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ATM Switch Router Software Configuration Guide
OL-7396-01
Chapter22 Configuring Quality of Service
IP Precedence Based Class of Service (CoS)

About Quality of Service Mechanisms

The Catalyst 8540 campus switch router provides extensive core Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms
that are built into the switch router architecture. These functions ensure policy enforcement and queuing
of the ingress port, as well as weighted round-robin (WRR) schedul ing at the egress port.
The two mechanisms discussed here are:
IP precedence based Class of Service (CoS)
This is used when the ingress or the egress interface is an EPIF based interface or when the egress
interface is an XPIF based interface without a configured IP QoS output policy.
IP QoS (for the Enhanced Gigabit Ethernet interfaces)
IP QoS is the implementation of the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) model. It is used when the
ingress and egress interfaces are enhanced Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and the egress interface has
an attached IP QoS output policy.
IP Precedence Based Class of Service (CoS)
Layer 3 precedence based CoS uses the IP precedence values to partition traffic into multiple classes of
service.
The system gathers IP precedence information from the IP header type-of-service field. For an incoming
IP packet, the first two (most significant) bits of the service type field determine the delay priority. Layer
3 switching recognizes four QoS classes, Q-0 to Q-3, as summari zed in Table22- 1.
Your switch router can read the precedence field and switch the packet accordingly, but it cannot
reclassify traffic. The edge router or switch is expected to set the precedence field according to its local
policy.
The switch router queues packets based on the delay priority and the target next-hop interface.
Table22-1 QoS Delay Priorities and Queues
IP Precedence
Bits Delay Priority
Queue
Selected
0 0 0 0 0 Q-0
0 0 1 0 0 Q-0
0 1 0 0 1 Q-1
0 1 1 0 1 Q-1
1 0 0 1 0 Q-2
1 0 1 1 0 Q-2
1 1 0 1 1 Q-3
1 1 1 1 1 Q-3