Improved Throughput

Ultimately, what users care the most about is network throughput—faster web page downloads, faster application response times, quicker loading of their favorite streaming video. But because of the inefficient manner in which packet networks respond to congestion, as well as the unfair manner in which networks allocate bandwidth--for instance between P2P applications and other users--actual network throughput is often less than available bandwidth would seem to provide. The only practical response for network operators has been to invest in ever more capacity; an expensive strategy that in many cases still does not deliver the throughput users expect.

Deploying Anagran Internet traffic managers (ITMs) can not only improve throughput for a majority of network users, it can actually reduce bandwidth costs. Anagran ITMs employ a number of innovative technologies to deliver superior throughput and better overall economics:

P2P traffic control. By employing host equalization, Anagran ITMs ensure that all users of the same class have access to the same amount of bandwidth. In almost all cases, this frees up bandwidth unfairly consumed by P2P users and makes it available for other users.

Intelligent flow delivery. Inherent inefficiencies in the way TCP responds to congestion can frequently cause sessions to drop into a slow start mode or stall altogether. Anagran ITMs ensure that under all congestion conditions, individual TCP flows never have more than a single packet discarded within one round-tip time (RTT), thus ensuring that they never drop into slow start or stall. The variation in response time is dramatically reduced resulting in overall better network throughput for the user (and fewer support calls).

As can be seen below, these mechanisms provide more capacity for the majority of users, and therefore better network throughput. Importantly, they also yield economic savings for network operators, allowing them to purchase less bandwidth and upgrade capacity less frequently—certainly a more sustainable long term economic model.