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Re: high latency ds3 issue on unloaded line

  • From: Anton Kapela
  • Date: Sat Sep 27 07:34:24 2008

Anyone considered this could simply be a case of a customer ds3
provisioned into a mpls ccc/l2ckt style upstream aggregate? Ie.
Ppp/hdlc in mpls.

It seems best to first contact Q and ask exactly how this thing is provisioned.

-Tk

On 9/27/08, Frank Bulk <[email protected]> wrote:
> It would be quite the poorly implemented ATM-based transport system if
> DS-3's were over-provisioned.  We're not talking about packet-based service,
> it should be transported as traditional SONET-mapped.
>
> Frank
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Plimpton [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 2:35 PM
> To: mike
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: high latency ds3 issue on unloaded line
>
> We've had a similar issue with a few of our Qwest DS3's.  The solution
> has been 1 of the following....
>
> 1)      Qwest has over-provisioned the transit links on their atm network
> that the DS3 is riding and the during peak times of the day, the
> transit link becomes congested causing high latency not related to our
> traffic levels.  So the congestion could be appearing beyond your
> local loop.
>
> 2)      We also had an instance where qwest had an issue with the PVC on
> the atm switch that we connected into that was causing > 500ms of
> latency.  Like you, we are in a small town served by older ATM
> switches, so you might just see if they can rebuild both sides to see
> if that clears it up.  Sounds quacky, but after 12 hours of
> troubleshooting, that was the fix.
>
> Ben
>
> On Sep 26, 2008, at 12:59 PM, John Lee wrote:
>
>> Mike,
>>
>> Your latencies which suddenly appear for several hours and then go
>> away and do this on a regular basis  sounds like a layer 2, facility
>> switching issue. As you indicated " the problem comes on during the
>> day and then lets up late in the evening" sounds like the under
>> lying facility is being switched back around the "long side" of the
>> SONET ring or other facility. Some carrier facilities are scheduled
>> for "one path or direction" say during the day that are supposed to
>> be for lower latency time periods for interactive work and then
>> switch for a lower cost, higher latency path in the evening when
>> computer to computer backups do not care. If you can plot the times
>> the issues start and end and that these occur daily during the week
>> and not on weekends etc that would be a strong indicator.
>>
>> John (ISDN) Lee
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: mike [[email protected]]
>> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 12:04 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: high latency ds3 issue on unloaded line
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>>    I have a ds3 from qwest which has daily issues with insane
>> point-to-point latencies sometimes exceeding 1000ms for hours on end,
>> and which suddenly disappear, and does not appear to correspond with
>> actual measured link utilization (less than 20mbps most days).
>>
>>    To make a long investigation short, the problem comes on during the
>> day and then lets up late in the evening. I have tested and examined
>> everything at the ip layer and no it's not high utilization, an ACL,
>> router cpu or bad hardware, no line errors or other issues visible
>> from
>> interface or controller stats. yes I have flushed all hardware, and I
>> have a 7204vxr/npe-400 with this single ds3. The only clue seems to be
>> millions of 'output drops' from qwest's side. And at night I can hit
>> popular ftp mirrors from a directly attached server and observe my
>> interface reporting about %100 utilization combined with my users and
>> customers, so yeah it really is a full line rate ds3. And historically
>> Mrtg always shows around 20mbps or less utilization and it's only
>> smokeping that goes off, usually in the afternoon when the point to
>> point latencies between my router and qwest start heading north, and
>> consistently at that. I also have another in house tool that takes 30
>> second snapshots of my ds3 interface in order to catch short bursts
>> that
>> would be smoothed out with mrtg's 5 minute average, but during these
>> high latency times there aren't any spikes noted. And for added
>> confusion (or fun!), the latency can start at any utilization level -
>> I've observed it while we were pulling just 12mbps, and I have not had
>> it while we were doing 34mbps, only the time of day seems to be the
>> common factor.
>>
>>    Qwest has not been able to identify the issue, only note that -
>> yeah, this really is happening when there is otherwise no real load on
>> the line - and I am certain we have done everything to rule out the ip
>> layer. They have put in a 'request' to move me to another router,
>> but I
>> am not hopeful of a resolution that way as the router we're
>> currently on
>> doesn't appear otherwise to have the problem with any other
>> subscriber.
>>
>>    What I want to know, is it possible that the underlaying atm/sonet
>> that carries my ds3 from my facility is somehow oversubscribed or
>> misconfigured? We have an OC12 fiber entrance and this is the only
>> circuit provisioned on it, and in our small tiny town the only other
>> user on the ring with us is comcast (according to the att network
>> engineer who installed this). I don't know enough about atm/sonet to
>> imagine conditions that would cause the issues I am seeing here , but
>> every ip layer tool I have only ever tells me there isn't an ip issue
>> here. I can issue ping from my router directly to the attached qwest
>> router and get > 1000ms and then other times (out of the problem
>> window), I am getting 4ms.
>>
>>    If anyone has laughs or beers to offer me, send 'em on cuz I could
>> use both right about now....
>>
>> Mike-
>>
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