When you configure the Max WAN Bandwidth, you need to consider two things:
If you set the Max WAN Bandwidth too low, you may underutilize your links. If you set it too high (oversubscribe), you may overrun the appliance WAN link, or cause congestion and drops on the router.
By default, the values are the same for Max WAN Bandwidth (for tunnelized traffic) and the
Max Bandwidth for pass-through shaped traffic.
It’s important to note that this is not the same as configuring a percentage of Max WAN BW. This calculation is done after exiting the Shaper, so until that point,
all shaped packets have queued through the traffic classes as they arrived. As a result, pass-through packets in a higher priority traffic class have a better chance of getting through in the event that the max is exceeded, or if congestion occurs.
Even though it appears on the Configuration - Tunnels page, as opposed to the
Configuration - Shaper page, the Shaper uses the
Tunnel Max BW value as it services queues.
After the Max Bandwidth has been met for a given tunnel, the Shaper won’t schedule any more packets for transmission in that tunnel until more bandwidth is available. Since the clock is still ticking for any packets still in a queue for that tunnel, the traffic class
Max Wait Time could be exceeded for those packets before bandwidth is available.
By default, all tunnels are set to automatically negotiate tunnel bandwidth to the lowest common value. The following illustrations show this negotiation from the perspective of an NX-8500 with multiple tunnels. The maximum values assume that all options are enabled.
After negotiating bandwidth for all four tunnels, 119 Mbps (1000 minus 881) are left over for shaped pass-through traffic.
Auto BW can only negotiate the link between two appliances —
A and
Hub, and
B and
Hub. So, here it can negotiate the link down to 100 Mbps. However, if A and B both transmit at 100 Mbps, the hub will be overrun.
Enabling Dynamic Rate Control on the Hub allows it to control the tunnel traffic by lowering each remote appliance’s
Tunnel Max Bandwidth. The smallest possible value for
A or
B is that appliance’s
Tunnel Min Bandwidth.