Network Warrior, 2nd Edition

Chapter 32. Designing QoS

Designing a QoS scheme can be a relatively simple task or a very large project. The scale of the solution depends on the complexity of your network and the needs of your business. As a general rule, I like to plan everything I do with an end-state design in mind. Even if I’m implementing a QoS scheme for a company that currently doesn’t have VoIP, I’ll design one that assumes VoIP is coming in the future.

In this chapter, I’ll walk you through designing a QoS scheme for a network that will require VoIP. Designing QoS is a two-part process: first, you must determine the requirements for the system, and then you have to configure the routers. We’ll use low-latency queuing (LLQ), which is the recommended solution according to Cisco. I will also outline two traffic-shaping scenarios and show the steps necessary to implement them.

LLQ Scenario

The first part of the QoS design process will require some investigative work on your part. You should interview all the business groups that use the network and determine which protocols are important to them. Assume from the onset that every group will tell you that its protocols are the most important and should get the lion’s share of the bandwidth. You will need to assimilate all of this data and make some decisions about how to allocate the bandwidth. With the help of good management, you should be able to come up with a list of requirements from which you can work.

Protocols

Compile a list of the protocols in use on ...