Cabletron Systems SmartSwitch manual Packet Encryption, WAN Quality of Service

Chapter 22: WAN Configuration Guide

The following command line displays an example for PPP:

ppp set payload-compress port se.4.2

Packet Encryption

Packet encryption allows data to travel through unsecured networks. You can enable packet encryption for PPP ports, however, both ends of a link must be configured to use packet encryption.

The following command line displays an example:

pppset payload-encrypt transmit-key 0x123456789abcdef receive-key 0xfedcba987654321 port se.4.2, mp.1

WAN Quality of Service

Increasing concentrations of audio, video, and data traffic are now presenting the networking industry with the significant challenge of employing the most effective use of WAN Quality-of-Service (QoS) as possible to ensure reliable end-to-end communication. For example, critical and time-sensitive traffic such as audio should have higher levels of bandwidth allocated than less time-sensitive traffic such as file transfers or e-mail. Simply adding more and more bandwidth to a network is not a viable solution to the problem. WAN access is extremely expensive, and there is a limited (albeit huge) supply. Therefore, making the most effective use of existing bandwidth is now a more critical issue than ever before.

The fact that IP communications to the desktop are clearly the most prevalent used today has made it the protocol of choice for end-to-end audio, video, and data applications. This means that the challenge for network administrators and developers has been to construct their networks to support these IP-based audio, video, and data applications along with their tried-and-true circuit-based applications over a WAN.

In addition, these audio, video, and data traffic transmissions hardly ever flow at a steady rate. Some periods will see relatively low levels of traffic, and others will temporarily surpass a firm’s contracted Committed Information Rate (CIR). Carrier-based packet- switched networks such as Frame Relay and ATM are designed to handle these temporary peaks in traffic, but it is more cost- and resource- efficient to employ effective QoS configuration(s), thus relaxing the potential need to up your firm’s CIR. By applying some of the following sorts of attributes to interfaces on your network, you can begin to shape your network’s QoS configuration to use existing bandwidth more effectively.

320 SmartSwitch Router User Reference Manual