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+# Observations on Buffering
+
+None of the following is particularly novel, but the reminder has been useful:
+
+* All buffers exist in one of two states: full (writes outpace reads), or empty
+    (reads outpace writes). There are no other stable configurations.
+
+* Throughput on an empty buffer is dominated by the write rate. Throughput on a
+    full buffer is dominated by the read rate.
+
+* A full buffer imposes a latency penalty equal to its size in bits, divided by
+    the read rate in bits per second. An empty buffer imposes (approximately) no
+    latency penalty.
+
+The previous three points suggest that **traffic buffers should be measured in
+seconds, not in bytes**, and managed accordingly. Less obviously, buffer
+management needs to be considerably more sophisticated than the usual "grow
+buffer when full, up to some predefined maximum size."
+
+* Some buffers exist to trade latency against the overhead of coordination. A
+    small buffer in this role will impose more coordination overhead; a large
+    buffer will impose more latency.
+
+    * These buffers appear where data transits between heterogenous system: for
+        example, buffering reads from the network for writes to disk.
+
+    * Mismanaged buffers in this role will tend to cause the system to spend
+        an inordinate proportion of latency and throughput negotiating buffer
+        sizes and message readiness.
+
+* Some buffers exist to trade latency against jitter. A small buffer in this
+    role will expose more jitter to the upstream process. A large buffer in this
+    role will impose more latency.
+
+    * These tend to appear in _homogenous_ systems with differing throughputs,
+        or as a consequence of some other design choice. Store-and-forward
+        switching in networks, for example, implies that switches must buffer at
+        least one full frame of network data.
+
+    * Mis-managed buffers in this role will _amplify_ rather than smoothing out
+        jitter. Apparent throughput will be high until the buffer fills, then
+        change abruptly when full. Upstream processes are likely to throttle
+        down, causing them to under-deliver if the buffer drains, pushing the
+        system back to a high-throughput mode. [This problem gets worse the
+        more buffers are present in a system](http://www.bufferbloat.net).