Modular QoS Configuration Guide for Cisco NCS 540 Series Routers, Cisco IOS XR Release 6.5.x
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Congestion management
features allow you to control congestion by determining the order in which a
traffic flow (or packets) is sent out an interface based on priorities assigned
to packets. Congestion management entails the creation of queues, assignment of
packets to those queues based on the classification of the packet, and
scheduling of the packets in a queue for transmission.
The types of traffic regulation mechanisms supported are:
Class-based Weighted Fair Queueing
(CBWFQ) allows definition of traffic classes based on customer match criteria.
With CBWFQ you can define traffic classes and assign guaranteed amount of
minimum bandwidth to them. CBWFQ also allows for a strict priority queue for
delay-sensitive traffic.
Bandwidth
Remaining
The CBWFQ algorithm derives the weight for each class from the bandwidth remaining value allocated to the class. The bandwidth remaining option specifies a weight for the class to the
CBWFQ . After the priority-queue is serviced, the leftover bandwidth is distributed as per bandwidth remaining ratio (BWRR) or percentage.
If you do not configure this command for any class, the default value of the BWRR is considered as 1 (one). In the case of
bandwidth remaining percent, the remaining bandwidth is equally distributed among other classes, to make it 100 percentage (100%).
Restrictions
The
bandwidth
remaining command is supported only for egress policies.
Configuring Bandwidth Remaining – Instance 2
Supported Platforms: Cisco NCS 5500, Cisco NCS 540, and Cisco NCS 560 Series Routers
This procedure configures the minimum bandwidth and bandwidth remaining on the router
Note
The bandwidth, bandwidth remaining, shaping, queue-limit and wred commands may be configured together in the same class. But, priority cannot be configured along with bandwidth, bandwidth remaining and wred commands.
You can configure shape average command along with priority command.
Configuration
Example
You have to accomplish the following to complete the minimum bandwidth and bandwidth remaining configuration:
Creating or
modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the
traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed
Allocating the minimum bandwidth and leftover bandwidth for the class
The Low-Latency Queuing (LLQ) feature brings strict priority queuing (PQ) to the CBWFQ scheduling mechanism. Priority queuing (PQ) in strict priority mode ensures that one type of traffic is sent, possibly at the expense of all others.
For PQ, a low-priority queue can be detrimentally affected, and, in the worst case, never allowed to send its packets if a
limited amount of bandwidth is available or the transmission rate of critical traffic is high.
Configuring Low Latency Queuing with Strict Priority queuing
Configuring low latency queuing (LLQ) with strict priority queuing (PQ) allows delay-sensitive data such as voice to be de-queued
and sent before the packets in other queues are de-queued.
Guidelines
Only priority level 1 to 7 is supported, with 1 being the highest priority and 7 being the lowest. However, the default CoSQ 0 has the lowest priority among all.
Priority level 1 to 7 is supported for non-H-QoS profiles, with 1 being the highest priority and 7 being the lowest. For H-QoS
profiles, priority level 1 to 4 is supported. For all profiles, however, the class default is CoSQ 0 and has the lowest priority
among all.
Egress policing is not supported. Hence, in the case of strict priority queuing, there are chances that the other queues do
not get serviced.
You can configure shape average and queue-limit commands along with priority.
Configuration
Example
You have to
accomplish the following to complete the LLQ with strict priority queuing:
Creating or
modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed.
Specifying
priority to the traffic class
(Optional) Shaping the traffic to a specific bit rate
Traffic shaping allows you to control the traffic flow exiting an interface to match its transmission to the speed of the
remote target interface and ensure that the traffic conforms to policies contracted for it. Traffic adhering to a particular
profile can be shaped to meet downstream requirements, hence eliminating bottlenecks in topologies with data-rate mismatches.
Note
Traffic shaping is supported only in egress direction.
Configure Traffic
Shaping
The traffic shaping performed on outgoing interfaces is done at the Layer 1 level and includes the Layer 1 header in the rate
calculation.
Guidelines
Only egress traffic shaping is supported.
It is mandatory to configure all the eight traffic-class classes (including class-default) for the egress policies.
You can configure shape average command along with priority command.
Configuration Example
You have to accomplish the following to complete the traffic shaping configuration:
Creating or modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed
Traffic policing allows you to control the maximum rate of traffic sent or received on an interface and to partition a network
into multiple priority levels or class of service (CoS).Traffic policing manages the maximum rate of traffic through a token
bucket algorithm. The token bucket algorithm uses user-configured values to determine the maximum rate of traffic allowed
on an interface at a given moment in time. The token bucket algorithm is affected by all traffic entering or leaving the interface
(depending on where the traffic policy with traffic policing is configured) and is useful in managing network bandwidth in
cases where several large packets are sent in the same traffic stream. By default, the configured bandwidth value takes into
account the Layer 2 encapsulation that is applied to traffic leaving the interface.
Traffic policing also
provides a certain amount of bandwidth management by allowing you to set the
burst size (Bc) for the committed information rate (CIR). See,
Committed Bursts and Excess Bursts.
The router supports the following traffic policing mode(s):
Single-Rate Three-Color (SR3C) in color-blind mode.
Two-Rate Three-Color (2R3C) in color-blind mode. See Two-Rate Policer .
Restrictions
Traffic policing is supported only in ingress direction, and only color-blind mode is supported.
The policing rate accuracy may vary up to +/-2% from the configured policer value.
Ensure that you don’t configure a policer and match criteria for discard-class in the same class. Even though the configuration is allowed, the policer doesn’t work and allows all traffic without dropping
packets.
Policer marking is not supported.
Policers are configured in the interface at the core level and “show qos int <>” value is displayed at the NPU level.
For policers configured in a bundle interface where bundle members are from the same NPU but different cores (NPU cores),
each member sends the traffic up to the core level policer configuration, but “show qos int <>” displays the NPU level policer
output.
Example:
For bundle interface with two 10GE members (same NPU, but one interface from core0, one interface from core1) 2R3C policer
applied on bundle interface (1G confirm rate , 1G exceed rate – total 2G policer rate) will be shown on the “show qos int
<>” output):
For traffic in one out of two interfaces, the policed rate will be 1Gbps. For traffic on two interfaces, policed rate will
be 2Gbps.
Committed Bursts and Excess Bursts
Unlike a traffic shaper, a traffic policer does not buffer excess packets and transmit them later. Instead, the policer executes
a “send or do not send” policy without buffering. Policing uses normal or committed burst (bc) values and excess burst values (be) to ensure that the router reaches the configured committed information rate (CIR). Policing decides if a packet conforms
or exceeds the CIR based on the burst values you configure. Burst parameters are based on a generic buffering rule for routers,
which recommends that you configure buffering to be equal to the round-trip time bit-rate to accommodate the outstanding TCP
windows of all connections in times of congestion. During periods of congestion, proper configuration of the excess burst parameter enables the policer to drop packets less aggressively.
A single-rate
two-color (SR2C) policer provides one token bucket with two actions for each
packet: a conform action and an exceed action.
Based on the committed information rate (CIR) value, the token bucket is updated at every refresh time interval. The Tc token
bucket can contain up to the Bc value, which can be a certain number of bytes or a period of time. If a packet of size B is
greater than the Tc token bucket, then the packet exceeds the CIR value and a default action is performed. If a packet of size B is less than the Tc token bucket, then the packet conforms and a different default action is performed.
Single-Rate Three-Color Policer
A single-rate three-color (SR3C) policer provides one token bucket with three actions for each packet: a conform action, an
exceed action and a violate action. The packet is marked based on the CIR value and the two associated burst size - committed
burst size (CBS) and excess burst size (EBS). If a packet does not exceed the CBS, it is marked as conformed packet. The packet
is marked as exceeded if it exceeds CBS, but not the EBS. If it exceeds the EBS as well, it is marked as violate packet.
Traffic policing is often configured on interfaces at the edge of a network to limit the rate of traffic entering or leaving
the network. The default conform action for single-rate two color policer is to transmit the packet and the default exceed
action is to drop the packet. Users cannot modify these default actions.
Configuration
Example
You have to
accomplish the following to complete the traffic policing configuration:
Creating or
modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the
traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed
The default conform action and exceed actions for single-rate three-color policer are to transmit the packet and the default
violate action is to drop the packet. User cannot modify these default actions.
Configuration
Example
You have to
accomplish the following to complete the traffic policing configuration:
Creating or
modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the
traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed
(Optional)
Specifying the marking action
Configuring the
policy rate for the traffic along with the peak-burst values
The two-rate policer manages
the maximum rate of traffic by using two token buckets: the committed token
bucket and the peak token bucket. The dual-token bucket algorithm uses
user-configured values to determine the maximum rate of traffic allowed on a
queue at a given moment. In this way, the two-rate policer can meter traffic at
two independent rates: the committed information rate (CIR) and the peak
information rate (PIR).
The dual-token bucket algorithm provides users with three actions for each packet—a conform action, an exceed action, and
an optional violate action. Traffic entering a queue with the two-rate policer configured is placed into one of these categories.
The actions are pre-determined for each category. The default conform and exceed actions are to transmit the packet, and the
default violate action is to drop the packet.
This figure shows how the
two-rate policer marks a packet and assigns a corresponding action to the
packet.
The router supports Two-Rate Three-Color (2R3C) policer.
Configure Traffic
Policing (Two-Rate Three-Color)
The default conform and exceed actions for two-rate three-color (2R3C) policer are to transmit the packet and the default
violate action is to drop the packet. Users cannot modify these default actions.
Configuration Example
You have to accomplish the following to complete the two-rate three-color traffic policing configuration:
Creating or modifying a policy-map that can be attached to one or more interfaces
Specifying the traffic class whose policy has to be created or changed
The committed burst (bc)
parameter of the police command implements the first, conforming (green) token
bucket that the router uses to meter traffic. The bc parameter sets the size of
this token bucket. Initially, the token bucket is full and the token count is
equal to the committed burst size (CBS). Thereafter, the meter updates the
token counts the number of times per second indicated by the committed
information rate (CIR).
The following describes how
the meter uses the conforming token bucket to send packets:
If sufficient tokens are in
the conforming token bucket when a packet arrives, the meter marks the packet
green and decrements the conforming token count by the number of bytes of the
packet.
If there are insufficient
tokens available in the conforming token bucket, the meter allows the traffic
flow to borrow the tokens needed to send the packet. The meter checks the
exceeding token bucket for the number of bytes of the packet. If the exceeding
token bucket has a sufficient number of tokens available, the meter marks the
packet.
Green and decrements the
conforming token count down to the minimum value of 0.
Yellow, borrows the remaining
tokens needed from the exceeding token bucket, and decrements the exceeding
token count by the number of tokens borrowed down to the minimum value of 0.
If an insufficient number of
tokens is available, the meter marks the packet red and does not decrement
either of the conforming or exceeding token counts.
Note
When the meter marks a packet
with a specific color, there must be a sufficient number of tokens of that
color to accommodate the entire packet. Therefore, the volume of green packets
is never smaller than the committed information rate (CIR) and committed burst
size (CBS). Tokens of a given color are always used on packets of that color.
Excess Bursts
The excess burst (be)
parameter of the police command implements the second, exceeding (yellow) token
bucket that the router uses to meter traffic. The exceeding token bucket is
initially full and the token count is equal to the excess burst size (EBS).
Thereafter, the meter updates the token counts the number of times per second
indicated by the committed information rate (CIR).
The following describes how
the meter uses the exceeding token bucket to send packets:
When the first token bucket
(the conforming bucket) meets the committed burst size (CBS), the meter allows
the traffic flow to borrow the tokens needed from the exceeding token bucket.
The meter marks the packet yellow and then decrements the exceeding token
bucket by the number of bytes of the packet.
If the exceeding token bucket
does not have the required tokens to borrow, the meter marks the packet red and
does not decrement the conforming or the exceeding token bucket. Instead, the
meter performs the exceed-action configured in the police command (for example,
the policer drops the packets).
Two-Rate Policer
Details
The committed token bucket
can hold bytes up to the size of the committed burst (bc) before overflowing.
This token bucket holds the tokens that determine whether a packet conforms to
or exceeds the CIR as the following describes:
A traffic stream is
conforming when the average number of bytes over time does not cause the
committed token bucket to overflow. When this occurs, the token bucket
algorithm marks the traffic stream green.
A traffic stream is exceeding
when it causes the committed token bucket to overflow into the peak token
bucket. When this occurs, the token bucket algorithm marks the traffic stream
yellow. The peak token bucket is filled as long as the traffic exceeds the
police rate.
The peak token bucket can
hold bytes up to the size of the peak burst (be) before overflowing. This token
bucket holds the tokens that determine whether a packet violates the PIR. A
traffic stream is violating when it causes the peak token bucket to overflow.
When this occurs, the token bucket algorithm marks the traffic stream red.
For example, if a data stream
with a rate of 250 kbps arrives at the two-rate policer, and the CIR is
100 kbps and the PIR is 200 kbps, the policer marks the packet in the following
way:
100 kbps conforms to the rate
100 kbps exceeds the rate
50 kbps violates the rate
The router updates the tokens
for both the committed and peak token buckets in the following way:
The router updates the
committed token bucket at the CIR value each time a packet arrives at the
interface. The committed token bucket can contain up to the committed burst
(bc) value.
The router updates the peak
token bucket at the PIR value each time a packet arrives at the interface. The
peak token bucket can contain up to the peak burst (be) value.
When an arriving packet
conforms to the CIR, the router takes the conform action on the packet and
decrements both the committed and peak token buckets by the number of bytes of
the packet.
When an arriving packet
exceeds the CIR, the router takes the exceed action on the packet, decrements
the committed token bucket by the number of bytes of the packet, and decrements
the peak token bucket by the number of overflow bytes of the packet.
When an arriving packet
exceeds the PIR, the router takes the violate action on the packet, but does
not decrement the peak token bucket.