[LARTC] Bandwidth Control Tolerances

[Patrick Turley]

I have measured the performance of HTB with iperf and found it to be very
close to expected (i.e., within 5%). I have a colleague who is measuring the
performance by ftp'ing large files and recording the time required to make
the transfer. He is seeing an average throughput that is nearly 10% away
from the theoretical, with occasional excursions to nearly 30%.

My colleague is now questioning the quality of the traffic control
algorithms and wondering two things:

1) What tolerance can we guarantee and advertise?

2) Can the tolerance be improved, since the values he has measured are
unacceptable?

I believe that my colleague's measurements are unusable. It would help me
greatly if anyone who is knowledgeable on these points could respond -
either agreeing or disagreeing with me (either would be helpful).