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Thursday, October 4, 2018

Cisco 3850 Layer 3 Egress WAN QoS

So I've been learning a lot about Quality of Service mechanisms and configuration lately.
One thing I've learned is to know how to access the Configuration Guide for the equipment I'm working with.  Many devices and code levels have different defaults and configuration statements for QoS, so being able to look up a particular gear's QoS configuration guide has proven essential.

For instance, here's the link to Cisco switches, where you can filter down to your model and software type for the relevent configuration guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/switches/index.html

Another example, below is the link to the Catalyst 3850 series switch configuration guides and other documentation:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/switches/catalyst-3850-series-switches/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html

Now in the QoS e-course I'm watching from Cisco, they do emphasize to refer to switch documentation, configuration guide & release notes to know what QoS commands are supported.
They also went over some example caveats (of the Catalyst 3550 series at least) that I thought were interesting.  One caveat included: on Egress, you can only attach a policy-map that matches DSCP.

So, now, in configuring QoS on a Catalyst 3850, we configure the class-map, then the policy-map, then apply the policy-map to an interface.

See example Layer 3 Egress/WAN QoS policy configuration below:

1.  Configure class-map first (class-map matches the tags)


        class-map match-any VOICE-RTP              
              match dscp ef
        class-map match-any VIDEO-INTERACTIVE
              match dscp af41
              match dscp cs4
        class-map match-any CALL-SIGNALING
              match ip dscp cs3
              match ip dscp af31        
         class-map match-any SCAVENGER
              match ip dscp cs1

2.  Then Policy-map allocates percentage of bandwidth & reservations based on class
policy-map WAN-PRIMARY
        class VOICE-RTP
              priority level 1 percent 10

        class VIDEO-INTERACTIVE
              priority level 2 percent 20

        class CALL-SIGNALING
              bandwidth percent 5

        class SCAVENGER
              bandwidth percent 10

        class class-default
              shape average 9500000000***

Then Service-policy applies policy-map to interface

interface Gi1/0/1
     service-policy output WAN-PRIMARY


Note:
***shape average should be lowered by bandwidth minus 5 percent, in bits
for 1Gb it would be 950Mb 
the five percent was rule of thumb for 100Mb 
so took 1Gbps knocked it down to 950Mb 
for gig it's 950 million = 950,000,000 bits, 
and 95Mb shape average for 100Mb circuit


Bits Per Second Cheatsheet:


  • 1 Kbps = 1,000 bps    (one thousand bits per second)
  • 100 Kbps = 100,000 bps    (100 thousand)
  • 1 Mbps = 1,000,000 bps    (1 million)
  • 100 Mbps = 100,000,000 bps    (100 million)
  • 1 Gbps = 1,000,000,000 bps      (1 billion)
  • 10 Gbps = 10,000,000,000 bps    (10 billion)


Sources:


https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3850/software/release/3e/qos/configuration_guide/b_qos_3e_3850_cg/b_qos_3e_3850_cg_chapter_011.pdf