A network generally transmits various types of service traffic for different types of users. Congestion may occur on the network if users continuously generate large volumes of traffic. To ensure service stability in scenarios with limited network resources, rates of service traffic must be limited.
Traffic policing, traffic shaping, and interface-based rate limiting control traffic rates and resource usage by monitoring the rates of incoming traffic entering a network. The incoming traffic is measured so that appropriate actions can be taken to limit the traffic rate. Generally, the token bucket mechanism is used to measure traffic.