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Catalyst 8500 Quality of Service Feature Summary

Catalyst 8500 Quality of Service Feature Summary

The Catalyst 8500 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) scheduling at the egress port.

Implementation of QoS on the Catalyst 8500 is based on IP precedence. The system gathers IP precedence information from the service type field of the IP header. For an incoming IP packet, the first two (most significant) bits of the service type field determine the delay priority. The Catalyst 8500 recognizes four QoS classes, as summarized in Table 5-1.


Table 5-1:
IP Precedence Bits Delay Priority Queue Selected

0 0 0

0 0

Q-0

0 0 1

0 0

Q-0

0 1 0

01

Q-1

0 1 1

01

Q-1

1 0 0

1 0

Q-2

1 0 1

10

Q-2

1 1 0

1 1

Q-3

1 1 1

1 1

Q-3

QoS Delay Priorities and Queues

The Catalyst 8500 can read the precedence field and switch the packet accordingly. However, the switch router cannot reclassify traffic. The edge router or switch is expected to set the precedence field according to its local policy.

The Catalyst 8500 queues packets based on the delay priority and the target next-hop interface.

Scheduling and Weighted Round-Robin

Frame scheduling becomes increasingly important when an outgoing interface is congested. To handle this situation, network administrators can assign weights to each of the different queues. This provides bandwidth to higher priority applications (using IP precedence), yet still fairly grants access to lower priority queues. When there is no network congestion, all queues are granted the same weight. However, when congestion occurs, the frame schedule affords each queue the bandwidth allotted to it by the network administrator. This mapping is configurable both at the system and interface levels.

The four queues between any pair of interfaces are configured to be part of the same service class. Bandwidth is not explicitly reserved for these four queues. Each of them is assigned a different WRR-scheduling weight, which determines the way they share the interface bandwidth. The WRR weight is user configurable; you can assign a different WRR weight for each queue. The higher the WRR weight, the higher the effective bandwidth for that particular queue.

You can find the effective bandwidth (in Mbps) for a particular VC with the following formula:

(W/S) x B = n Mbps

where

W

is the WRR weight of the specified queue.

S

is the sum of the weight of all active queues on the outgoing interface

B

is the available bandwidth in Mbps

For example, if W is 4, S is 15, and B is 100, the equation is as follows:

(4/15) x 100 = 26 Mbps

Thus, the effective bandwidth for the specified queue in this example is 26 Mbps.

Configuring Precedence to WRR Scheduling

This section describes the Cisco IOS commands necessary to configure QoS mapping at the system and interface levels. The commands described in this section are unique to the Catalyst 8500 campus switch router.

The Catalyst 8500 enables QoS-based forwarding by default. If disabled, issue the following command to enable QoS switching:

# [no] qos switching

The [no] version disables QoS switching on the entire system.

System-Level Mapping

To map QoS scheduling at the system level, follow these steps:

Step Command Description
1

8500(config)# qos mapping precedence value wrr-weight weight

From global configuration mode, set the mapping between IP precedence and the WRR weight. See the syntax description below.

2

8500(config-if)# Ctrl-Z

8500#

Return to privileged EXEC mode.

Syntax Description

value

The precedence value (0 to 3) is derived from the IP precedence field. The higher 2-bits of the IP precedence field is used. When a precedence value x is specified, it also implicitly assigns the same WRR-weight to precedence x + 1.

weight

The WRR-scheduling weight (1 to 15). This parameter specifies the weight assigned to traffic with the given precedence.

To set the precedence back to the default setting for the Catalyst 8500, use the [no] version of the qos mapping precedence command.

The following defaults map the IP precedence to the WRR weights:


Table 5-2: IP Precedence and WRR Weights
IP Precedence WRR Weight

0

1

1

2

2

4

3

8

Interface-Level Mapping

Configuring the QoS mapping at the interface level overrides the system-level mapping. Using the qos mapping precedence wrr-weight command, the network administrator can assign different WRR-scheduling weights for a particular precedence traffic between a pair of interfaces.

To map QoS scheduling at the interface level, follow these steps:

Step Command Description
1

8500(config)# qos mapping [source fa x/0/z] [destination fa a/0/c] precedence value wrr-weight weight

From global configuration mode, assign different WRR-scheduling weights for a particular precedence traffic between a pair of interfaces.

2

8500(config-if)# Ctrl-Z

8500#

Return to privileged EXEC mode.

To set the precedence back to the system-level default setting for the Catalyst 8500, use the [no] version of the qos mapping precedence wrr-weight command.

Both the source and destination interface parameters are optional. When both are not specified, the system-level QoS mapping is configured. Otherwise, you can specify the source interface, or the destination interface, or both to configure the WRR weight for the following:

    1. Traffic streams with a certain precedence, from a particular source interface to a particular destination interface.

    2. Traffic streams with a certain precedence to a particular destination interface.

    3. Traffic streams with a certain precedence from a particular source interface.

QoS Show Commands

The Cisco IOS show commands for QoS are as follows:

# show qos switching
# show qos mapping [source fa x/0/z destination fa a/0/c]


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Posted: Thu Dec 30 11:43:14 PST 1999
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