Scenario: Limiting browser traffic

 

You can use quality of service (QoS) to control traffic performance. Use a differentiated service policy to either limit or extend an application's performance within your network.

 

Situation

Your company has been experiencing high levels of browser traffic from the user-centered design (UCD) group on Fridays. This traffic has been interfering with the accounting department, which also requires good performance from their accounting applications on Fridays. You decide to limit browser traffic from the UCD group. The following figure illustrates the network setup in this scenario.

Figure 1. Web server limiting browser traffic to a client

 

Objectives

To limit browser traffic out of your network, you might create a differentiated service policy. A differentiated service policy divides your traffic into classes. All traffic within this policy is assigned a codepoint. This codepoint tells routers how to treat the traffic. In this scenario, the policy might be assigned a low codepoint value to affect how the network prioritizes browser traffic.

 

Prerequisites and assumptions

  • You have a service level agreement (SLA) with your Internet service provider (ISP) to ensure that the policies receive the requested priority. The QoS policy you create on the system enables traffic (in the policy) to receive priority throughout the network. The QoS policy does not guarantee the priority and is dependent on your SLA. In fact, taking advantage of QoS policies might give you some leverage to negotiate certain service levels and rates.

  • Differentiated service policies require routers to be aware of Differentiated Services along the network path. Most routers are not aware of Differentiated Services.

 

Configuration

After you verify the prerequisites steps, you are ready to create the differentiated service policy.

  1. Scenario details: Creating the differentiated service policy
    This topic contains information about configuring the differentiated service policy on the system.
  2. Scenario details: Starting or updating the QoS server
    This topic contains information about starting or updating the QoS server.
  3. Scenario details: Verifying that the policy is working
    You need to use the monitor to verify that the policy is working as you configured.
  4. Scenario details: Changing properties
    After looking at the monitor results, you can change any policy or class of service properties to achieve the results you expect.

 

Parent topic:

Scenarios: Quality of service policies

Related concepts
Service level agreement Differentiated service

Related reference
Monitoring QoS