Configuring QoS Settings on AOS-Switches

QoSQuality of Service. It refers to the capability of a network to provide better service and performance to a specific network traffic over various technologies. is used to classify and prioritize traffic throughout a network. QoS enables you to establish an end-to end traffic-priority policy to improve the control and throughput of important data. You can manage available bandwidth so that the most important traffic goes first.

Aruba Central (on-premises) allows you to configure QoS settings on individual or group of switches through the UI. The settings that you apply at the group level are applied to all switches in the group, except in the following conditions:

  • A switch has a configuration override—That is, a QoS setting is changed at the device level. Once you update or apply a setting at the device level, any further changes that you make at the group level are not applied to the switch. A notification for the configuration override is added to the Audit Trail. If you remove local overrides on a switch, then all QoS configurations that were applied to the switch are removed, and the configurations available at the group level are applied to the switch.

    For example, when a switch does not have any policies, if you add a policy for port 2 and 3 at the group level, then the policy is applied to the switch. If you add a policy for port 4 at the device level, and then add a policy for port 5 at the group level, then the policy for port 5 is not applied to the switch. You must add the same policy again at the device level to apply the policy. If you remove the local overrides on the switch, then any policies that were updated or added to the switch and the associated QoS class are replaced by the policies at the group level.

  • A switch has invalid port number or VLANVirtual Local Area Network. In computer networking, a single Layer 2 network may be partitioned to create multiple distinct broadcast domains, which are mutually isolated so that packets can only pass between them through one or more routers; such a domain is referred to as a Virtual Local Area Network, Virtual LAN, or VLAN. ID—The port or VLAN to which the setting was applied at the group level is not available or is invalid on the switch. For example, if you apply a setting to port 15 and 16 at the group level, and a switch has only ports 1 to 10, then the settings will not be applied to that switch.

The setting that can be configured using the UI are:

  • Creating QoS traffic policies on switches in your network to enable traffic-handling rules across the network.
  • Defining QoS classes for a QoS Policy.
  • Changing the priorities of traffic from various segments of your network as your business needs change.

Creating a QoS Traffic Policy

  1. In the Network Operations app, select one of the following options:
    • To select a switch group in the filter:
      1. Set the filter to a group containing at least one switch.

        The dashboard context for the group is displayed.

      2. Under Manage, click Devices > Switches.
      3. Click the AOS-S or Config icon to view the switch configuration dashboard.
    • To select a switch in the filter:
      1. Set the filter to Global or a group containing at least one switch.
      2. Under Manage, click Devices > Switches.

        A list of switches is displayed in the List view.

      3. Click a switch under Device Name.

        The dashboard context for the switch is displayed.

      4. Under Manage, click Device.

        The tabs to configure the switch is displayed.

  2. Click QoS. The QoS page is displayed.
  3. In the QoS Traffic Policy accordion, click + to add a new QoS traffic policy.
  4. Configure the following parameters.

Table 1: Configuring QoS policy

Name

Description

 Value

Policy Name

The name of the QoS policy.

A string

Target

The target where the policy is applied.

Port or VLAN

ID

The IP address for static IP assignment.

This field is enabled only when you select Static from the IP Assignment drop-down.

IPv4 address
  1. Click Save.

Editing a QoS Policy

To edit a QoS policy, point to the row for the Qos policy, and click the edit icon.

Deleting a QoS Policy

To delete a QoS policy, point to the row for the Qos policy, and click the delete icon.

Adding a QoS Class for the Policy

To define a QoS class for the a policy, complete the following steps:

  1. Select a QoS policy from the New QoS Policy table. The QoS Class table is displayed below the New QoS Policy table with the configured QoS classes.
  2. Click + to add a QoS classifier for the selected policy. The Add QoS classifier Classifier window is displayed.
  3. Configure the following parameters.

    Table 2: Configuring QoS class

    Name

    Description

    		Value

    Class Name

    The class name of the QoS policy.

    A string

    Packet Matching Criteria

    Source

    The type of source for which you want to apply a policy.

    Any, Network, or Host.

    If you select Network, enter the IP address and wildcard mask .

    If you select Host, enter the IP address.

    Destination

    The type of destination for which you want to apply a policy.

    Any, Network, or Host.

    If you select Network, enter the IP address and wildcard mask .

    If you select Host, enter the IP address.

    Protocol

    Select the type of data transfer protocol from the drop-down. If you select SCTP, TCPTransmission Control Protocol. TCP is a communication protocol that defines the standards for establishing and maintaining network connection for applications to exchange data. , or UDPUser Datagram Protocol. UDP is a part of the TCP/IP family of protocols used for data transfer. UDP is typically used for streaming media. UDP is a stateless protocol, which means it does not acknowledge that the packets being sent have been received., the source ports and destination ports fields are displayed.

    Protocol types: GREGeneric Routing Encapsulation. GRE is an IP encapsulation protocol that is used to transport packets over a network., ESP, AH, OSPFOpen Shortest Path First. OSPF is a link-state routing protocol for IP networks. It uses a link-state routing algorithm and falls into the group of interior routing protocols that operates within a single Autonomous System (AS)., PIMProtocol-Independent Multicast. PIM refers to a family of multicast routing protocols for IP networks that provide one-to-many and many-to-many distribution of data over a LAN, WAN, or the Internet., VRRPVirtual Router Redundancy Protocol. VRRP is an election protocol that dynamically assigns responsibility for a virtual router to one of the VRRP routers on a LAN., ICMPInternet Control Message Protocol. ICMP is an error reporting protocol. It is used by network devices such as routers, to send error messages and operational information to the source IP address when network problems prevent delivery of IP packets., IGMPInternet Group Management Protocol. Communications protocol used by hosts and adjacent routers on IP networks to establish multicast group memberships., IP, SCTP, TCP, UDP, IP_IN_IP and IPv6_IN_IP.

    Source Port(s)

    The port numbers of source. You can specify a comma separated list of ports or range of ports. For example: 10-12 or 10,12.

    Numeric value

    Destination Port(s)

    The port numbers of destination. You can specify a comma separated list of ports or range of ports. For example: 10-12 or 10,12.

    Numeric value

    Actions

    DSCP

    Select a Differentiated Service Code Point (DSCPDifferentiated Services Code Point. DSCP is a 6-bit packet header value used for traffic classification and priority assignment. ) from the drop-down.

    DSCP value range from 0 to 63.

    Default value is No Change.

    In few cases, such as 10| af11 and 10| af12

    Priority

     

    Select a priority value for the selected DSCP.

    The priority range from 0 to 7.

    • 0 – Normal Priority
    • 1 – Low Priority
    • 7 – High Priority

    Default value is No Change.

Editing a QOS Class

To edit a QoS Class, point to the row for the Qos policyclass, and click the edit icon.

Deleting a QOS Class

To delete a QoS Class, point to the row for the Qos policyclass, and click the delete icon.

Configuring DSCP Map

DSCP map table displays mappings between Incoming DSCP and priority.

To change priority value associated with a DSCP code point, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Network Operations app, select one of the following options:
    • To select a switch group in the filter:
      1. Set the filter to a group containing at least one switch.

        The dashboard context for the group is displayed.

      2. Under Manage, click Devices > Switches.
      3. Click the AOS-S or Config icon to view the switch configuration dashboard.
  2. Click QoS. The QoS page is displayed.
  3. Expand the DSCP Map accordion.
  4. Select the Incoming DSCP row for which you want to change the priority and click the edit icon. The Edit DSCP window is displayed.
  5. Select the priority value from the drop-down.
  6. Click OK.