QoS Protocols & Architectures

by Harizakis Costas

Presentation Flow

QoS defined QoS protocols :

RSVP, DiffServ, MPLS, SBM

QoS architectures QoS and multicast environments Protocol comparison conclusions !

IP-based Networks - Internet Today

Internet today

Provides best effort data delivery Complexity stays in the end-hosts Network core remains simple As demands exceeds capacity, service degrades gracefully (increased jitter etc.)

Delivery delays cause problems to real-time applications

QoS Defined

The goal :
Provide some level of predictability and control beyond the current IP best-effort service

Fundamental principle
Leave complexity at the edges and keep network core simple

QoS Metrics

Performance attributes

Service availability Delay Delay variation (jitter) Throughput Packet loss rate

Vary according to Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Service Level Agreements (SLA)

QUALITY OF SERVICE PARAMETERS
Service Level Application Non-critical data Similar to Internet today No minimum information rate guaranteed Mission-critical data VPN outsourcing, ecommerce Similar to ATM VBR Real time applications Video streaming, voice, videoconferencing Priority Mapping Best-effort delivery Unmanaged performance

Low loss rate Controlled delay and delay variation Low loss rate Low delay and delay variation

QoS Protocol Classification

QoS can be achieved by :

Resource reservation (integrated services) Prioritization (differentiated services)

QoS can be applied :

Per flow (individual, uni-directional streams) Per aggregate (two or more flows having something in common)

QoS Protocols

ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP)

Differentiated Services (DiffServ)

Multi Protocol Labeling Switching (MPLS) Subnet Bandwidth Management (SBM)

RSVP - Resource Reservation

Attributes

The most complex of all QoS technologies Closest thing to circuit emulation on IP networks The biggest departure from best-effort IP service Service guarantees Granularity of resource allocation Detail of feedback to QoS-enabled applications

Provides the highest level of QoS in terms of :

RSVP - Integrated Services

Enables integrated services (IntServ) IntServ types

Guaranteed : as close as possible to a dedicated virtual circuit Controlled Load : equivalent to best-effort service under unloaded conditions

RSVP - Implementation

f ic n Traf ificatio c e Sp H PAT

Qo S and Lev el Filt er Sp eci fica tion RE SV

Host A

Host B

RSVP - Implementation

Sender

PATH message containing

traffic specification (bitrate, peak rate etc.)

Receiver

RECV message containing

the reservation specification (guaranteed or controlled) the filter specification (type of packets that the reservation is made for)

RSVP - Queuing

IntServ uses a token-bucket model to characterize I/O queuing Token bucket attributes

Token rate Token bucket depth Peak rate Minimum policed size Maximum packet size

RSVP - Conclusions

Reservations are soft

Periodic refresh is necessary

It is a network (control) protocol

Works in parallel to TCP and UDP

APIs are required to specify flow requirements Reservations are receiver-based Has to maintain a state for each flow Multicast reservations

Merged at replication points, difficult to understood algorithms have to be used though

DiffServ - Prioritization

Description

Applied on flow aggregates Services requirements are classified Classification is performed at network ingress points A predefined per-hop behavior (PHB) is applied to every service class Traffic is smoothed according to PHB applied

DiffServ - Traffic Classes

Two traffic classes are available :

Expeditied Forwarding (EF) - 1 codepoint

Minimizes delay and jitter Provides the highest QoS Traffic that exceeds the traffic profile is discarded

Assured Forwarding (AF) - 12 codepoints

4 classes, 3 drop-precedences within each class Traffic that exceeds the traffic profile is not delivered with such high probability

DiffServ - Implementation

Classifie r
Maps DSCPs to PHBs

Conditione r
Applies the defined PHB (scheduling)

M arke r
Maintains DSCP mappings and associations w ith local policies

M eter
Accumulates statistics

DiffServ - Implementation

0

DiffServ codepoints (DSCPs) redefine the Type-of-Service (ToS) IPv4 field Precedence bits are preserved Type-of-Service bits are NOT
1 2 3 DSCP 4 5 6 7
CU

7
MBZ

Precedence

Type of Service

Class Selector

Unused

RFC 1122

RFC 1349

Differenciated Services Codepoint (DSCP)

Must Be Zero

IP Type of Service (TOS)

DiffServ - Conclusions

Traffic classes are equivalent to IP precedence service descriptors

DiffServ unaware routers pass-through DiffServ traffic

Easy to be implemented / integrated even into the network core. Proper classification can lead to efficient resource allocation and though improved QoS

MPLS - Label Switching

Used to establish fixed bandwidth routes (similar to ATM virtual circuits) Resides only on routers and is protocol independent Traffic is marked at ingress and unmarked at egress boundaries Markings are used to determine next router hop (not priority) The aim is to simplify the routing process

MPLS - Implementation

The 1st hop router, using the header information (destination address etc.) attaches a label and forwards the packet Every MPLS-enabled router uses the label as an index to a table defining the next hop and label
20 3
1

Label Value

Exp.

TTL

20-bits : Label value used for lookup

3-bits : Reserved

8-bits : Time-To-Live

1-bit : Bottom of Label Stack

MPLS - Conclusions

Labels can be stacked

This allows MPLS routes within routes Distributes labels across MPLS-enabled routers Ensures they agree on the meaning of labels Usually transparent to network managers Define a policy management that distributes labels

Label Distribution Protocol (LDP)

Implication :

SBM - Subnet Bandwidth Management

A top-to-bottom QoS approach Applies to the Data Link Layer (OSI layer 2) Makes LAN topologies (e.g. Ethernet) QoSenabled Fundamental requirement

All traffic must pass through at least one SBMenabled switch

SBM - Implementation

SBM Modules

Bandwidth Allocator (BA)

Hosted on switches Performs admission control Resides in every end-station Maps Layer 2 priority levels and the higher-layer QoS protocol parameters

Requestor Module (RM)

SBM - Conclusions

Much like the RSVP protocol Makes the traditional Ethernet, QoS aware Introduces an additional indirection in the routing mechanism 8-level priority value

QoS Architectures
Host A
Application

Host B
Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Phy sical RSVP Dif f Serv SBM QoS-enabled Application QoS API

Top-to-Bottom QoS

Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Phy sical

SBM RSVP Dif f Serv and MPLS RSVP

End-to-End QoS

Protocol Comparison
QoS
most

Net App Description

x x x x x x x x x x x x Provisioned resources end-to-end (leased lines) RSVP Guaranteed (provides feedback to application) RSVP Controlled Load (provides feedback to application) MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) DiffServ applied at network ingress appropriate to RSVP service level for that flow DiffServ or SBM applied on per-flow basis by source application DiffServ applied at network core ingress Fair queuing applied by network elements (e.g. WFQ, RED) Best effort service

least

Multicast Environments

RSVP

Heterogeneous receivership makes reservation merging a difficult task Its relative simplicity makes it a better fit for multicast support Work is underway, no standards have emerged yet Explicit support for multicast

DiffServ

MPLS

SBM

Conclusions

Complexity at the edges simple network core

Limit RSVPs use on the backbone Instead use the DiffServ

DiffServ is a perfect complement for RSVP

ToDo :

Performance attributes for each class still missing Interworking solution for mapping IP CoS to ATM QoS

References

http://www.nortelnetworks.com/solutions/collateral/qos_wp.pdf http://www.qosforum.com/white-papers/qosprot_v3.pdf http://www.qosforum.com/white-papers/Need_for_QoS-v4.pdf