In computer network

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

s, rate limiting is used to control the rate of traffic sent or received on a network interface

Network interface

Network interface may refer to:* Network interface controller, the device a computer uses to connect to a computer network* Network interface device, a demarcation point for a telephone network...

. Traffic that is less than or equal to the specified rate is sent, whereas traffic that exceeds the rate is dropped or delayed. A device that performs rate limiting is a rate limiter.

Rate limiting is performed by policing (discarding excess packets), queuing (delaying packets in transit) or congestion control (manipulating the protocol’s congestion mechanism). Policing and queuing can be applied to any network protocol. Congestion control can only be applied to protocols with congestion control mechanisms, such as the transmission control protocol

Transmission Control Protocol

The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...

 (TCP).

In chemistry

In chemical reaction

Chemical reaction

A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...

s, the term 'rate limiting' can indirectly denote the restricting elements that influence the overall reaction rate

Reaction rate

The reaction rate or speed of reaction for a reactant or product in a particular reaction is intuitively defined as how fast or slow a reaction takes place...

.

See also

• Traffic shaping
  Traffic shaping
  Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria...
  
  
• Scheduling algorithms
• Bandwidth management
  Bandwidth management
  Bandwidth management is the process of measuring and controlling the communications on a network link, to avoid filling the link to capacity or overfilling the link, which would result in network congestion and poor performance of the network.- Management :Bandwidth management mechanisms may be...
  
  
• Leaky bucket
  Leaky bucket
  The leaky bucket is an algorithm used in packet switched computer networks and telecommunications networks to check that data transmissions conform to defined limits on bandwidth and burstiness . The leaky bucket algorithm is also used in leaky bucket counters, e.g...
  
  algorithm

External links

• MasterShaper - QoS Webinterface for Linux Traffic Shaping
• Freeware Bandwidth Shaper
• Ncube Digital review of a traffic shaping program