[c-nsp] The dreaded microburst - definition and troubleshooting

[Dale Shaw]

Hi all,

Is there a universally agreed upon definition for a 'microburst'?

Is there a defined time measurement - i.e. 5ms, 10ms, 50ms, 100ms,
1000ms - during which a certain bps or pps threshold must be
met/exceeded?

Does anyone have any tips for troubleshooting microbursts,
particularly in relation to the c7200 platform exhibiting "no buff"
drops? We're going to capture some data (w/SPAN on an adjacent switch)
but it would be nice to be able to look at the data and somehow marry
it up with incrementing drop counters on the affected c7200 interface.

It would be nice to be able to explain such drops like "within the
measurement window, we saw traffic at bps/pps rate x, and we know that
anything beyond bps/pps rate y will result in drops".

I suppose it's platform-specific, but how does one come up with an
accurate benchmark? Is such precision just wishful thinking in the
murky world of microbursts? :-)

cheers,
Dale