Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT)

Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT) Module 3: Introduction to IP QoS

Lesson 3.1: Introducing QoS

Objectives • Explain why converged networks require QoS. • Identify the major quality issues with converged networks. • Calculate available bandwidth given multiple flows. • Describe mechanisms designed to use bandwidth more efficiently. • Describe types of delay. • Identify ways to reduce the impact of delay on quality. • Describe packet loss and ways to prevent or reduce packet loss in the network.

Traditional Nonconverged Network • Traditional data traffic characteristics: • Bursty data flow • FIFO access • Not overly time-sensitive; delays OK • Brief outages are survivable

Converged Network Realities • Converged network realities: • Constant small-packet voice flow competes with bursty data flow. • Critical traffic must have priority. • Voice and video are time-sensitive. • Brief outages are not acceptable.

Converged Network Quality Issues • Lack of bandwidth: Multiple flows compete for a limited amount of bandwidth. • End-to-end delay (fixed and variable): Packets have to traverse many network devices and links; this travel adds up to the overall delay. • Variation of delay (jitter): Sometimes there is a lot of other traffic, which results in varied and increased delay. • Packet loss: Packets may have to be dropped when a link is congested.

Measuring Available Bandwidth • The maximum available bandwidth is the bandwidth of the slowest link. • Multiple flows are competing for the same bandwidth, resulting in much less bandwidth being available to one single application. • A lack in bandwidth can have performance impacts on network applications.

Increasing Available Bandwidth • Upgrade the link (the best but also the most expensive solution). • Improve QoS with advanced queuing mechanisms to forward the important packets first. • Compress the payload of Layer 2 frames (takes time). • Compress IP packet headers.

Using advanced queuing and header compression mechanisms, the available bandwidth can be used more efficiently: Voice: LLQ and RTP header compression Interactive traffic: CBWFQ and TCP header compression • Voice • LLQ • RTP header compression 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 • Data • CBWFQ • TCP header compression 4 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 1 Using Available Bandwidth Efficiently

Types of Delay • Processing delay: The time it takes for a router to take the packet from an input interface, examine the packet, and put the packet into the output queue of the output interface. • Queuing delay: The time a packet resides in the output queue of a router. • Serialization delay: The time it takes to place the “bits on the wire.” • Propagation delay: The time it takes for the packet to cross the link from one end to the other.

The Impact of Delay and Jitter on Quality • End-to-end delay: The sum of all propagation, processing, serialization, and queuing delays in the path • Jitter: The variation in the delay. • In best-effort networks, propagation and serialization delays are fixed, while processing and queuing delays are unpredictable.

Ways to Reduce Delay • Upgrade the link (the best solution but also the most expensive). • Forward the important packets first. • Enable reprioritization of important packets. • Compress the payload of Layer 2 frames (takes time). • Compress IP packet headers.

Reducing Delay in a Network • Customer routers perform: • TCP/RTP header compression • LLQ • Prioritization • ISP routers perform: • Reprioritization according to the QoS policy

The Impacts of Packet Loss • Telephone call: “I cannot understand you. Your voice is breaking up.” • Teleconferencing: “The picture is very jerky. Voice is not synchronized.” • Publishing company: “This file is corrupted.” • Call center: “Please hold while my screen refreshes.”

Types of Packet Drops • Tail drops occur when the output queue is full. Tail drops are common and happen when a link is congested. • Other types of drops, usually resulting from router congestion, include input drop, ignore, overrun, and frame errors. These errors can often be solved with hardware upgrades.

Ways to Prevent Packet Loss • Upgrade the link (the best solution but also the most expensive). • Guarantee enough bandwidth for sensitive packets. • Prevent congestion by randomly dropping less important packets before congestion occurs.

Traffic Rate Traffic Traffic Traffic Traffic Traffic Rate Policing Shaping Time Time Time Time Traffic Rate Traffic Rate Traffic Policing and Traffic Shaping

Reducing Packet Loss in a Network • Problem: Interface congestion causes TCP and voice packet drops, resulting in slowing FTP traffic and jerky speech quality. • Conclusion: Congestion avoidance and queuing can help. • Solution: Use WRED and LLQ.

Summary • Converged networks carry different types of traffic over a shared infrastructure. This creates the need to differentiate traffic and give priority to time-sensitive traffic. • Various mechanisms exist that help to maximize the use of the available bandwidth, including queuing techniques and compression mechanisms. • All networks experience delay. Delay can effect time sensitive traffic such as voice and video. • Without proper provisioning and management, networks can experience packet loss. Packet loss is especially important with voice and video, as no resending of lost packets can occur.

Resources • Quality of Service Networking • http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/qos.htm • QoS Congestion Avoidance • http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk543/tk760/tsd_technology_support_protocol_home.html • QoS Congestion Management (queuing) • http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk543/tk544/tsd_technology_support_protocol_home.html

Lesson 3.2: Implementing Cisco IOS QoS

Objectives • Describe the need for QoS as it relates to various types of network traffic. • Identify QoS mechanisms. • Describe the steps used to implement QoS.

What Is Quality of Service? Two Perspectives • The user perspective • Users perceive that their applications are performing properly • Voice, video, and data • The network manager perspective • Need to manage bandwidth allocations to deliver the desired application performance • Control delay, jitter, andpacket loss

Different Types of Traffic Have Different Needs • Real-time applications especially sensitive to QoS • Interactive voice • Videoconferencing • Causes of degraded performance • Congestion losses • Variable queuing delays • The QoS challenge • Manage bandwidth allocations to deliver the desired application performance • Control delay, jitter, and packet loss Need to manage bandwidth allocations

Cisco IOS QoS Tools • Congestion management: • PQ • CQ • WFQ • CBWFQ • Queue management • WRED • Link efficiency • Link fragmentation and interleave • RTP and CRTP • Traffic shaping and traffic policing QoS Toolbox

Priority Queuing PQ puts data into four levels of queues: high, medium, normal, and low.

Custom Queuing CQ handles traffic by assigning a specified amount of queue space to each class of packet and then servicing up to 17 queues in a round-robin fashion.

Weighted Fair Queuing • WFQ makes the transfer rates and interarrival periods of active high-volume conversations much more predictable.

Weighted Random Early Detection • WRED provides a method that stochastically discards packets if congestion begins to increase.

Step 1: Identify types of traffic and their requirements. Step 2: Divide traffic into classes. Step 3: Define QoS policies for each class. Implementing QoS

Step 1: Identify Types of Traffic and Their Requirements • Network audit: Identify traffic on the network. • Business audit: Determine how important each type of traffic is for business. • Service levels required: Determine required response time.

Scavenger Class Less than Best Effort Step 2: Define Traffic Classes

Step 3: Define QoS Policy • A QoS policy is a network-wide definition of the specific levels of QoS that are assigned to different classes of network traffic.

Quality of Service OperationsHow Do QoS Tools Work? Post-Queuing Operations Classification and Marking Queuing and (Selective) Dropping

Self Check • What types of applications are particularly sensitive to QoS issues? • What is WFQ? How is it different than FIFO? • What are the 3 basic steps involved in implementing QoS? • What is Scavenger Class?

Summary • QoS is important to both the end user and the network administrator. End users experience lack of QoS as poor voice quality, dropped calls or outages. • Network traffic differs in its ability to handle delay, jitter and packet loss. Traffic sensitive to these issues requires priority treatment. QoS measures can provide priority to sensitive traffic, while still providing services to more resilient traffic. • Implementing QoS involves 3 basic steps: identify the types of traffic on your network, divide the traffic into classes, and define a QoS policy for each traffic class.

Resources • QoS Best Practices At-A-Glance • http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/tech/tk759/c1482/cdccont_0900aecd80295aa1.pdf • QoS Tools At-A-Glance • http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/tech/tk759/c1482/cdccont_0900aecd80295abf.pdf

Lesson 3.3: Selecting an Appropriate QoS Policy Model

Objectives • Describe 3 QoS models: best effort, IntServ and Diffserv. • Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 3 QoS models. • Describe the purpose and functionality of RSVP.

Three QoS Models

Best-Effort Model • Internet was initially based on a best-effort packet delivery service. • Best-effort is the default mode for all traffic. • There is no differentiation among types of traffic. • Best-effort model is similar to using standard mail—“The mail will arrive when the mail arrives.” • Benefits: • Highly scalable • No special mechanisms required • Drawbacks: • No service guarantees • No service differentiation

Integrated Services (IntServ) Model Operation • Ensures guaranteed delivery and predictable behavior of the network for applications. • Provides multiple service levels. • RSVP is a signaling protocol to reserve resources for specified QoS parameters. • The requested QoS parameters are then linked to a packet stream. • Streams are not established if the required QoS parameters cannot be met. • Intelligent queuing mechanisms needed to provide resource reservation in terms of: • Guaranteed rate • Controlled load (low delay, high throughput)

Control Plane Routing Selection Admission Control Reservation Setup Reservation Table Data Plane Flow Identification Packet Scheduler IntServ Functions

Benefits and Drawbacks of the IntServ Model • Benefits: • Explicit resource admission control (end to end) • Per-request policy admission control (authorization object, policy object) • Signaling of dynamic port numbers (for example, H.323) • Drawbacks: • Continuous signaling because of stateful architecture • Flow-based approach not scalable to large implementations, such as the public Internet

Is carried in IP—protocol ID 46 Can use both TCP and UDP port 3455 Is a signaling protocol and works with existing routing protocols Requests QoS parameters from all devices between the source and destination Sending Host RSVP Tunnel RSVP Receivers Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) • Provides divergent performance requirements for multimedia applications: • Rate-sensitive traffic • Delay-sensitive traffic

Policy Control Admission Control RSVP Daemon Reservation Routing Packet Classifier Data Packet Scheduler RSVP Daemon

R3 R5 R4 R5 R4 Sender R2 R1 Reservation Merging • R1, R2 and R3 all request the same reservation. • The R2 and R3 request merges at R4. • The R1 request merges with the combined R2 and R3 request at R5. • RSVP reservation merging provides scalability.

Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT)