Microbursts are very short (sub-millisecond) durations of high network traffic, spiking in some cases to 100% of the link capacity, well above the average utilizations that are reported on a given link. These microbursts are the result of either issues in the network (e.g. congestion causing data queuing and jitter) or as-expected characteristics of the transferred data (e.g. large file transfers).
Microbursts are often 'invisible' in a network if traffic is particularly bursty because average utilization measurements will even out the spikes with the idle periods. From a network intelligence perspective, the problem with microbursts is that they can oversubscribe tools, resulting in lost packets and erroneous analytics and/or security functions. They can potentially overwhelm the Network Packet Broker TAPs as well, when aggregating, load balancing, and/or speed-converting (e.g. 10Gbps to 1Gbps) traffic towards the tools.
Normal buffering that exists in common TAPs is generally unable to cope with such extremely high, brief bursts of oversubscription on the monitor ports, resulting in buffer overflow. Without enhanced buffering capability on the TAP, packet loss can occur.
To detect the occurrence of microbursts in your network, the VSS system provides the vCapacity feature. It archives and reports the existence of microbursts in your network so you can clearly see if how much this issue may be corrupting your network intelligence functions.
To mitigate the ramifications of microbursts, the VSS system includes a High Data Burst Buffer on each of its system devices. This smoothes out high bandwidth traffic and regulates it so the tools won't get oversubscribed - even with high volumes of bursty data.
VSS Monitoring's microburst mitigation capabilities help you to:
- See the extent of microbursts in your network
- Regulate short durations of high data traffic so that tools don't get oversubscribed
- Eliminates packet loss as processed by your performance and security tools
- Provides between 1,000-4,000 times more buffering than a typical TAP port
vCapacity and High Data Burst Buffers are some of the many capabilities performed in the VSS Traffic Processing Engine. The VSS Traffic Processing Engine is a key component of the VSS IntelliScale Architecture, and the primary differentiator of VSS Network Packet Broker.
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