packet shaper and shaping policies issues

Hi,

We have multiple traffic shapers and shaping policies configured, each with the same value set for both the guaranteed and maximum bandwidth. These policies are applied based on source networks and are linked to shaping policies (not directly to security policies).

The issue we’re encountering is that during testing, we are not seeing traffic reach the guaranteed bandwidth levels — even when the network is idle. We’re not getting close to the configured guaranteed/max bandwidth, and end-users are reporting slow performance.

Currently, we do not have any bandwidth defined on the outbound interfaces, and from what I understand, this might be a contributing factor. My question is:

• Without defining outbound bandwidth on the interface, how does the firewall know when to enforce traffic shaping policies (e.g., to throttle down to guarantee bandwidth when the interface is congested, or to allow bursting when there’s capacity)?
• Is shaping applied based only on each individual shaping policy, or does the interface-level bandwidth definition play a critical role in determining when to enforce these limits?

Additionally:

• If we do need to configure outbound bandwidth, should it be applied to the physical interface or the VLAN subinterface?
• For example, in a setup like: internal (x2.100) → internet (x1.100), do we configure shaping bandwidth on x1.100 or the parent physical interface x1?
• What happens to traffic that doesn’t match any shaping policy — does it go unshaped?(i.e when there is congestion on interface, how they gets treated) 
• We are using multiple VDOMs. If we configure bandwidth on the physical interface x1, will that affect other subinterfaces like x1.300 used in another VDOM, which has no shapers applied?

Any guidance would be appreciated.