--- title: Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues «... description: A brief pointer to Avery Pennarun's well-known article 'Things we (finally) know about network queues,' recommended as a counterpoint to vendor pitches for... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev og:description: A brief pointer to Avery Pennarun's well-known article 'Things we (finally) know about network queues,' recommended as a counterpoint to vendor pitches for... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/FehlmHi2F.png og:image:alt: Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues « ipSpace.net blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues « ipSpace.net blog **[ipSpace.net Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A brief pointer to Avery Pennarun's well-known article 'Things we (finally) know about network queues,' recommended as a counterpoint to vendor pitches for expensive big-buffer data center switches. The post and its comments touch on Ethernet pause frames (generally harmful in practice), and note that data center switch performance gains are more attributable to Virtual Output Queuing (VOQ) and cell spraying than to larger buffers. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Do Ethernet pause frames actually help with network congestion or do they make things worse? Ethernet pause frames generally make things worse. In practice, disabling pause frames has resolved performance problems, while enabling them has not produced measurable benefits. Data center switch performance gains are more reliably attributed to Virtual Output Queuing (VOQ) and cell spraying rather than to large buffers or pause-frame-based flow control. _Network engineers tuning congestion control find the tradeoffs around pause frames and VOQ covered on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [My speed tests were perfect, but my connection still felt awful, and one queueing setting explained it all](https://daily.dev/posts/my-speed-tests-were-perfect-but-my-connection-still-felt-awful-and-one-queueing-setting-explained--5rykmre6i) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Performance Has Layers](https://daily.dev/posts/performance-has-layers-ega2gcrnh) · Oxide · 97 upvotes · 2 comments - [Fornax's Guide To Ridiculously Fast Ethernet](https://daily.dev/posts/fornax-s-guide-to-ridiculously-fast-ethernet-azd9fuiz0) · Programming Digest · 14 upvotes · 0 comments - [Quantum Networking Beyond the Lab](https://daily.dev/posts/quantum-networking-beyond-the-lab-urd4afvut) · Cisco · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I deliberately gave up some of my internet speed, and every video call in the house got better](https://daily.dev/posts/i-deliberately-gave-up-some-of-my-internet-speed-and-every-video-call-in-the-house-got-better-ygwqarera) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues « ipSpace.net blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:52:46.668Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:12:37.460Z","description":"A brief pointer to Avery Pennarun's well-known article 'Things we (finally) know about network queues,' recommended as a counterpoint to vendor pitches for...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"ipSpace.net Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ipSpace.net Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--xS7E82MT--/f_auto,q_auto/v1786438303/logos/ipspace?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"networking","timeRequired":"PT1M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ipSpace.net Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Worth Reading: Things We Know about Network Queues « ipSpace.net blog"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/worth-reading-things-we-know-about-network-queues-ipspace-net-blog-fehlmhi2f#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Do Ethernet pause frames actually help with network congestion or do they make things worse?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Ethernet pause frames generally make things worse. In practice, disabling pause frames has resolved performance problems, while enabling them has not produced measurable benefits. Data center switch performance gains are more reliably attributed to Virtual Output Queuing (VOQ) and cell spraying rather than to large buffers or pause-frame-based flow control. Network engineers tuning congestion control find the tradeoffs around pause frames and VOQ covered on daily.dev."}}]} ```