Switch Buffer Sizing – Optimize Bandwidth and Latency

bandwidthlatencyspeedswitchswitching

What is the relationship between a switches buffer size and the effect it has on latency? I am aware of the bufferbloat issue and understand that buffers that are too large in networks of slower BW (i.e. less then 1Gbps) can degrade performance, but how large is too large? I've also read that in networks consisting of 10Gbps and greater links usually fall victim to not enough buffering. Assuming that's true, why is that?

I understand this question may be very subjective to a given workload but any general guidelines or rules of thumb that can provide a foundation would be appreciated.

Best Answer

Mostly, modern switches don't increase latency; they switch are wire speed, since most of it is done in hardware. Buffering traffic slows it.

Switches tend to have very, very small buffers. The reasoning is that it is better to drop traffic early than to slow it down. Networks prefer that any traffic which will be dropped be dropped as soon as possible (if a switch must buffer traffic, it is likely to be dropped by subsequent network devices) to give a head start to detection and retransmission.

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