Characterizing Traffic

For each type of traffic you want to manage, consider its behavior with respect to four characteristics: importance, time sensitivity, size, and jitter.

Each characteristic below has an associated question to ask yourself, as well as several examples of applications or protocols that fit the definition for a YES answer and that fit the definition for a NO answer.

Importance: Is the traffic critical to organizational success?

Yes, Important	No, Not Important
SAP to a manufacturing business Quake to a provider of gaming services PeopleSoft to a support organization Email to a business	Real Audio to a non-related business Games in a business context Instant messaging in a classroom

Time Sensitivity: Is the traffic interactive or particularly latency sensitive?

Yes, Urgent	No, Not Urgent
Telnet Interactive applications running over Citrix Oracle	Print Email File transfers

Size: Are flows large and bandwidth hungry, expanding to consume all available bandwidth?

Yes, Large and Demanding	No, Small
Music downloads Email with large attachments Web browsing	Telnet ICMP TN3270

Jitter: Does the traffic require smooth consistent delivery or it loses value, suffering stutter and static?

Yes, Sensitive to Jitter	No, Oblivious to Jitter
VoIP WindowsMedia Real Audio Distance-learning applications	Email Print MS SQL TN3270

These characteristics are useful when determining what types of policies and partitions are appropriate. For example, if an application's traffic is large and demanding, a capped partition is probably in order, independent of whether the application is important or not.

See Control Strategy Overview for more information about approaching control features for the first time. See Policy and Partition Guidelines to use these four characteristics in choosing an appropriate policy or partition for an application.

PacketGuide™ for PacketWise® 8.1