Cisco 3560G 48TS Software Configuration Guide - Page 525

Chapter 28 Configuring QoS Understanding QoS All switches and routers that access the Internet rely on the class information to provide the same forwarding treatment to packets with the same class information and different treatment to packets with different class information. The class information in the packet can be assigned by end hosts or by switches or routers along the way, based on a configured policy, detailed examination of the packet, or both. Detailed examination of the packet is expected to happen closer to the edge of the network so that the core switches and routers are not overloaded with this task. Switches and routers along the path can use the class information to limit the amount of resources allocated per traffic class. The behavior of an individual device when handling traffic in the DiffServ architecture is called per-hop behavior. If all devices along a path provide a consistent per-hop behavior, you can construct an end-to-end QoS solution. Implementing QoS in your network can be a simple or complex task and depends on the QoS features offered by your internetworking devices, the traffic types and patterns in your network, and the granularity of control that you need over incoming and outgoing traffic. Basic QoS Model To implement QoS, the switch must distinguish packets or flow from one another (classify), assign a label to indicate the given quality of service as the packets move through the switch, make the packets comply with the configured resource usage limits (police and mark), and provide different treatment (queue and schedule) in all situations where resource contention exists. The switch also needs to ensure that traffic sent from it meets a specific traffic profile (shape). Figure 28-2 shows the basic QoS model. Actions at the ingress port include classifying traffic, policing, marking, queueing, and scheduling: • Classification is the process of generating a distinct path for a packet by associating it with a QoS label. The switch maps the CoS or DSCP in the packet to a QoS label to distinguish one kind of traffic from another. The QoS label that is generated identifies all future QoS actions to be performed on this packet. For more information, see the "Classification" section on page 28-4. • Policing decides whether a packet is in or out of profile by comparing the rate of the incoming traffic to the configured policer. The policer limits the bandwidth consumed by a flow of traffic. The result is passed to the marker. For more information, see the "Policing and Marking" section on page 28-8. • Marking evaluates the policer and configuration information for the action to be taken when a packet is out of profile and decides what to do with the packet (pass through a packet without modification, mark down the QoS label in the packet, or drop the packet). For more information, see the "Policing and Marking" section on page 28-8. • Queueing evaluates the QoS label and the corresponding DSCP or CoS value to select into which of the two ingress queues to place a packet. Queueing is enhanced with the weighted tail-drop (WTD) algorithm, a congestion-avoidance mechanism. If the threshold is exceeded, the packet is dropped. For more information, see the "Queueing and Scheduling Overview" section on page 28-11. • Scheduling services the queues based on their configured shaped round robin (SRR) weights. One of the ingress queues is the priority queue, and SRR services it for its configured share before servicing the other queue. For more information, see the "SRR Shaping and Sharing" section on page 28-12. 78-16156-01 Catalyst 3560 Switch Software Configuration Guide 28-3