Network Warrior, 2nd Edition

Chapter 31. Introduction to QoS

Quality of service (QoS) is deployed to prevent data from saturating a link to the point that other data cannot gain access to it. Remember, WAN links are serial links, which means that bits go in one end and come out the other end in the same order. Regardless of whether the link is a 1.5 Mbps T1 or a 155 Mbps OC3, the bits go in one at a time, and they come out one at a time.

QoS allows certain types of traffic to be given a higher priority than other traffic. Once traffic is classified, traffic with the highest priority can be sent first, while lower-priority traffic is queued. The fundamental purpose of QoS is to determine which traffic should be given priority access to the link.

Figure 31-1 shows two buildings connected by a single T1. Building B has a T1 connection to the Internet. There are servers and roughly 100 users in each building. The servers replicate their contents to each other throughout the day. The users in each building have IP phones, and interbuilding communication is common. Users in both buildings are allowed to use the Internet.

Figure 31-1. Simple two-building network

The only path out of the network in Building A is the T1 to Building B. What happens when every user in that building decides to use that single link at once? The link is only 1.5 Mbps, and each user may have a 100 Mbps (or even 1 Gbps) Ethernet connection ...