About Untangle QoS
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All QoS Topics | All Networking Topics | Untangle Server User's Guide
QoS (quality of service) makes tradeoffs between bandwidth (throughput) and latency. The more bandwidth that's used, the higher the latency. The less bandwidth used, the lower the latency.
To see this tradeoff, consider a typical bank. The bank has a fixed number of teller windows and a fixed number of teller clerks. Of course, you can always expand the bank to add more teller windows and teller clerks (in other words, increase the bandwidth), but the goal is to make use of the bank's current capacity. The solution is to have a certain number of customers wait in line while other customers are serviced immediately. For example, merchants are serviced through a fast, VIP (Very Important Person) line while personal banking customer go through the slower lines.
QoS implements the tradeoffs between bandwidth and latency in a network. QoS is the process of assigning priorities to traffic based on:
- Port
- Protocol
- IP Address
The higher the priority for a specific traffic type, the faster the Untangle Server's virtual machine begins to process that traffic. Such prioritization achieves the following goals:
- Ensures sufficient bandwidth for services such as VOIP.
- Reduce latency for services that perform poorly when there are delays. Such services include VOIP or SSH.
- Enforces fair sharing of the Internet among multiple users.
- Enables you to make the most use of the limited bandwidth that your ISP provides without having to upgrade your Internet connection (pay more for more bandwidth).
- When there's network congestion or during peak congestion periods, enables Untangle Server's virtual machine to process traffic in the most ideal and efficient manner.
