# Configuring the Network Queues - Overview

Note: Network Queue programming must be performed using the Text Console.

You can control when a local NP Net node originates connections with remote nodes by configuring the network queues. You can set the different parameters that control when a queue is ready to send, such as time of day and number of messages waiting in a queue. You can also set the number of times that the local node tries to connect to a remote node once it determines that it is time to send the messages.

You can use the network queue parameters to help control toll charges with dial-up NP Net connections. If all of your connections are TCP/IP, you probably want to set the queues to send messages immediately.

There are some basic functions of NP Net queues that you should understand before configuring the queue parameters:

- Messages addressed to remote nodes are stored in separate queues; there is an urgent message queue and a batch message queue for each node.

- The queues are checked every 30 seconds to find out if it is ready to send.

- The parameters that you set for queues apply to all nodes, but each queue is monitored separately. When the urgent queue for remote node 2 is full, the local node originates a connection to that node; it does not originate connections to any other nodes until their queues are full.

- Each node only originates connections when it needs to send messages, however, once a connection is established between two nodes, any messages queued for the originating node on the answering node are also sent, so messages go both ways. (If a node makes a connection to send only urgent messages, the answering node is only allowed to send messages from its urgent queue.)

After you have set the queue parameters, you should closely monitor the network queue statistics to ensure that the thresholds are set at realistic values. The cost of sending a network queue must be balanced against the need to receive messages in a timely manner and the need to clear network queue storage space. The storage aspect is particularly important when controlling costs; network message delivery that is triggered by reaching the message block use threshold will probably occur when tariffs are highest, since most messages are recorded during normal business hours.

The figure below shows the hierarchy of the various thresholds. The Time Window overrides the Message Count, Message Waiting Time, and Total Message Minutes parameters, but the Time Window is overridden by the Message Blocks Used threshold.