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QoS or Quality of service is the most important factor that determines how effectively the available enterprise bandwidth is being used in the WAN. It is also an index of the overall User Experience of the available Bandwidth.
The QoS feature by default lists out the Top DSCP IN Report.Clicking
on the Show Applications link lists out the various DSCP values along
with the list of applications that comprise the DSCP. It also list out
details on Traffic and percentage utilization of the total traffic by
each of the applications and the DSCP group as a whole. Clicking on the
icon next to the DSCP value gives a detailed traffic
graph in a pop-up screen.
DSCP
The DSCP Groups can be viewed by clicking on the View DSCP Group link. If no DSCP Groups have been created earlier, then an appropriate message is displayed and the user is prompted to create a DSCP group. The bottom of the page lists the Top DSCP IN Traffic as a Pie Distribution.
The time period for which the report is shown can be controlled by using the time selection bar at the top.
TOS
Because the Internet by itself has no direct knowledge of optimizing the path for a particular application or user, the IP protocol provides a facility for upper layer protocols to convey hints to the Internet Layer about how the tradeoffs should be made for a particular packet. This facility is the "Type of Service" facility, abbreviated as the "TOS facility".
The TOS facility is one of the features of the Type of Service octet in the IP datagram header. The Type of Service octet consists of three fields. The first 3 bits ( 0,1,2) are for the first field, labeled "Precedence" , intended to denote the importance or priority of the datagram. The second field, labeled "TOS" , denotes how the network should make tradeoffs between throughput, delay, reliability, and cost.The last field, labeled "MBZ" ( for "must be zero" ) above, is currently unused. The originator of a datagram sets this field to zero (unless participating in an Internet protocol experiment which makes use of that bit). Routers and recipients of datagrams ignore the value of this field.This field is copied on fragmentation.
Specification of the TOS Field
The semantics of the TOS field values (expressed as binary numbers):
1000 | minimize delay |
0100 | maximize throughput |
0010 | maximize reliability |
0001 | minimize monetary cost |
0000 | normal service |
The values used in the TOS field are referred to as "TOS values",
and the value of the TOS field of an IP packet is referred to as
the "requested TOS". The TOS field value 0000 is
referred to "default TOS." Because this specification redefines
TOS values to be integers rather than sets of bits, computing the logical
OR of two TOS values is no longer meaningful. For example,
it would be a serious error for a router to choose a low delay path
for a packet whose requested TOS was 1110 simply because the router
noted that the former "delay bit" was set.
Although the semantics of values other than the five listed above are
not defined , they are perfectly legal TOS values, and hosts and
routers must not preclude their use in any way. Only the default
TOS is in any way special. A host or router need not make any distinction
between TOS values
For example, setting the TOS field to 1000 (minimize delay) does
not guarantee that the path taken by the datagram will have a delay
that the user considers "low". The network will
attempt to choose the lowest delay path available, based on its
(often imperfect) information about path delay. The network
will not discard the datagram simply because it believes that the
delay of the available paths is "too high" (actually,
the network manager can override this behavior through creative
use of routing metrics, but this is strongly discouraged: setting
the TOS field is intended to give better service when it is available,
rather than to deny service when it is not).
Use of the TOS Field in Routing
Both hosts and routers should consider the value of the TOS field of a
datagram when choosing an appropriate path to get the datagram to its
destination.The mechanisms for doing so are discussed in this section.
Whether a packet's TOS value actually affects the path it takes inside
a particular routing domain, is a choice made by the routing domain's
network manager. In many routing domains the paths are sufficiently
homogeneous in nature that there is no reason for routers to choose different
paths based up the TOS field in a
datagram. Inside such a routing domain, the network manager may choose
to limit the size of the routing database and of routing protocol updates
by only defining routes for the default (0000) TOS.
Neither hosts nor routers should need to have any explicit knowledge of whether TOS affects routing in the local routing domain.
Inherent Limitations:
The most important of all the inherent limitations is that the TOS facility is strictly an advisory mechanism. It is not an appropriate mechanism for requesting service guarantees. There are two reasons why this is so:
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