Cisco Service Control Traffic Optimization: Capacity Control Solution Guide, Release 5.0.x
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Table of Contents
Cisco Service Control Traffic Optimization: Capacity Control Solution Guide, Release 5.0.x
Introduction and Toolset Overview Cisco SCE Capacity Control Solution
Cisco SCE Tiered Services Solution
Configuring the Capacity Control Solution
Configuring the Tiered Subscriber Services Solution
Capacity Control and Tiered Subscriber Services
Configuring the Capacity Control and Tiered Subscriber Services Solution
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
Cisco Service Control Traffic Optimization:
Capacity Control Solution Guide, Release 5.0.xIntroduction and Toolset Overview
Introduction and Toolset Overview
Introduction
Delivering a quality broadband experience is increasingly difficult with the demand on the available network capacity, delay-sensitive applications, and a subscriber base that is sensitive to privacy, neutrality, and fairness. Service providers face exponential growth in the demand for network resources, which is driven by new applications built to consume as much bandwidth as possible. Adding more capacity to the network provides only temporary relief because it is quickly consumed by the applications. Moreover, it is an additional expense to the service provider. Additionally, new delay-sensitive applications such as VoIP are severely affected by the congestion events caused by the high load of the network. This affects user experience and reduces subscriber satisfaction.
The Cisco Service Control Engine (Cisco SCE) provides a toolset to deal with such challenges. The Cisco SCE network management controls the network capacity, while increasing the provider revenue. The Cisco SCE enables you to create policies that are customized to your business. You can actively prioritize specific subscribers or specific applications, and create incentives for subscribers to upgrade their plans to higher subscription plans.
Cisco SCE Capacity Control Solution
The Cisco SCE Capacity Control Solution deals with the demand for network resources. This demand is driven by the presence of applications that consume as much bandwidth as possible and the coexistence of delay-sensitive applications that are badly affected by the congestion caused by these high-bandwidth consumption applications. The goal of this solution is to divide the available network resources fairly between all active subscribers, while maximizing the overall experience of all the subscribers using the network.
Using this solution, you can configure the Cisco SCE to work in one of two ways:
- Anonymous subscriber mode—The Cisco SCE is aware of the individual subscribers using the network.
- Subscriberless mode—The Cisco SCE controls each session individually without looking at the context of the subscriber.
In anonymous subscriber mode, there is no need to integrate the Cisco SCE with the operations support systems (OSS). In anonymous subscriber mode, the Cisco SCE automatically defines each IP address as a subscriber and when the network is congested, the Cisco SCE fairly divides the resources between the subscribers. When the Cisco SCE is working in subscriberless mode, the bandwidth is fairly shared between the individual sessions, but not between the subscribers.
In the Capacity Control solution, the Cisco SCE enforces the policy only when one of the network resources, such as the physical interface of the Cisco SCE, is congested. However, you can set additional rules that create congestion. For example, you can limit the total bandwidth that is allocated for a specific application. When the total bandwidth from the specific application exceeds the predefined rule, the system enforces the policy to fairly share the resources of this application between all subscribers using the application.
To maximize the overall experience of all subscribers using the network, you can prioritize specific applications when congestion occurs instead of statically limiting the total bandwidth of specific applications. The Cisco SCE provides 10 levels of hierarchy and you can set each application to one of these levels. When there is congestion, traffic from level 1 is affected first. If the congestion continues, level 2 is affected, and so on. Traffic from level 10 is never affected, allowing you to mark specific applications as untouched by the Cisco SCE under any condition.
Cisco SCE Tiered Services Solution
The Cisco SCE Tiered Services Solution provides a toolset with which to increase revenue by applying policies that prioritize specific subscribers or services. Where the Capacity Control solution fairly allocates the bandwidth between all subscribers, the Tiered Services Solution provides an infrastructure for differentiating between subscribers to achieve your business goals.
The tiered services are used to create several profiles called packages. Each package contains multiple features that can be customized. Features include:
- Limiting the maximum bandwidth
- Minimizing the bandwidth allocated first in priority
- Assigning the relative hierarchy level that defines the portion of bandwidth that a package receives during congestion
In addition, each package includes a set of rules for specific applications, which are either allowed or blocked in the package, the sharing of the bandwidth of a subscriber between multiple applications, the priority between the services, and so on.
The Tiered Services Solution always includes integration of the Cisco SCE with your OSS so that you can identify and apply the correct policies for the subscribers.
Cisco SCE Toolset Overview
The physical link bandwidth is an absolute limit on the bandwidth that travels through the system (see Figure 1 ). To optimize traffic, you can limit the available bandwidth on two levels:
- Subscriber bandwidth control—Limits the available bandwidth per subscriber
- Global control—Limits the available bandwidth per service
The Capacity Control solution consists of these configurable building blocks:
- Bandwidth Controller (BWC)—Controls the available bandwidth per service, per subscriber
- Primary Bandwidth Controllers (PBWC)—Controls the total traffic per subscriber
- Global Controllers—Controls the total bandwidth per service, per group of subscribers
- Port Controller—Controls the total bandwidth of the physical port on the Cisco SCE
Figure 1 Bandwidth Management Building Blocks
Bandwidth Control
Subscriber BWCs control the bandwidth from a specific service used by individual subscribers. Each BWC controls available bandwidth for selected services.
A BWC is specified by these parameters:
- Committed information rate (CIR)—Minimum bandwidth that is granted to the services controlled by the BWC.
- Peak information rate (PIR)—Maximum bandwidth that the services controlled by the BWC can consume.
- Assurance Level (AL)—Rate of change of available bandwidth under conditions of traffic congestion.
The AL controls how quickly the bandwidth of the service decreases from the PIR to the CIR as congestion builds, or how quickly the actual information rate (AIR) increases from the CIR to the PIR as congestion decreases.
The BWC ensures that even when the network is congested (PIR congestion), at least the CIR is granted. Similarly, the BWC ensures that even when there is little traffic associated with a BWC, the PIR is not exceeded.
Bandwidth may be thought of in terms of a virtual pipe of adjustable width. The PIR is the maximum allowed width of the virtual pipe. The CIR is the minimum width to which the pipe can contract. The actual pipe width is between the CIR and the AIR. During network congestion, the system contracts each pipe differently to differentiate between subscribers and between their services.
Primary and Service Bandwidth Control
In the Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband (Cisco SCA BB), each subscriber has an independent set of BWCs, consisting of a single Primary BWC that controls the total bandwidth available to the subscriber and several Service BWCs that control the available bandwidth of some services of that subscriber. For example, one BWC may control the streaming service; another may control the download and e-mail services together.
The PIR defines the maximum bandwidth for the associated services; the CIR defines the minimum bandwidth for the services.
External Bandwidth Control
An external bandwidth controller (EBC) controls the available bandwidth for a specific service negating the defined subscriber parameters. For example, the EBC may control VoIP to ensure that it always has sufficient bandwidth regardless of the other subscriber parameters.
Global Bandwidth Control
Global controllers provide constraints for large, global volumes of traffic, such as Total Gold Subscriber Traffic, or Total P2P Traffic. Each global controller defines the maximum bandwidth allowed for a particular type. Using a global controller, you can limit the total traffic of services in the system, such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P), to any desired bandwidth.
Port Control
The physical link bandwidth is an absolute limit on the bandwidth that can pass through the system. You can limit the total bandwidth capacity of the Cisco SCE platform to a value lower than the physical link bandwidth. For example, if another device connected to the Cisco SCE platform on the IP stream has limited bandwidth capacity, you can limit the bandwidth passing through the Cisco SCE platform to match the capacity of the other device.
Configuring the Solution
This chapter describes these solutions for local links as well as the steps to configure them:
Capacity Control
The Capacity Control solution provides a means to distribute the total amount of bandwidth equally over the local links.
Cisco SCA BB supports theses two modes in which the Capacity Control solution can be configured:
- Subscriberless mode—Available bandwidth is divided equally between the flows. This means that the same amount of bandwidth is allocated per service regardless of the number of services each subscriber is currently running.
- Anonymous subscriber mode—Available bandwidth is divided equally between subscribers. The total bandwidth of each subscriber is then divided equally between their services. This means that all subscribers have an equal amount of bandwidth regardless of the number of services they are running.
Configuring the Capacity Control Solution
Step 1
From the Cisco SCA BB Console main menu, choose Help > Welcome .
The Welcome window appears (see Figure 2 ).
Step 2
The Welcome window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 3 ).
Figure 3 P2P Traffic Optimization
Note You can also open the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard from the Network Navigator tool:
1. Select one or more devices in the Site Manager tree.
2. Right-click one of the selected devices. A popup menu appears.
3. Choose Configuration Wizards > P2P Traffic Optimization Wizard.
You can set only one Cisco Service Control Collection Manager in the wizard. If you select more than one Cisco Service Control Collection Manager, only one Collection Manager is selected and a warning message is displayed.
5. Click OK to continue.The Cisco SCE IP Addresses window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 4 ).
Figure 4 Cisco SCE IP Addresses Window
Step 4
If you started from Network Navigator, the IP addresses of the Cisco SCE devices that you selected are displayed. You can add additional addresses.
Note You can work with up to 20 Cisco SCE devices at one time using the wizard.
The Cisco SCE Usernames and Passwords window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 5 ).
Figure 5 Cisco SCE Usernames and Passwords Window
Step 6
- To use the same username and password for all the Cisco SCE devices that you are adding, enter the username in the Username field and the password in the Password field.
- To provide a different username and password pair for each Cisco SCE device, click the Use separate usernames and passwords for each Cisco SCE platform radio button, and, for each Cisco SCE device, enter the username and password in the appropriate cell of the Cisco SCE device table.
The CM Setup window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 6 ).
Step 8
If you started from the Network Navigator, this information is retrieved and displayed. You can modify these parameters.
The Connectivity Test window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 7 ). The wizard tests the connectivity between the defined devices.
Figure 7 Connectivity Test Window
Note If a connection to one or more of the devices cannot be made, or if there is some problem with the connection (such as invalid version of the device), an error is displayed next to the device. You can skip these tests by clicking Skip connectivity test. The connections are validated when you click Finish at the end of the wizard.
The Anonymous Subscribers window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 8 ).
Figure 8 Anonymous Subscribers Window
Step 11
The effect of P2P traffic optimization window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 9 ), which explains why you should optimize (limit) peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic.
Figure 9 Effect of P2P Traffic Optimization Window
The Link rate limits for P2P traffic optimization window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 10 ).
Figure 10 Link Rate Limits for P2P Traffic Optimization Window
Step 14
The scale of each slider is the percentage of the aggregated bandwidth of both links.
The Confirmation window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 11 ).
The actions that the wizard is about to take are listed in the window.
The Configuration Output window of the P2P Traffic Optimization wizard appears (see Figure 12 ).
Figure 12 Configuration Output Window
New devices are added to the default site of the Site Manager tree in the Network Navigator (see Figure 13 ).
Figure 13 Network Navigator—Site Manager Tree
The wizard attempts to connect to all devices that you defined. The operation fails if:
If you defined a Collection Manager in Step 8 , the Cisco SCE devices are configured so that the only category 1 Raw Data Record (RDR) destination is the Collection Manager.
Note RDR categories are the mechanism by which different types of RDRs can be sent to different collectors. For details about RDR categories, see the Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband Reference Guide.
A new service configuration named P2P Traffic Optimization is created, and opens in the Service Configuration Editor.
The new service configuration has these characteristics:
- The Full Functionality mode is active.
- The upstream and downstream default AGCs are set with the link limit values defined in Step 13 .
- For both the default package and the Unknown Subscriber Traffic package, the following upstream and downstream BWCs are created:
The service configuration is applied to the Cisco SCE devices.
The P2P Traffic Optimization wizard closes.
Tiered Subscriber Services
The Tiered Subscriber Services solution enables you to create different subscriber packages with class of service parameters defined for each package.
Within each package, you define the available bandwidth and allotted services, as well as the priorities for the selected services. Additionally, you can define priorities between the packages so that when the link is congested, each package receives a different, predefined share of the bandwidth.
For example, you can define these three packages:
- Gold—5 MB, three services (VoIP, P2P, browsing)
- Silver—3 MB, three services (VoIP, browsing, P2P)
- Bronze—1.5 MB, two services (browsing and P2P)
In this example, you give priority to the VoIP of the silver package so that if all services are running simultaneously, VoIP still has sufficient bandwidth for optimal performance.
Gold has top priority, followed by silver, and then bronze. When the link is congested, gold has the most available bandwidth followed by silver, and then bronze.
Configuring the Tiered Subscriber Services Solution
Step 1
a.
The New Service Configuration Settings window appears (see Figure 14 ).
Figure 14 New Service Configuration Settings Window
b.
The new service configuration is added to the Console window, open on the Policies tab, and becomes the active service configuration (see Figure 15 ).
Figure 15 Service Configuration Editor—New Service Configuration
a.
) icon.
The Package Settings window appears (see Figure 16 ).
Figure 16 Package Settings Window
b.
c.
Step 3
b.
The Add New Rule to Package window appears (see Figure 17 ).
Figure 17 Add New Rule to Package Window
c.
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Step 4
a.
) icon.
The Package Settings dialog box appears.
b.
The Subscriber BW Controllers tab appears (see Figure 18 ).
Figure 18 Subscriber BW Controllers Tab
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) icon.
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Figure 19 Package Settings Example
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Step 5
a.
The Add New Rule for Service dialog box appears.
The Control tab opens (see Figure 20 ).
c.
d.
f.
Step 6
a.
) icon.
A duplicate package is created with all the same attributes as the original package. The name of the new package is Gold (1) .
b.
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Step 7
Capacity Control and Tiered Subscriber Services
The Capacity Control and Tiered Subscriber Services solution is a combination of the first two solutions; where subscriber packages are defined. However, on top of the packages, the bandwidth is limited per service (subscriberless mode) or per subscriber (anonymous subscriber mode).
Configuring the Capacity Control and Tiered Subscriber Services Solution
In this solution, you add a global controller, limit the global controller bandwidth to 500 kbps, and assign the global controller to the P2P service for the Silver and Gold packages.
Step 1
Step 2
a.
The Global Bandwidth Settings appear in the right (Rule) pane.
b.
The Select addition mode window appears (see Figure 21 ).
Figure 21 Select Addition Mode Window
c.
The Global Controller Settings window appears (see Figure 22 ).
Figure 22 Global Controller Settings Window
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f.
g.
Step 3
Step 4
a.
The Package Settings dialog box appears.
b.
The Subscriber BW Controllers tab appears (see Figure 23 ).
Figure 23 Subscriber BW Controllers Tab
c.
d.
Step 5
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation at: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html .
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Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses. Any examples, command display output, and figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.
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