Viavi Apex Enterprise G3-APEX-ENT-32T, User Manual

Page: 242 / 380

10
Chapter 10: Microbursts
Searching for microbursts
For a computer network, a microburst is an unusually large amount of data in a
short time frame that saturates your network and adds to latency. These bursts
are seen as a spike over normal traffic when viewed on a graph. They are usually
less than one millisecond long (or even shorter), and they typically occur during
high traffic volume, such as after a major news event or announcement when
many people are using the network simultaneously.
Note: Microbursts occur in every network, but are also very environment-
specific. What may be a microburst for one company may be considered
acceptable traffic for another. Given that many applications have error
checking and retransmission algorithms, and that microbursts are so short
that connectivity for most applications is not affected, microbursts are not
a concern for many network engineers. However, some applications are
more sensitive to microbursts, such as financial, audio, video, or multicast
applications. The financial industry is especially keen about microbursts and
reducing the effect of microbursts on their network. This section is written
with a network administrator for a financial company as the primary
audience, but any network administrator interested in microbursts should
find the information useful.
You might have microburst issues if your latency is creeping into the tens of
milliseconds (or doubling your previous baseline). Your brokers may know
something is awry because revenue is dropping. Revenue is dropping because
your broker’s trades are executed just behind others beating them to the market,
thereby getting a better price and more revenue. All of this will occur and neither
your brokers nor you may even be aware the microbursts are occurring.
Almost half of all trades executed globally are initiated and completed by
computers, not humans. Since computers are reacting to price fluctuations,