Quality of Service (QoS): Managing Bandwidth More Effectively

Using QoS Classifiers To Configure Quality of Service for Outbound Traffic

Details of QoS IP Type-of-Service

IP packets include a Type of Service (ToS) byte. The ToS byte includes:

A Differentiated Services Codepoint (DSCP): This element is com­ prised of the upper six bits of the ToS byte). There are 64 possible codepoints. In the switch’s default qos configuration, some codepoints have default 802.1p priority settings for Assured-Forwarding and Expe­ dited Forwarding, while others are unused (and listed with No-overridefor a Priority). Using the qos dscp map command, you can configure the switch to assign different prioritization policies to IP packets having different codepoints. As an alternative, you can configure the switch to assign a new codepoint to an IP packet, along with a corresponding 802.1p priority (0-7). To use this option in the simplest case, you would:

a.Configure a specific DSCP with a specific priority in an edge switch.

b.Configure the switch to mark a specific type of inbound traffic with that DSCP (and thus create a policy for that traffic type).

c.Configure the internal switches in your LAN to honor the policy.

(For example, you could configure an edge switch to assign a codepoint of 000001 to all packets received from a specific VLAN, and then handle all traffic with that codepoint at high priority.)

For a codepoint listing and the commands for displaying and changing the

DSCP Policy table, refer to “Differentiated Services Codepoint (DSCP)

Mapping” on page 15-51.

Precedence Bits: This element is a subset of the DSCP and is comprised of the upper three bits of the ToS byte. When configured to do so, the switch uses the precedence bits to determine a priority for handling the associated packet. (The switch does not change the setting of the prece­ dence bits.) Using the ToS Precedence bits to prioritize IP packets relies on priorities set in upstream devices and applications.

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