21

Policy Rule

This chapter shows you how to configure policy rules.

21.1 Policy Rules Overview

A classifier distinguishes traffic into flows based on the configured criteria (refer to Chapter 20 on page 173 for more information). A policy rule ensures that a traffic flow gets the requested treatment in the network.

21.1.1 DiffServ

DiffServ (Differentiated Services) is a class of service (CoS) model that marks packets so that they receive specific per-hop treatment at DiffServ-compliant network devices along the route based on the application types and traffic flow. Packets are marked with DiffServ Code Points (DSCPs) indicating the level of service desired. This allows the intermediary DiffServ-compliant network devices to handle the packets differently depending on the code points without the need to negotiate paths or remember state information for every flow. In addition, applications do not have to request a particular service or give advanced notice of where the traffic is going.

21.1.2 DSCP and Per-Hop Behavior

DiffServ defines a new DS (Differentiated Services) field to replace the Type of Service (TOS) field in the IP header. The DS field contains a 2-bit unused field and a 6-bit DSCP field which can define up to 64 service levels. The following figure illustrates the DS field.

DSCP is backward compatible with the three precedence bits in the ToS octet so that non-DiffServ compliant, ToS-enabled network device will not conflict with the DSCP mapping.

DSCP (6 bits)

Unused (2 bits)

 

 

 

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XGS-4728F User’s Guide