Overview: Congestion and traffic management
Congestion and traffic management describe how shared demand creates queues and how delivery is scheduled.
When offered work exceeds a link's service rate, data wait or are discarded according to the queueing arrangement. Bufferbloat concerns excessive waiting; QoS concerns applicable scheduling or classification. These topics explain those mechanisms while keeping management choices distinct from creating additional physical bandwidth.
Network congestion
Network congestion occurs when competing offered work exceeds a path’s service over time, producing queued delay, drops or sender adaptation under the implemented policy.Bufferbloat
Bufferbloat is excessive standing queue delay under load, where retained work can keep link utilization high while delaying interactive and media-control traffic.Quality of service (QoS)
Quality-of-service policy classifies traffic and schedules limited service, with markings and priority meaningful only under the policies that interpret them.