[ale] networking backpressure

[Mike Harrison]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2013, Jim Kinney wrote:
> so what happens when a series of machines, each with 1G nic all try to read/write to the same NFS mount filesystem,
> also on a single 1G nic, and this goes on for hours at a time? 
> Eventually, nic buffers fill and the OS is told to "hold that thought". But for how long? Will the OS continue to try
> the write until it succeeds? Or will the constant buffer overload just cause a nic to flush the buffer and hope for
> better luck next send?

While not helpful, I could not resist not sharing my mental image of 
Scotty telling Captain Kirk: "I dunno how much longer she can hold it Cap'n, she's gonna blow!"