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Prioritization

The ResTek network consists of thousands of computers competing for a limited amount of bandwidth. To combat the resulting congestion, ResTek uses a traffic prioritization solution, or “packet shaper”, by Packeteer.

Our packet shaper prioritizes certain types of traffic, which allows important (or time-sensitive) data to get to and from the internet before lower prioritized data. Traffic prioritization helps to keep the busy network reliable and usable for all students.

Prioritization scale

Traffic is rated on a priority scale from 1 to 7, with 7 being the highest priority.

• Priority 7
  • Nothing receives this priority
• Priority 6
  • Online Gaming
• Priority 5
  • ResTek Proxy
• Priority 4
  • Unproxied browsing, e-mail, instant messaging
• Priority 3
  • Default
• Priority 2
  • File sharing
• Priority 1
  • No applications receive the minimum priority

Prioritization scheme

ResTek creates a prioritization order that ensures a usable environment for the majority of students who use the network. Some applications are given higher priority because they are critical to the operation of the network. Other applications are given a higher priority because they take up small amounts of bandwidth, and need to be prioritized in order to be used at all.

Online Gaming (more)

Online gaming is given a priority of 6. Internet gaming uses relatively small amounts of bandwidth, but needs to send data very rapidly in order to maintain decent “latency”, or time between packets. Prioritizing games at a 6 allows for a better online gaming experience, and does not negatively affect the network for other users.

ResTek Proxy (more)

The proxy makes more efficient use bandwidth when students are web browsing, so it recieves a higher priority than web browsing without the proxy enabled. More information about how the proxy works is available on the proxy page.

Unproxied web browsing, email, instant messaging

Email and instant messaging are able to function properly at a lower prioritization, so they recieve a priority of 4. Web browsing without the proxy may be slightly slower than using the proxy. This is to encourage students to use the proxy.

Default priority

All traffic that is not explicitly given a priority will fall under the default priority of 3. This includes traffic that is not recognized by the Packeteer PacketShaper. PacketShaper recognizes a vast number of applications, but it cannot recognize everything, which means sometimes traffic receives the wrong priority.

File sharing (more)

File sharing programs are aggressive in their use of bandwidth, and if left unmanaged, could make the network unusable. For this reason, file sharing receives the lowest priority of all applications.