from: Bob |
The 'finite' amount of bandwidth assigned to the 'Gold Plated' queue and the rate limiting on Download Sites/Servers works very well under normal conditions. If it didn't, we'd have Value and legacy Broadband Plus customers complaining every night.
|
Assuming you don't have such complaints, it looks like the "finite amount" of gold-plated traffic allowed is enough to deal with the existing number of Value & BB+ customers (or at least, the statistical number of them actively "downloading" at one time), but that the same "finite amount" is insufficient when more people end up trying to use the same "finite amount".
In one answer, you reported that you didn't see any problem with viewing certain sites, but that some others obviously did. In a separate answer, you noted that you didn't re-configure the "finite amount" because that would involve reconfiguring every edge router. I can't help but feel that these two are linked. Perhaps some parts of your network were running out of their own chunk of this "finite amount" while other parts weren't.
I can't help but feel that having
any type of quota associated with a prioritisation-level is the wrong thing to do. Surely "gold-plated" should always be higher priority than "silver", no matter how much has been used?
| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: jelv | I'd suggest "and multimedia content from many sites (for example the BBC, eBay and Facebook)"
|
Sounds fair, I'll ask our content folk to get this changed (ref: 330473).
|
I'm a bit leery of this change, and have some extra things to suggest...
The reason I'm a bit leery is, as dirtymonkey pointed out, the CDN is gradually being used as a cache for more than just multimedia content, and is now including many common "small files" such as javascript and even text content, to aid in the speed of loading of sites to end-users. In the long run I'd rather that PN's traffic management was clever enough to allow the "small files" through at the "Gold" level to match standard "Browsing & Email" - which would make Jelv's suggestion valid. In the meantime, I'd suggest a different wording:
"Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) are used behind the scenes to deliver some of the content for many popular websites (for example, the BBC, eBay and Facebook) and many Music, Video and Game downloads (such as from Apple, Microsoft, PSN and XBLA). For some websites, the CDN may be delivering only the larger multimedia files, while for other sites, even smaller image and text files will be included. Depending on your account type, content and downloads from these sources may be slowed during busy times."If you're not happy with such a big change to the paragraph, my other option would have been to change "multimedia" into "cached", but I thought this would be less understood by most people:
"Most downloads from Apple/Microsoft, PSN/XBLA downloads and
cached content from many sites (for example the BBC, eBay and Facebook) are hosted on one of the above Content Distribution Networks. Depending on your account type, downloads from these sources may be slowed during busy times."
The extra things I'd suggest are:
- The Traffic Prioritisation page mentions the two download categories, but makes no mention of the CDN being impacted. It is only if you follow the link to the "download servers" page do you see the CDN impact (but why would you, if you were only browsing the BBC website?). I think it should be clearer on the main page.
- Likewise CDNs aren't mentioned on the Download Speeds page.
- Then, on the Download Servers page, the CDNs are mentioned. However, it isn't clear whether CDN traffic is categoried in the "sites" or "servers" categorisation. This is important where the speed differs between the two categories (which is every package) or where the prioritisation differs (which is the business packages). The distinction between "sites" and "servers" isn't particularly clear, so I can't guess the category...
- Back on the Traffic Prioritisation page, the only reference to "gold-plated" is to say "*Gold Plated traffic (and some Gold Traffic) may be rate limited to prevent impact on interactive/Gold traffic at busy times. See Download Sites & servers to find out more about this."
Unfortunately, there is nothing explained about the gold-plated rate limits on the linked page.
Plusnet Customer
Using FTTC since 2011. Currently on 80/20 Unlimited Fibre Extra.
